1503AD and the Rapid Erosion of End-User Rights?

Agram asks: "I bought the Sunflowers' 1503AD game practically as soon as it came out, since my wife and I loved to play the old 1602AD together via LAN. 1503AD's expanded multiplayer feature was touted all over the internet, yet when I bought the game, for a costly $52, I was very unpleasantly surprised that it had no multiplayer mode at all. Despite the continuous claims that the company is working on the MP patch, we're now over 7 months away from the initial release, the game now sells for a measly $15, and I have yet to play a single second of it, as I have no interest in the single player experience. My attempts at communication with the company led to nothing but dead-ends and unprovoked mistreatment. Unfortunately, this is not a unique occurrence in today's software entertainment industry, where atrocious lack of support is growing rampant and is increasingly coupled with ridiculous EULA's. I have therefore decided to finally exercise my end-user rights and pursue a class-action lawsuit against the company. I am now asking you, fellow Slashdot reader, for help in seeking answers to the following questions as, well assistance in assembling signatures for the class-action lawsuit."

"Here are my questions:

• How does one go about locating a reputable and internationally active law firm that could handle this case?
• What is the required number of the participants for a class-action lawsuit to be instantiated?
• Do you think that this course of action will yield any results?

If you have this game and feel the same like I do, I would like to urge you to please join the class-action lawsuit. Also, if you feel that you can and are willing to help out in any other shape or form (i.e. website maintenance etc.), please do not hesitate to contact me and/or visit the website stated below. I believe that this can be used to leverage further attempts at forcing the other entertainment software companies to support their product(s) as they ought to, as well as hopefully abolishing the obfuscated EULA's that relinquish them of any responsibility towards consumers. 1503AD is by no means an exception, but rather it is part of an unfortunate growing trend among the entertainment software companies.

For more details regarding this issue please visit this site."

Comments

IANAL...

[Anonymous Coward]

And from how frequently this gets said, apparently neither is anyone else on Slashdot. That said, you may want to try asking one. I've been told they're easily located in the phone book.

How this got to the front page I'll never know. I could understand if the story was about how common a practice this seems to be, and what our rights are despite hopelssly one-sided EULAs, and advice on what to do in the future. That would have made sense.

But a story that goes 'Wah, i didn't investigate this before buying', 'Wah, i didn't take it back 6 months ago and now it's too late.', 'Wah, i'm gonna sue. Yeah, that's it, I'll sue!', 'Uh, how do i sue? I'm too cheap/lazy to actually talk to a lawyer, so I'll ask /.'.

Since you *are* asking those of us who don't really know, here's my opinion. You don't have a case, and definately not grounds for a class action. You should hav simply returned the game 6 months ago.

Get a lawyer

[Sancho]

Why do people insist on asking for legal advice on Slashdot?

Anyway, I'm sure you know that Class Action lawsuits rarely have a good outcome for the class...usually they get a $5 coupon for some product the company makes, while the lawyers get millions.

Lastly, I really think it's your fault for purchasing it before a given feature was actually available. Unless the box promised multiplayer, you did this to yourself. The feature that was touted appears to be reviews of the product (i.e. the beef you have is with the reviewers, in that case) and if that's all you based your purchase on, I suspect that you'll be out of luck when you begin discussing this with your lawyer.

Anyway, what does any of this have to do with EULAs? Reading through your post and links, I found nothing of relevance. Looks to me like you're trying to get Slashdotters to your cause by bringing up a hotly debated part of closed source (and even some open source) software.

Too late. But good luck anyway

[wowbagger]

It is too late for you to do anything that has a meaningful chance of success, but I wish you luck anyway.

What you SHOULD have done was:

1. Verified IN THE STORE that the package specifically mentioned multiplayer gaming. If not, do not buy the game if that is what you want.
2. Assuming the package mentioned multiplayer, as soon as you got home verified the multiplayer mode. When you found it absent, check online for updates.
3. When you found no MP updates online, you should have gone back to the store, and demanded your money back. The store would give you a lot of shit over the "no returns unless the game is defective, then only return for store credit or same game". You then point out that the box says multiplayer, the game is not multiplayer, therefor game does not do what it is advertised to do, therefor defective, and since any other copy on the shelf is "defective" as well, store credit or money back.

I am not saying the above has a 100% chance of success, but at least you would have had some chance to succeed. Furthurmore, should more people do this, the stores will get tired of the returns and will charge back to the distributor, who will in turn go after the manufacturer.

In short - if you cannot buy what you want TODAY - DON'T. Don't accept promises that "It will do $thing later" - say "Fine - then when it does $thing I will buy it. Until then the money stays in my bank. Good day."

Lawyers get the cash, you'll get very little

[astrojetsonjr]

In a class action, the legal team will collect 60-70% of the money. You and your fellow class action members will split the remaining 30%. You would be very lucky in this case to get more than the cost of the game back.

Try small claims court if you want your money back.

Try a bottle of Jack Daniels if you want to 'get even'. You won't but the Jack will take your mind off of it for a few hours.

Better yet, chalk it up to one of those very good life lessons we all learn, Buyer Beware.

Question was "how do I get a lawyer?"

[tepples]

Why do people insist on asking for legal advice on Slashdot?

It seems you misunderstood the article. OP wrote:

How does one go about locating a reputable and internationally active law firm that could handle this case?

How else is one supposed to ask the question "how do I find such a lawyer?"

Re:Question was "how do I get a lawyer?"

[Moofie]

Yeah, and in the Yellow Pages, there are stars by the lawyers that don't suck, and littly Mr. Yuck faces by the bad ones.

Yeah. The poster doesn't want to read advertising copy for law offices. The poster soliciting other peoples' experience in wisely selecting a lawyer.

Are they bad at teaching reading comprehension in the Great White North, or are you just stupid?

How about having some patience?

[boarder]

Why did you buy the game in the first place if you KNEW that you would not be able to play multi-player at the time of purchase? Where you unable to wait for the patch to come out? You stated in the blurb that the only reason you want the game is for MP and aren't at all interested in the single player mode. You knew before you bought it that, at the time of purchase, you would have no interest in even using it. If I'm buying a car for driving on the road but the tires aren't available for it yet, I'm not going to buy it now versus when the tires are ready. Stupid analogy? You bet. Is it also stupid to buy a game before you can even play it? I think so. It's like buying Sims Online when you don't have internet access... or buying any computer game when you don't own a computer. It makes a hell of a lot more sense to keep the money in the bank and wait until you can actually play the game.

Did the game company illegally market this game and therefore this is a viable lawsuit? I have no idea. Are there too many lawsuits in the U.S. because people don't want to take any responsibility for their own stupid/impatient actions? I have an inkling there are.