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

good luck

[real_smiff]

first i want to say, good luck, certain parts of the industry need some consumers with b*lls to stand up and make a point.

2nd, i'm not sure how strong your case is. you say "...multiplayer feature was touted all over the internet", but was it touted all over the box?

Multiplayer test

[nempo]

Seems from what I read on the homepage is that they are conducting multiplayer testing atm, or will in the near future and a public beta/test will come before the final multiplayer patch.

Are you sueing them because they took the decision to not ship multiplayer with the final product and you where to lazy to read some reviews that probably states this before you bought the game? Or are you sueing them because they can't write code (read: develope multiplayer) as fast as you would like ?

IMO. seems like an extremly weak lawsuit.

Re:Multiplayer test

[Monkelectric]

knowing slashdot he could have submitted this story two months ago. I have had stories sit in the que for 6, 7 or 8 weeks easy.

Don't go so far

[Apreche]

A class action law suit is a huge deal and will take lots of time money and effort. It isn't worth it for the measly 50 bucks. Go to small claims court. You don't need a lawyer, but you can get one if you want. There are tons of websites written by people who go to small claims court on a daily basis that tell you what you need to do. You do some research, file some papers, go to court once and get some money. Very often the other guy doesn't even show and you get some dough.

Oh yeah, IANAL.

Re:Get a lawyer

[fmaxwell]

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.

The important point is that it costs the losing company millions. That's how we discourage false and misleading advertising.

I don't know the specifics of this case but there are some key points that we, as consumers, should consider.

When does a product review become advertising? I purchased a Cendyne CD-ROM drive after reading a review linked-to on their web page. That review revealed that the drive was actually a Lite-On. What I received was a Benq(Acer), a far less desirable drive. Is it fair for Cendyne to link to a review, knowing that the product reviewed is not even close to the same as the product that they ship?

Suppose Microsoft were to hand out pre-release review copies of Office which included support for importing OpenOffice.org files -- even though they knew that the import feature would not be shipped. Would the reviews of those pre-release copies be advertising? I think so.

If a software publisher touts a feature to reviewers and the press, then they should be legally obligated to either provide that feature or to prominently label the package to indicate that the feature is not present.

Re:Too late. But good luck anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, if the game isn't working or doesn't deliver what was promised, it *IS* DEFECTIVE.

When I returned my copy of Anarchy Online to Amazon.com, my email to them explained "I understand that your policy is not to refund/return software once it has been opened, except to replace it with another working copy in the case of a defective product. Well, this product IS defective - but it isn't the media it has been distributed on that is defective. The actual GAME ITSELF is defective. It is unplayable and unusuable."

Returning it was not a hassle at ALL. Granted, I spend a LOT of money at amazon.com and I also stressed to them that I plan to do much more business with them in the future, but I think they'd have accepted the return anyway.

The point is, you have to stand up for your complaint and dont' take shit from anyone for it. People are too willing to give up at the least bit of resistance. Usually, the people who are working at a place are only doing what they are told. If they COULD do what you are asking them to do they WOULD. They're making shitty wages and probably don't give a fuck about the corporation's bottom line - they'd rather make you happy and get you out of their hair than piss you off to save the company a few bucks.

So, just keep that in mind when dealing with them. Ask to speak to managers as needed. And just make it clear that you're not going away until you get what you want. Someone will eventually have the power to do it for you. In the meantime, just make sure you are not a total prick to the people behind the counter. I always make it clear that I am not trying to be a pain in the ass and that I do not have any problem with them specifically, but that I DO want a refund and will not leave without one.

Mod this guy to a Million

[gerf]

There was a /. article not long ago, where a guy took MS to small claims court to get his $200 back for a copy of WindowsXP (which he did not use, and the EULA promises a refund if not used...). Basically, make sure you're very well prepared with simple, explanatory information for a non-technical person, and you'll get your $50 and court costs back.

Personally, i think this is why "Pirating" a game to just try it out is a good thing. If you had "tried" it out first, you would have realized how flawed the game was, and not had to go through this hassle.

Re:Mod this guy to a Million

[pla]

Personally, i think this is why "Pirating" a game to just try it out is a good thing. If you had "tried" it out first, you would have realized how flawed the game was, and not had to go through this hassle.

True indeed... Except, you've also just described the very reason companies (game, software, music, whatever) hate piracy so much. In any other setting, they'd consider it "free advertising", since those who would buy it still will, and those who will never buy don't actually count as a lost sale. But in the "mass consumer content" style industries, "try before you buy" often means "learn how much our product sucks before we have your cash in hand".

