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Microsoft Mistakenly Sold Fallout 4 For Free On Xbox (polygon.com)
On Thursday the $110 Deluxe Edition Bundle of Fallout 4 appeared in the Xbox store priced at $0.00. The Escapist reports that "The mistake went viral, and there's no telling how people were able to take advantage before the error was corrected..." An anonymous reader shares their report:
If you grabbed Fallout 4 for free on Xbox One, it will be disappearing from your account... Microsoft has confirmed that any copies obtained due to the error will have their license revoked, and the games will disappear from the user's Xbox One library.
Now Microsoft is telling affected users that "your free download will no longer work. For the inconvenience we will deposit $10 by the end of June in your Microsoft Account."
Now Microsoft is telling affected users that "your free download will no longer work. For the inconvenience we will deposit $10 by the end of June in your Microsoft Account."
Here, have some gold.
has become a dirty right-wing organization that doesn't respect consumer rights.
Please, Microsoft just simply die.
In fact every console should die. Consoles are closed platforms, where you can use only the vendor provided SDKs and have to sign NDAs just in order to be able to develop software for them!
The world is better without this kind of restrictions.
Sorry Microsoft, I paid for it and you don't get to revoke the license. Oh, you made a mistake? Fine, you pay the $60 or whatever the game costs. I bought my copy, it's mine, sod off.
How come I never notice these things in time to take advantage of them? Memorial day weekend I got the urge to get some DLC for Borderlands the Pre Sequel. They had a sale going, all DLC for a good price. But by the time I got my credit card out and went to pay for it the offer had expired. Evidently it was good for 3 days, expired at 5 PM Monday, and I noticed it at 4:59 Monday. Cool tho, figure they'll do it again 4th of July weekend so I'm ready.
"Our offer of a free upgrade to Windows 10 was an error. Your license will be revoked and the OS will disappear from your PC. For the inconvenience we'll give you a $10 discount on the retail price of Windows 10."
Oh my, I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of freeloaders suddenly cried out in outrage and then were suddenly silenced as they discovered 10 dollars in their Microsoft account.
Hem...When Origin did something similar a couple of years back, they said they let those who picked up games keep them and tha's it. It's how iI got my copy of DA2, an don't regret it. On top of that they made more money off of me.
Om, nomnomnom...
What would happen if they sell a game for the wrong nonzero price? Can they later force you to "un-buy" that game and repurchase it at the correct price?
Here's a hypothetical situation.
Suppose Microsoft chooses two test subsets of customers and sells the game for two different prices: BasePrice and BasePrice+$5. They do this for a time, and it gives them a differential of games sold versus price.
If the differential reward is higher at the lower price, they stop selling at the higher price and list the lower price for all buyers from then on.
However, if the differential reward is higher, they un-purchase the games at the lower price with the excuse that "it was listed at the wrong price, you have to repurchase at the correct price".
Hmmmm... I think I've discovered a new way to increase market liquidity!
(Any economist should agree that increasing market liquidity is a good thing!)
This could be construed as false advertising. In the brick and mortar world when pricing mistakes occur the store usually honors them. I see no reason why microsoft shouldn't do the same. I would argue I saw the game for free on the website, so of course I downloaded it. At 110, I might not.
\
I do believe the law of the land will prevail. It is against the law for a company to sell you something for free or not and then take it back.... They offered you accepted. They can not then ask for payment nor can they ask you to return it. It is against the law. If best buy sends you an iPhone , one that you had never ordered ,it's yours. They can not even legally ask you for it back.
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That's what's the courts are for, though they've been generally been too cost prohibitive for the common man to get justice there. Though, in this case, small claims court might work. Microsoft is betting that people won't take that avenue and it's a pretty safe bet.
Revoking these licences is illegal in some countries in the EU.
They are a professional seller and most of us are not professional buyers.
So their mistake is irrelevant and they man not revoke the licences.
A long, long time ago I had to install Windows 95 for a friend so I purchased a copy on floppies because at the time he had no CD reader. To keep the story short when installing the 15thof 25 disks the install would fail. I went back to the store and they replaced it. Again at the 15th disk it failed. I returned to the store and they tested another one of their sets on a system in the store. It failed at the 15th disk. Since it was software it was not refundable and I would have to wait until a new batch came in.
