Angry PS3 Gamers Sue EA Over Broken Battlefield Promise

[pikler2]

I just want to say that they might have a reason for doing it, most likely that their "Steve"(every business has one) most likely miscalculated the size. One week later they didn't have enough room to put on, so Steve didn't put it on the disk. Steve also programmed origin.

 

[antipunt]

Not to give any of it to them, mind, but just the opportunity to spend their money on it ahead of everyone else.

Wat

No really, WTF? Did they really think everybody would just say 'meh, oh wellz?'

 

[JemothSkarii]

EA, Y U NO KEEP PROMISE!?

This is appalling, only ever bought 4 EA games (3 in ways where they wouldn't profit from me) and Dante's Inferno I bought shortly after release, don't regret it. But anyways, this is really bad, hope they just give the people their free copies. Greedy or not, their customers were lied to.

 

[octafish]

I understand why they did it. Complicated business oddities. But end of the day, they did promise a product that they could, but didn't, provide. And there wasn't even a substitute.

Also, does this intersect in any way with the whole, "No class action lawsuits allowed" EULA bit? Actually just to go on a bit of tangent, what would happen if it was Sony doing this?

That's for Origin, which isn't on the PS3, and PSN, which didn't promised anything. It was all EA, and they're not protected from a class-action in this case.

But if there was no class-action suit allowed, then the customers would have been screwed. Simple as that. If they promised free 1943 on Origin, and you bought BF3 and they didn't deliver, you'd be screwed with now way to get them to hold up their end of the bargain.

Well you could take it to arbritration. You don't go to court, but this case, even in arbritration would seem to favour the plaintiffs.

You could also challenge the AT&T finding, might be a bit expensive hiring representation for the Supreme Court though.

 

[Metalrocks]

i hope EA gets sued so hard that they have to close down forever. this company is nothing else but a money sucking company who has no ideas for them self and steals money from other companies who make good games.
i hope they get sued for origin as well. but this already is a good start.

 

[Niccolo]

I am no expert on law, but does the law even allow EA to deny class action lawsuits?

When it comes to Origin (their crappy version of steam) then yes they have the right because it is included with their EULA. However it is actually pretty specific about what kind of lawsuit is not allowed. You can still sue EA if they release a game on Origin and no one in the world can play it because you know you paid for a product, however something like this false advertising thing they just did they could get away with.

1. EULAs have been shown more than once to be full of holes in the justice system.

2. I actually question whether it is actually legal putting that in the EULA. There are many things that are put into contracts but cannot be held up in court. This seems like it could be one of them

One question: I remember a while ago some twit wrote up a EULA that said something like "By agreeing I now legally own your house" or some stupid shit like that... didn't the courts rules that EULAs were not legally binding?

They aren't contracts, they're agreements. There is no ironclad binding to it. To be a contract, the document must state what is offered in return.

 

[Chaos Inverse]

I am no expert on law, but does the law even allow EA to deny class action lawsuits?

I doubt it though.

And if it is, then the law must be changed asap.

I would doubt that any judge/court/whatever, if there was a case to be made, would throw it out simply because EA had said "you can't sue us so nuur". I know US law gets pretty mightily retarded in these sorts of areas, but I can't imagine it allowing them to go that far.

The US Supreme Court ruled a while ago that shit like this [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/04/scotus-rules-att-can-force-arbitration-block-class-action-suits.ars] is enforceable. Only way it can be overruled is by Congress. It's pretty much why Sony and EA have added their own clauses forbiding class-action lawsuits over PSN and Origin. Because now they know they can legally do it.

So yeah, it's a pretty shitty situation.

I'm not sure I get all this. So they could possibly get away with it if it's in the EULA right? But for console games, you can't see the EULA until you start the game or open it. So wouldn't that void the EULA since it isn't openly displayed or easily accessed by the consumer?

 

[Strazdas]

I am no expert on law, but does the law even allow EA to deny class action lawsuits?

The law has only one rule. That who has the most money makes the rules. Welcome to america.

 

[Art Axiv]

EA was also false advertising in Poland. You were supposed to get the SPEC ACT skins for free with the pre-order. Great. I got the key for them. I redeemed them. No content waiting for me anyway. Rang EA and all I've heard so far is "Sorry, SPEC ACT is limited only to USA".

I've got the code.
I've redeemed it successfully.
My XBL is set to Poland.

Oh EA, why do you false advertise.

Spoiler: If you click here, you'll even see the official EA poster!

 

[AndyFromMonday]

This is fucking bullshit. How can anyone support corporations when they do shit like this?

 

[Leg End]

Wait wait wait wait wait. When the hell did EA say we were supposed to get free copies of Battlefield 1943. Im actually serious I dont ever remember hearing that. Im sure they did I am just wondering where and when this was actually announced because that really determines if this law suit has any merit at all.

I believe it was during either the Sony or EA press conference of this year. I specifically remember getting excited and shitting my bricks.
Then becoming sad panda when I looked online after release to figure out what happened to it/where it was. :L

I understand why they did it. Complicated business oddities. But end of the day, they did promise a product that they could, but didn't, provide. And there wasn't even a substitute.

Also, does this intersect in any way with the whole, "No class action lawsuits allowed" EULA bit? Actually just to go on a bit of tangent, what would happen if it was Sony doing this?