When you consider "piracy" in those terms, it all starts to make sense. It allows small players with good products to displace "the big boys" who consistently produce utter crap (or their one hit repackaged under yet another name). Totally intolerable, to those currently leading the market. Solution? Crack down on all this damned free advertising. Simple as that. Not that such an approach can ever actually work, but on paper, I suppose it looks good to the top-level management.

Re:Mod this guy to a Million

[darnok]

I think the parent post, and the grandparent, make a very good point.

I'm one of those people who has neither the time or patience to play 99% of computer games. However, I'm occasionally happy to load up a demo version of a game, play it for 20 minutes, then remove it and never think about it again. If it gets my brain working in some different direction, it actually makes me more productive when I get back to work again.

There is absolutely no way I'll shell out cash for computer games any more - the demo versions actually exceed my attention span, and these demo versions are on the cover of nearly every computer mag out there. Spend $5-10, and I get a magazine with enough demo games to keep me interested till the next issue comes out...

The point here is I'm quite certain that there's people out there who have slightly more time and inclination than I do; they'll pirate a game, play it for (say) a few hours to a week, then delete it and never even think of it again. Either they must consider the game is not worthy of further attention, or they don't actually have the time or inclination to get beyond e.g. level 5; why then is the game creator trying to sell that game with 503 levels knowing that it'll take most people 2 years to complete?

With a few exceptions, I suspect that only a tiny percentage of gamers actually see out the end of most games; most lose interest and try the latest hot game when it comes out. It seems akin to staging a basketball game where everyone leaves at 1/2 time; if that happened, you'd have to think it was a flawed product or delivery model to begin with.

The "rinse and repeat" technique

[tepples]

Every one I've been to assumes you're a pirate

Here's how to get a refund on partially opened but unused retail software: Claim that you didn't agree to a contract that the software's installer presented and that the contract provides for a full refund to those who do not agree. Present a printed copy of the contract.

the only option you have is exchange for another copy of the same title. That accomplishes precisely nothing.

Exchange the title, then return it after two days. If they open the exchanged box (like Toys R Us did once), then keep exchanging until they run out. The defect rate for that title will shoot up. If none of the boxes contains what's advertised on their packaging, then they're all defective.

Uru

[Radu Lycan]

Uru (newest Myst game) had the main function of it being an online mode (aka "Live"), requiring it to access much of the content of the game by interacting with others.

Apparently, the online function of the game WAS on the game packaging itself, as well as mentioned on the official site.

But Ubi effectively scammed everyone who paid for it for the online function by shutting the Live part down claiming a low amount of subscribers, even though they limited it to 30 people max on a mere 2 servers, while Live function still being buggy and laggy as it was basically still in Beta testing.

Thankfully, one of the founders of Cyan (company who started the series) posted a letter to the fans saying it was basically shutdown down indefinitely until/if they can fix the bugs to make it reasonably playable. And also mentioned that they will switch to the back-up plan of releasing expansions via online and possibly in-store downloads, with the first one being free.

I'd hope if they fix the bugs that Cyan would choose a better company then Ubi to run the game servers, apparently the Uru Live lag was somehow greatly affecting all the other games hosted on Ubi servers.

Blame

[Andy Smith]

I hate to say it but to take a pragmatic view of the issue, game developers and publishers are not to blame for poor quality games. The blame must lie with the consumers.

Three or four years ago I wrote for several gaming web sites and my pet subjects were false advertising and, more importantly, the EULAs that allow developers to rip-off consumers.

Time and again, developers and publishers made it clear (by their actions) that they didn't want consumers to have any rights, that they wanted to be able to release unfinished, bug-ridden products, and they didn't want to accept any responsibility for fixing their products.

And time and again, consumers said the same thing: That's fine with us!

I can't count the number of flames and hate messages I received in response to the articles I wrote. Thousands? Tens of thousands, more like. Not from developers but from game players. Comments sections of web sites were flooded with the most personal abuse. My inbox filled up with everything from unresearched "you're wrong because blah-blah company r0cks" messages to juvenile death threats. All because I had dared to suggest that consumers should be entitled to products that work as advertised.

Eventually I re-focussed my efforts and most of what I wrote from then on tried to make one point: If you keep telling developers and publishers that you'll forgive them for ripping you off then they'll keep on doing it, and eventually it will reach a stage that you *do* want the situation changed. But by then it will be too late.

Maybe it's too late now?