Another time at a different store I purchased Myst on a CD or DVD. The game failed after a couple of day at a specific place. The disc was in perfect condition and in was within the first week. I tried to get a replacement at the store and was told that since it was opened that there is nothing they could do.
On another occasion I bought a game for a console. The packaging was in English with one little note in fine print on the back of the bock that this was the French version. The store would not accept an exchange since the package was opened. I was standing behind a French client who bought an English version which he assumed contained the French language as well. I tried to explain that it was not clearly indicated on the packaging nor in the in-store advertising. I exchanged my copy with the other client and left.
I have other examples where it was my tough luck.
Now we have an "error" on the clients side and we are told that the license will be revoked? The clients paid the advertised price for their license it should be their license to keep. Was the free Windows 10 upgrade a mistake too? Will this be revoked?
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
Yet another Microsoft-spyware ad.
If this happened in a physical store, the cashier would call a supervisor. The customer may get the product for free, but the issue would immediately be remedied so that it would not be exploited. In this case, the customer decided to call over other customers with the full realization that it was likely a mistake. A mistake that would only be noticed by the retailer through abnormal sales patterns or by someone reporting it, i.e. after the fact. Even though the customers were being dishonest, they were still rewarded.
sJhort of a miracle things I still
, you might want to look into the consumer laws their. If they apply to online purchases..... you get the game & MS gets heavily fined if they changed the price w/o closing the store until the next business day (cali time zone). Yes California has really draconian laws on mismarking prices. I learned this in 2001 when a customer went through so many hoops to verify all prices are correct. When I inquired as to why they were paying so much for a complex system to verify prices, I was sent a copy of all the laws pertaining to penalties & procedures on mismarked items. Which answered my question about their procedures very nicely.
Bend-over and apply ample lube.
The naked greed in these posts has me wondering --- and not for the first time --- whether the geek ever really grows out of adolescence.
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Microsoft doesn't give a flying fuck what their customers think about them or their image. Always on internet connection with Kinect spying on you? They tried it and failed. Windows 10 install interrupting heart surgeries on medical equipment in order to push a spyware advertising platform disguised as an OS? They're doing it. Some video game that already sold record breaking numbers so only a tiny percentage left found an error and got it free? Screw those peasants, we're Microsoft after all.
A tangible asset mismarked on the shelves at a physical store would except if a few conditions be required to be sold at the lower of the 2 prices. Not sure how that applies to virtual assets sold in an online market place.
Quoting California B&P Code, 12024.2.
(a) It is unlawful for any person, at the time of sale of a commodity, to do any of the following:
(1) Charge an amount greater than the price, or to compute an amount greater than a true extension of a price per unit, that is then advertised, posted, marked, displayed, or quoted for that commodity.
(2) Charge an amount greater than the lowest price posted on the commodity itself or on a shelf tag that corresponds to the commodity, notwithstanding any limitation of the time period for which the posted price is in effect.
(b) A violation of this section is a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of not less than twenty-five dollars ($25) nor more than one thousand dollars ($1,000), by imprisonment in the county jail for a period not exceeding one year, or by both, if the violation is willful or grossly negligent, or when the overcharge is more than one dollar ($1).
(c) A violation of this section is an infraction punishable by a fine of not more than one hundred dollars ($100) when the overcharge is one dollar ($1) or less.
(d) As used in subdivisions (b) and (c), "overcharge" means the amount by which the charge for a commodity exceeds a price that is advertised, posted, marked, displayed, or quoted to that consumer for that commodity at the time of sale.
(e) Except as provided in subdivision (f), for purposes of this section, when more than one price for the same commodity is advertised, posted, marked, displayed, or quoted, the person offering the commodity for sale shall charge the lowest of those prices.
(f) Pricing may be subject to a condition of sale, such as membership in a retailer-sponsored club, the purchase of a minimum quantity, or the purchase of multiples of the same item, provided that the condition is conspicuously posted in the same location as the price.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
This has happened before with Amazon, etc., etc., and the vendor has to eat it.
I would be that in Germany they would still have to honor the purchase, because license that you get "forever" may not as easily be withdrawn unilaterally from you.
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Their mistake; their loss.
This is straight-up false advertising.
Should be "there's no telling how MANY people" - fucking American idiots...