That's for Origin, which isn't on the PS3

All EA accounts are now Origin accounts, so it spans across all major platforms.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

Not to be a downer, but I think everyone celebrating needs to pause to consider how businesses work. Fighting this lawsuit is going to cost money, and losing it will cost even more money. The executives are NOT going to take that hit, so they're going to pass it down the chain until eventually they cut funding for some game in development. Now, granted that I've been on my own little boycott against EA for a while now, but this still means that some potentially awesome game is going to get canceled in order to pay for the lawsuit.

 

[mysecondlife]

It seems to be a real bad time to be FPS fan these days with call of duty being call of duty, and Halo CEA not meeting expectations of everyone..

 

[WaruTaru]

Not that I'm supporting EA, but how is it false advertising if the game was supposed to be "free"? Companies always reserved the right to "substitute free gift A for free gift B" all the time, don't they? There is something very wrong with this lawsuit on both sides.

 

[DanielBrown]

They totally deserve what's coming to them. Not intrested in Battlefield myself, but I recently got Assassins Creed: Revelations. Pre-ordered it since they threw in the first game with it.
If I hadn't gotten it I'd be pissed too... in spite of it being a pretty bad game.

 

[Therumancer]

I understand why they did it. Complicated business oddities. But end of the day, they did promise a product that they could, but didn't, provide. And there wasn't even a substitute.

Also, does this intersect in any way with the whole, "No class action lawsuits allowed" EULA bit? Actually just to go on a bit of tangent, what would happen if it was Sony doing this?

That's for Origin, which isn't on the PS3, and PSN, which didn't promised anything. It was all EA, and they're not protected from a class-action in this case.

But if there was no class-action suit allowed, then the customers would have been screwed. Simple as that. If they promised free 1943 on Origin, and you bought BF3 and they didn't deliver, you'd be screwed with now way to get them to hold up their end of the bargain.

I am no expert on law, but does the law even allow EA to deny class action lawsuits?

I doubt it though.

And if it is, then the law must be changed asap.

I believe the thing is that the EULA they make you sign to use their games now includes the implicit agreement that you won't engage in class action lawsuits against them in exchange for using their product. Basically you sign away that right.

It's been a long time, and contract law was never my focus of study, but that in of itself is illegal or at least not binding. Of course EULAs have yet to be challenged on any viable grounds from what little I do know, the avenues of attack are almost always kind of stupid which is why the challenges lose.

It's not a law, it's the contract, and honestly I'm not sure how that would work out since even in the worst case scenario you'd have to play Battlefield 3 and accept the contract to not engage in a suit for that arguement to even apply here since there was no EULA accepted to read the offer to begin with I don't believe.

We'll see what happens in the long run, but I am hoping EA gets reamed here, this was kind of ridiculous.

Honestly, I'd rather see criminal charges brought against them rather than civil ones, since what they are doing is a crime. If they have to toss out some digial game copies and a few bucks to pay lawyers they are just going to eat that as the cost of doing business. At the same time if the guy who authorizes the adds (who probably sits on the board of directors) gets dragged off in a cop car and spends 10 years trading oral sex for protection from prison gangs that might actually mean something as a deterrant. Losing money they can afford is annoying to a company, but being held accountable like ordinary people... that's something else.

 

[zumbledum]

im not a lawyer (yay) but i believe false advertising is what goes on in normal adverts. like drinking a can of xxx makes you sexy successful and happy. i think the actual term for this is fraud.

 

[rapidoud]

Australian Law: The product doesn't fulfil its purpose (i.e. to play 2 games) then you are entitled to a full refund.

This is an outright lie though, deceptive advertising is used rampantly, but stating you get a free game (not like stores 'buy this, get this free', technically it's not free or I'd be able to get it on its own), and then subsequently getting nothing, would count as fraud.

 

[arealperson]

When I first heard the new I thought, "Well that's nice and all, but I'm not sure what the value of a multiplayer only game is going to be when it's competing against what should be it's usurper in every way," and so when I first read the news of this "in lieu of" business on Eurogamer I didn't really feel any strong emotions.  There was some cautious optimism on the boards at that time, hoping that EA would recognize their mistake, but then this is EA we're talking about.  It certainly changed my somewhat rosy outlook of them providing thing like Dead Space Extraction and MOH and some other half decent things they had offered on Origin.  The good news is I don't buy in early with pre-orders and I don't trust EA anymore anyways.

I'd like to use this opportunity to complain about Mercenaries 2, which when they cut off its multiplayer servers, they caused the game to cease to work when your console is connected to the internet >.< . &nbsp;Sony and Microsoft should lobby for a patch on behalf of us gamers on that one. &nbsp;Really bullshit for a console game.

Not to be a downer, but I think everyone celebrating needs to pause to consider how businesses work. Fighting this lawsuit is going to cost money, and losing it will cost even more money. The executives are NOT going to take that hit, so they're going to pass it down the chain until eventually they cut funding for some game in development. &nbsp;Now, granted that I've been on my own little boycott against EA for a while now, but this still means that some potentially awesome game is going to get canceled in order to pay for the lawsuit.

Er, or the money could have been cut from another fraudulent scheme they were cooking up. &nbsp;Be careful who you play Devil's Advocate for...