Law Firm Files Class Action Suit Against EA Over Battlefield 4

[Alex Co]

Law Firm Files Class Action Suit Against EA Over Battlefield 4

Law firm Robbins Geller has hit EA with a lawsuit over Battlefield 4 on the behalf of affected shareholders.

Electronic Arts hasn't had the easiest of launches when it comes to DICE's first-person shooter, Battlefield 4 - and now, it seems things have taken a turn for the worse. U.S. law firm Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP has filed a class action lawsuit against the publisher on behalf of stockholders affected by the title's commercial performance. According to the filing, the law firm cites that EA has violated the Securities Exchange Act and adds the publisher has allegedly provided "materially false and misleading" statements when it comes to BF4. Not only that, but it also states, "because they (EA) failed to disclose and misrepresented the following adverse facts which were known to or recklessly disregarded by defendants:"

(a) Battlefield 4 was riddled with bugs and multiple other problems, including downloadable content that allowed players access to more levels of the game, a myriad of connectivity issues, server limitations, lost data and repeated sudden crashes, among other things;

(b) as a result, Electronic Arts would not achieve a successful holiday season 2013 rollout of Battlefield 4;

(c) the performance of the Electronic Arts unit publishing Battlefield 4 was so deficient that all other projects that unit was involved in had to be put on hold to permit it to focus its efforts on fixing Battlefield 4; and

"(d) as a result, Electronic Arts was not on track to achieve the financial results it had told the market it was on track to achieve during the Class Period.



The class period ranges from July 24, 2013 up to December 4, 2013, with EA's stock dropping to more than 28% during the time period.

In the same report by the DICE won't be developing [http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20131217006560/en/Robbins-Geller-Rudman-Dowd-LLP-Files-Class] further expansions until the game is fixed.

With DICE regularly rolling out patches on all platforms for BF4, let's hope this gets sorted out soon for everyone's sake.

Source: OXM [http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20131217006560/en/Robbins-Geller-Rudman-Dowd-LLP-Files-Class]

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[Compatriot Block]

Well, the court of internet opinion has probably already found them guilty. This must be tough to hear for people with jobs on the line.

 

[tdylan]

I think we'll ultimately find that the lawfirm Robbins Geller, like so many before them, are "objectively wrong" on this.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/128809-DICE-Battlefield-4-Beta-Testers-Are-Objectively-Wrong-On-Faults

 

[JediMB]

I felt a bit of schadenfreude until I noticed that this was happening on behalf of the stockholders.

Those guys tend to be the problem with big publishers, to begin with. The reason why Battlefield underwent its shitty transformation from respectable team-based multiplayer shooter to just another Call of Duty clone.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Really not sure how to take this. Does EA really deserve this? Are there details here that we don't know? A lot of games have been released by EA that were in such an unfinished state. Why is this one different? Perhaps because Battlefield is a massive revenue source for them.

 

[Valok]

Really not sure how to take this. Does EA really deserve this? Are there details here that we don't know? A lot of games have been released by EA that were in such an unfinished state. Why is this one different? Perhaps because Battlefield is a massive revenue source for them.

From what I could gather the main reason for the Law Suit may be here ""(d) as a result, Electronic Arts was not on track to achieve the financial results it had told the market it was on track to achieve during the Class Period." In short, they lied about the actual situation for the guys that were paying the bills. Maybe with their other games they were more forthcoming with the actual status of the product.

Guess after been used to lying to their customers they decided it would be a great idea to start doing that to everyone.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

As fun as it is to watch EA twist in the wind, I am not too excited about this. This kind of thing where developers/publishers/everyone is all ultimately held hostage by their share holders is the reason why no one can take any chances anymore on video games. Everything must be as safe as possible for maximum sales.

 

[JLF]

Buying stocks = a gamble with your money. Maybe people will start to appreciate more "honest" companies. Sadly when it comes to money bending truths and lies seems to be commonplace everywhere. In this case these seems to be laws that could entitle compensation for the shareholders. Sucky situation for the consumer in the long run, if you enjoy EA titles.

 

[WouldYouKindly]

I felt a bit of schadenfreude until I noticed that this was happening on behalf of the stockholders.

Those guys tend to be the problem with big publishers, to begin with. The reason why Battlefield underwent its shitty transformation from respectable team-based multiplayer shooter to just another Call of Duty clone.

