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UK Gamers Can Now Get Their Money Back For Publishers' Broken Promises
An anonymous reader writes: An amendment to the UK Consumer Rights Act regarding digital-only purchases seems to give British videogamers redress towards publishing houses which deliver buggy code or inveigle consumers to pre-order games based on trailers or betas that demonstrate features, characters or quality not delivered in the RTM release. But the legislation is so loosely worded as to be an invitation to litigation and interpretation, and does not address mis-delivery issues for consumer models such as cloud subscriptions.
As a hardcore Worms fan, I was delighted that Worms 4 for the iPhone recently came out. I paid my five bucks, played the first ten levels and deleted the game from my iPad. Worms 4 is a Nintendo-bastardization with simple graphics more appropriate for four-year-olds, Facebook interface that is shoved into your face, and none of the usual mayhem that made previous Worms games so much fun. Surprisingly, Apple gave my five bucks back with a minimal amount of fuss. Since I no longer owned the game, my negative review that demanded a refund from Apple disappeared from the iTunes store.
"Those features were't exactly promised, think of them more as 'Volkswagen-Promised.'"
# IVWP ("I VW-Promise" The corollary to 'fingers-crossed promises' for the 21st century. )
Pretending this is my office full of bitter coworkers..
One of the worst debacles in unfinished games, the one that opened my eyes to the "new model" of game and software delivery, was the release of battlefield 3. Absolutely broken game. Then they started releasing dlc/shorcut packs/premium subscription models, BEFORE the game was even patched. After that, I made an oath to NEVER buy a game on release day. No more preorders. I will wait, sometimes over a year, until a game is finally playable before I buy it. Gaming masses were marked as suckers.
... like when Sony unilaterally removed features...
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Thesaurus is not a dinosaur.
Can steam, EA, ubisoft , etc black list you from your full account if you use this on one game?
A dead tree thesaurus is an anachronism, but not a snake.
No. We will use the most common ten hundred words instead.
Or they just can't get away with making promises they can't keep
The new versions of Destiny actually removed some game content for those that did not upgrade: https://www.reddit.com/r/Desti...
It's not an obscure word. Just what was your attendance record at school anyway?
If you're gonna hijack a thread to stalk someone you argued with, at least include some relevant commentary on the article.
The cake is full of hosts files? That explains so much!
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
And nothing of value was lost.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
It's not an obscure word. Just what was your attendance record at school anyway?
Maybe it has something to do with my going through the public school system in Hawaii, but I had to look up inveigle. Definitely not a common word in these parts.
It's not a conversational word, but I hear it spoken on television and radio. Ok, more on radio than TV these days as TV has gotten pretty dumb.
What sort of antiquated browser are you using that doesn't let you right-click a word and google it? Just think, if you'd done that you might have learnt a new word already. Here, give it a try now.
Indolent.
See how easy that was?
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
If this law was enacted then and that feature was advertised I believe it would have been an issue
I really don't understand why anyone pre-orders games that are delivered via digital download. A few years ago, it made sense, because maybe you wanted to make sure there was a physical box waiting for you at the game store on launch day. How many games are still bought that way today, though? It's not as if the download server is going to run out of copies.
Game companies want everyone to pre-order, of course, because it guarantees them income no matter how much of a turkey the game turns out to be. But usually they offer at best some token DLC to go with the pre-ordered version, and often different token DLC for people getting the game in different ways so no-one can have everything, and in any case if that DLC is worth anything it will unbalance the game (which is bad) and if it's not then it's no incentive to pre-order anyway.
Don't pre-order on-line games, kids. There is no way it ends positively for you, and it gives the game companies every incentive to ship unfinished junk instead of polished products you'll enjoy.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I bought Elite Dangerous early on in its development, and much to my chagrin I witnessed it go through beta to full release with nary an inkling of the content I was actually expecting from the advertisements and discussions on the forums.
It is categorically one of the worst games I've ever had the misfortune of purchasing. Made even more unpleasant by the exorbitant price tag I paid for early access. It's the biggest reason I've sworn off ever pre-purchasing or pre-ordering any games in the future. It wasn't the first game I got burned on, but it was the biggest and will be the last.
Frontier Developments is a UK company. How do I get a refund from them without paying 30x as much for the lawyers as I did for the 'game'?
Because requiring consumers to sue a company, with all the hassle and legal costs, provides consumers with no effective protection. That is why Britain has consumer protection legislation. It provides an easy route for consumers to get redress.
Ne mæg werig mod wyrde wiðstondan, ne se hreo hyge helpe gefremman.
Deceive! Inveigle! Obfuscate!