Gamer Sues Sony Over Killzone Multiplayer 1080p Claims

[Big_Boss_Mantis]

Look, I am all against false advertising, and I think companies should pay when they engage in anti-consumer tatics.

But, gee, there is really ANY importance that the multiplayer is not on native 1080p if the system is, indeed, emulating it?!
"Many gamers, Ladore included, found the result unacceptably blurry." What I heard is "many crybabies ended up crying because they wanted their pacifiers corn-flower-blue and they got it light-cerulean".

If I was Sony's lawyer (waiting for your call, Kaz) I would advise them to hurry up and release a patch that made the multiplayer NATIVE 1080 and made the game stutter like a husband meeting his wife in the exit of the whorehouse.
And I would make it optional, so that the players could still play the "blurry" version if they wanted to.
And I would call the optional locked 1080p resolution the "Ladore crybaby mode". (well, not that last one because it would cause an PR nightmare)

YES, Sony could have worded it better, but I don't find what they said false advertising. (it would be another thing if the game was fixed at 720p)
They said 1080p. They delivered 1080p. If the players didn't liked their 1080p, well, though stuff... Don't buy more games from that studio.

I bought (highly discounted) Soul Sacrifice for the Vita and found it painfully bad. By the way, the same happened with Killzone Mercenary, which was incredibly dull.
Should I take them to court for making a bad game and advertising it as a good one?

 

[Remus]

I'm not sure what is more sad, this pointless moronic scam of a suit, or the fact that I bet some people here are on the guy's side just because "gotta stick it to the man, man!!!".

I'm currently involved in such a lawsuit based on a supplement company allegedly falsifying the protein content of their whey protein supplement. I happened across it, thought "What? I've been using that stuff since 2011!" called up the attorney, and sent him my receipts, as well as pictures of the UPCs of the bottles currently sitting in my house. I bought their product, instead of their competitors, because they told me it was something that it, allegedly, is not. Now, I've been told that such lawsuits don't amount to much for the plaintiffs, because any judgement issued are spread across so many plaintiffs that you end up with a $1 per person, or so. Also, I've heard that the law firms involved usually end up screwing the plaintiffs by throwing on "fees and expenses" which result in them receiving most of any money attained, but do I not have the right to sue the company that only received my money because of false advertising?

Arguably, people shelled out money for a PS4, and the PS4 exclusive game in part due to the promise of what the game had to offer. And if they knew that it wouldn't offer that, they may have spend their money elsewhere, or not at all. I think you have every right to sue when facts have been misrepresented.

I guess it varies from suit to suit. In the one class action I was party to (against Wal-Mart) I received just over $500, a bit more than I would've earned from 2 weeks pay when I was working there. Wasn't huge but not small either. For the damages that the suit was about and the paperwork I filed, I had expected far less.

On topic - I'm still using my little 29" 720p Samsung from 2007. It's never done me wrong and I haven't really had the money to upgrade to 1080p. My PS4 games look beautiful on it. At a certain point people can become too obsessed with graphic fidelity to just shut up and enjoy their game. So that's my advice. Does it play well? Is it fun? Are the FPS over 30? If so, shut up and play.

 

[Kargathia]

skirting the edges of blatantly false advertising for quite a while now.

All advertising does, its practically the point. Has been for as long as I can remember, and it was TV, not videogames that set the standard. If someone actually believes that any advertising is 100% true they are at the top of the "at risk to be scammed" list.

You may have slightly missed the point here. Advertising indeed is meant to present its product in as positive a light as possible.
However, there is a line between showcasing positively, and outright lying about your product, and the gaming industry has, on multiple occasions brushed so close past the latter that it'd take a lawyer to explain the difference.

Off the top off my head:

- Aliens: Colonial Marines
- Watch_Dogs "E3 graphics settings"
- heavily suggesting pre-rendered trailers are ingame footage (too many to name)

Are they liable to lose all profit from the latest iteration of Killzone? Probably not. Should the US equivalent of the Advertising Standards Commission have called bullshit years ago? Yes, they should have.

 

[Something Amyss]

I'm not sure what is more sad, this pointless moronic scam of a suit, or the fact that I bet some people here are on the guy's side just because "gotta stick it to the man, man!!!".

I knooooow, right? Why should a gamer feel entitled to a game that is as it was claimed to be?

This has to be, like, the lamest reason for a lawsuit ever. What a scam.