This is inaccurate. Battlefield has alienated it's old fans somewhat, but it's not a CoD clone. That much is obvious to anyone who has played modern iterations of both. Perhaps the deathmatch mode is pretty CoD but that's got no bearing on the other modes which are still there. I'm just going to come out and say it, there's more depth to BFs multiplayer. Even if the only differences were these; terrain deformation/building destruction, bullet drop, and vehicles that's still more than enough to not be considered a clone. If it's a CoD clone, it's CoD plus s bunch of other features, which it means it's better than CoD... when it eventually starts working.

 

[Voulan]

It's good that perhaps now publishers will realize they can't get away with releasing broken content that screws over their customers, but when it's coming from their stakeholders which often push for these things to occur anyway (forced release dates and style changes, etc), it's not such great news.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I'm not sure how to feel about this. On one hand, it might make EA a better company because this happened as the result of rushing the game and not respecting your audience. On the other hand, shareholders are a big part of the problem in video game industry. So it could be a really bad thing as well. Hopefully EA will realize that what's best for the customers is also best for the shareholders instead of focusing entirely on shareholders.

 

[Oskuro]

I for one think this is good on two fronts:

First, it makes it clear to big publishers that releasing rushed half-baked products can have dire consequences. They are way to used to being able to just ignore consumer complaints, let's see them ignore shareholder complaints.

Secondly, it should be a warning sign for not-so-big publishers of the dangers of going too big. Satisfying shareholders might have seen easy in a market where fooling customers via marketing hype is relatively easy... But when they are not satisfied, they will hit back harshly.


I hope this convinces some to steer away from shareholder-pleasing models.

 

[white_wolf]

The only thing I'm seeing that makes the lawsuit viable is the didn't deliver on time all the other points of glitches, crashes, and false promises is very little it makes it too similar to the whole BW ending debacle and unless they've got real proof of lies being told to them (the shareholders) its very circumstantial at best. I don't think they'll get much and I don't think its going to ruin the company.

 

[Senare]

I just hope any devs who have worked their asses off in crunch mode don't catch any flack for this.

 

[major_chaos]

This is everything that is wrong with the AAA games industry. Everything must be done to appease the shareholders with a gun to your (financial) head, all other concerns are secondary.

 

[Mr. Q]

Personally, both EA and their shareholders should be held accountable for this mess and many others. This is the reason why the old business models for the gaming industry no longer work. It needs to change and right soon.

 

[Vivi22]

Really not sure how to take this. Does EA really deserve this? Are there details here that we don't know? A lot of games have been released by EA that were in such an unfinished state. Why is this one different? Perhaps because Battlefield is a massive revenue source for them.

I'm going to be honest, I don't think they deserve this lawsuit. When you invest in a company, you're taking a risk. That risk includes the possibility that the companies products may fail and their stock may lose value. So unless EA deliberately set out to make a bad game with the explicit intent of devaluing its stock, thereby breaching their fiduciary duty to shareholders, this just looks like a case of company made crappy game. Company stock went down. Risk taken by shareholders didn't pay off.

I mean, the world would be a pretty fucked up place if someone could invest in stock and if it goes up great, if it drops, let's sue them so we get a return out of it and still come out ahead. It's absurd.

 

[Gezzer]

I haven't bought an EA game since the failure that was the Simcity reboot. I've come to the realization that EA is no longer in the game of making games, and hasn't been for a long time. It's in the business of maximizing stockholder worth, and it even sucks at that.
EA repeatedly fails to launch the games it's customers want. Since Trip left to form 3DO, the company slowly over time became more about leveraging any IPs they might own. Then when they had essentially ruined those IPs and the development houses involved they went out and bought more to repeat the cycle.
Now so many of the included features in a game are more about benefiting EA then the players of said games. This is why EA did what they did and are being sued for it. It wasn't about releasing a game the players wanted and would buy. It was about hitting the biggest window of opportunity, the Christmas season. If EA actually gave a fck about it's customers this never would of happened. They wouldn't of released the game till it was ready to be released.
Of course this means that any potential gems that Bioware might be releasing before EA is able to suck that body dry will not be purchased by me, and I'm a bit sad. But I'm not sure Bioware hasn't also jumped the EA shark and the next Mass effect and/or Dragon Age might suck anyway. As gamers we can all hope EA makes it's big move into the F2P and mobile markets and leaves the AAA segment to developers/publishers that actually love games, instead of just cranking them out.