EA Offering Some Compensation to APB Players

Logan Westbrook

Transform, Roll Out, Etc
Feb 21, 2008
17,672
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EA Offering Some Compensation to APB Players



Despite only being the distributor for the game, EA is stepping up and offering money off vouchers and free games to at least some of the people that bought APB.

Making an MMO is a risky business, and a fairly high proportion of them fail before very long. APB bit the bullet faster than most however, leaving thousands of fans upset that they'd invested money in a game they couldn't play after just a few months. There is some light at the end of the tunnel however, as people are reporting that EA is offering compensation to some players.

In a thread [http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1440175] on the Steam forums, a user by the name of "Dragonshadow" posted a chat log of a conversation she had had with a member of EA support staff. The customer service representative first offered a $20 voucher, but when pressed agreed to let Dragonshadow have a free copy of Dragon Age 2 [http://www.amazon.com/Dragon-Age-2-Pc/dp/B003UF9E0O/ref=sr_1_1?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1285603272&sr=1-1] when it was released. According to an update on the post, however, EA came back to her, saying that it couldn't offer Dragon Age 2 after all, so she took 4000 BioWare points instead.

Other posters on thread have described their efforts to get some or all of their money back, and it seems they've met with varying degrees of success. EA doesn't seem to have any hard policy on how to deal with this, with some receiving vouchers, others receiving games, and some receiving nothing at all. It does appear that EA is only compensating those who bought the game after a certain date however, so if you grabbed it at launch, you might be out of luck.

Still, if you're the in the situation of having bought a game just weeks before it became literally unplayable, then it might be worth getting in touch with EA Support [http://support.ea.com/] and seeing what it would be willing to offer.

Source: Destructoid [http://www.destructoid.com/ea-offering-some-compensation-to-apb-customers-184827.phtml]



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LoopyDood

New member
Dec 13, 2008
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Good for EA! So they're not always a big, evil, (franchise ruining) and soulless corporation?
Sad that APB went under so quickly.
 

scotth266

Wait when did I get a sub
Jan 10, 2009
5,202
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One of the most promising MMOs I'd ever seen went down in flames.

I am a sad panda.
 

Sacman

Don't Bend! Ascend!
May 15, 2008
22,661
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If this was Activision they would make you pay another month of service after they shut it down...
 

Andaxay

Thinking with Portals
Jun 4, 2008
513
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I should think so too, good on you, EA. Though, I have to wonder why the store I work at keeps getting this game ready to sell in the delivery. I keep having to put it somewhere safe so no-one will sell it, haha.
 

ender214

New member
Oct 30, 2008
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EA has suddenly gained a heart? This is very unexpected, though Activision has kind of taken EA's place as the evil corporation of the game industry.
 

Nurb

Cynical bastard
Dec 9, 2008
3,078
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EA isn't being the nice guy, they're just not wanting to get sued and trying to look out for their own asses.

APB is still on the shelves and in many cases still in the "new game" section in a lot of stores. They're trying to play damage control while doing clean-up and getting the games off of shelves so they don't get pulled into court by people that buy a new game they can't play and cant return
 
Apr 28, 2008
14,634
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If it was Valve they'd probably get free copies of Left 4 Dead.

Kind of like those people who got accidentally banned from MW2.
 

CrustyOatmeal

New member
Jul 4, 2010
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scotth266 said:
One of the most promising MMOs I'd ever seen went down in flames.

I am a sad panda.
promising, yes but have you seen all of the bugs/ problems tha game had. it needed another year of polish before it should have been released. APB could have been great but they were just forced to release a game before it was ready
 

Weaver

Overcaffeinated
Apr 28, 2008
8,977
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Maybe they should release the server client to the public and just allow people to run private servers.
 

samsonguy920

New member
Mar 24, 2009
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Well something is better than nothing. Sounds like someone at Support took some initiative but then got slowed down in their customer service enthusiasm.
Sacman said:
If this was Activision they would make you pay another month of service after they shut it down...
That made me lawl.
AC10 said:
Maybe they should release the server client to the public and just allow people to run private servers.
That is highly unlikely to happen. It may be possible EA is hoping someone might come along and revamp APB to start again. If there are private servers already that would bite into potential profit. It's possible someone suggested licensing the client at a thought of a new way of running the MMO, but I imagine they took into consideration how lukewarm APB has already been received and find that an unlikely good revenue stream.
 

kouriichi

New member
Sep 5, 2010
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:/ i still had 20 hours of game time.
Id really like to get that back in some sort of compinsation.
 

kouriichi

New member
Sep 5, 2010
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Vicarious Vangaurd said:
I don't understand what happened that made it impossible to play anymore. Can anyone fill me in?
They apperently were having theyer pockets lined with gold.
So they shut down theyer servers :/
No servers, no APB