How do you sell something for free?
I believe microsofts response is the start of a class action lawsuit. If I went to Walmart and bought a bag of chips for 99 cents and then days later they claimed that they cost 10 dollars you couldn't come into my home and take my chips.
A normal person will download the movies/song/book, deDRM it
Not in a country like the USA, which has the DMCA, or Canada, which has the digital locks provision of the Copyright Modernization Act (C-11).
They refuse the sale of the object, and correct the error, then reoffer the item at the correct price.
Anonymous Coward appears to claim in another comment that the reoffer cannot occur until the next business day. Thus any cashier correcting an error under that loophole must continue to refuse sale of that product for the remainder of the business day.
The way Bethesda cut so much content out of Fallout 4 before it went on sale, and ruined the ending scenes in the process? I would never recommend anyone spend $110 for a "deluxe edition" of the game!
I had many, many hours of game-play sunk into Fallout 4 and the story got pretty in depth as I went on. That's what made the build-up to the poor excuse for a climax SO frustrating. The DLC Bethesda has been selling for the game since then does zilch to address any of this. Play a bunch of new side missions for Valentine's detective agency on some new maps? Hell no! I'm still angry I was promised I'd become the new director of the Institute, only to discover I still had no power to change anything about its relations with the other factions. (A bunch of their scientists still expected me to take orders from them, running around to do synth recovery missions and what-not. Huh?!)
Too many bugs left in the game too.... Like the mission where I was supposed to select McCreedy as my companion to go get a serum out of a medical center to save his son. Last I was with him, I sent him to the Castle settlement. But every time I went back there to get him, he was nowhere to be found. Sometimes I'd hear his voice, speaking some random comment, but I'd run all over the place looking for him and he wasn't there! I wound up having to "cheat" - using a console command to force his character to appear where I was (only possible because I had the Windows version). And on the weird mission with the U.S. Constitution (ship on top of the Savings and Loan, run by robots) - I completed the whole thing except we didn't successfully defend it against some raiders as it was getting ready to blast off. So I reloaded my previous save game to try again. When I completed the raider defense successfully that time? It said I had to talk to the captain as the last step, but he refused to speak to me. When I left and returned, it just said I completed everything. Never got to see the ship blast off. (I got mad and just started killing all the robots and plundered the ship.)
Take a step back. Forget about whether it's Microsoft. Set aside your legal analysis for a second.
What's the right thing to do when an obvious mistake happens? Fix the mistake. Full refund (of $0) in exchange for the product return is completely fair. The $10 account credit for goodwill is more than fair and likely a big loss for Microsoft by itself.
And a posse of people spreading around the obvious mistake and exploiting it? They're dicks. Okay, some might not have thought things through, and I'm sure a lot of them have no idea that the merchant in this case has to pay for every copy they take. They are just "sharing their opportunity" with 1000 of their closest friends, but they're basically being exploitative. They are operating with ill intent.
I can hear the opposing argument: "but how can we separate vendor mistakes from evil intentions?" -- that might be hard in some cases but it's not difficult in this place.
And the related one: "this is a slippery slope!". Well, fucking people and businesses over due to petty mistakes is a pretty slippery slope too, so let's try to balance on the peak between those slopes shall we?
Pulling back into this scenario, the legal argument comparing physical goods is kind of interesting, but I think it largely comes down to practicality. If I find out that I sold you a physical good that is under product recall and thus I'm not authorized to sell it, the best I can do is call you back. Here, it can easily be fixed. And I do mean fixed.
I do know that I have purchased and been charged for physical goods online, where the charge was reversed and the order cancelled by the vendor. I didn't have the physical goods in my hands at the time the order was cancelled, but then I never had the virtual good in my hands either.
Just like with the Kindle, cloud service of software or digital reading can delete things you bought, no matter what the price you paid, and for whatever reason is unacceptable now, but acceptable in a dystopian future. If Enraged Rural Mothers Against Gaming On Digitals (ERMAGOD) ever convinces congress that FPS games lead to actual violence, Microsoft has set up the ability to delete all your FPS games.
We have a law that says if you put out a product at a certain price on the shelf you must sell it at that price. There is no weaseling out your way from there.
unless they have language allowing that in the XBox licensing agreement that would constitute either theft or bait and switch