Not sure how a lawsuit which takes a gaming company to task for false advertising is a "pointless moronic scam of a suit."

Well, it's a free market. If the consumer didn't like being lied to, they could just not buy. Oh, sure, some people might say that they had no way to effectively determine such status, but that's just lazy.

If they were asking for their money back, I would totally be on board.

But 5 million in damages? Nope, you're just being greedy assholes.

5 mill for restitution to all members of the class-action suit and legal fees.

Do you honestly think any one person (well, lawyers aside) will see any significant portion of that money? Without factoring legal fees, that's about seven bucks per US customer (assuming physical sales only, mind, so it's probably at least somewhat less). All things considered, do you still think they're greedy assholes?

 

[EHKOS]

It's a small problem, but the principle behind it...mmmm. Not sure where I stand on this one. I love Sony, so that may be part of it.

 

[Elijin]

If your figures are accurate, then it just shifts the class action to letting the lawyers pad their pockets with everyones money, which is a shame.

Would rather see a more limited action which resulted in refunds available, but then I have no idea how the US legal system works.

 

[Something Amyss]

What I heard is "many crybabies ended up crying because they wanted their pacifiers corn-flower-blue and they got it light-cerulean".

Have you floated this past PC users? Because they're already complaining about games not having 4K support when not even advertised as 4K.

 

[Fifty-One]

Good. Hold these companies accountable. As for 5 million dollars, if you don't throw a big number at these companies they won't change their tune. They probably won't even change their tune at 5 million dollars either.

 

[The Grim Ace]

snip

You do realize that the 5 million he's seeking wouldn't go towards him alone, he's filing it as a class action lawsuit, he's probably getting 50 cents off of that if even that much as the judgment would be spread to his representatives and the class as a whole. The class in this case seems to be anyone who bought Killzone which, honestly, is a wonky claim since I don't think everyone buying it was there for true 1080p but, at the same time, false advertisement is false advertisement. The only thing that sends a message better than voting with your wallet is defeating a company in court as that can set a precedent.

The more interesting part of this case is how the judge will weigh the PSN EULA in all of this, since it removes the option for the end user to file a class action lawsuit against Sony. That could probably destroy this case as soon as it enters court.

So good effort, I guess.

 

[tdylan]

What brand of protein was it? How did you find out that it was'nt what it said on the tub?

The brand is Body Fortress. I happened across a video on youtube of a supplement distributor talking about it. The guy can be a little off putting, so I won't link to the video, but here's a link to an article about it:

http://tinyurl.com/qzz2uqz

OT: The message to Sony and the like needs to be "quit false advertising, or you're gonna have to answer for it in the only way you respect - paying money."

 

[Rozalia1]

There is no hope in this winning, and is no grand cause either. Its resolution, graphics people in a shooter of all things. Don't be a mark and actually care so greatly about such things.

 

[Mr_Spanky]

Not sure how a lawsuit which takes a gaming company to task for false advertising is a "pointless moronic scam of a suit."Game companies have been doing everything from frequently toeing the false advertising line to outright lying in some cases for years. They absolutely should be held accountable when they get caught and a lawsuit is one way to do that. Calling it sad to support the idea of calling dishonest companies on their bullshit is absurd.

Saying that Sony should lose every penny they made off a massive project over a graphics technicality that the guy who started this probably didn't even know about till he read the Eurogamer article doesn't strike you as a tiny bit batshit fucking insane? This isn't like Sony got caught in some massive scandalous deception, its a a wording quibble.

Who's saying that Sony will lose every penny? 5 million dollars is definitely not every penny. And I don't know if you've noticed but "wording quibbles" are pretty goddamn important in the law.

Arguably, people shelled out money for a PS4, and the PS4 exclusive game in part due to the promise of what the game had to offer. And if they knew that it wouldn't offer that, they may have spend their money elsewhere, or not at all. I think you have every right to sue when facts have been misrepresented.

If you bought a game solely because OMG1080p and feel the need to sue for 5mil because it was only kinda sorta 1080p my sympathy for you is totally nonexistent. (that was a general statement, not aimed at you personally)

Your sympathy levels or lack of them are not relevant. The law does not work on sympathy (or at least I fucking hope not). It's a set of rules and when someone or something breaks those rules they are (in theory at least) held accountable for that. The purpose of such a trial would be to ascertain whether or not the code of law has, in fact, been breached

skirting the edges of blatantly false advertising for quite a while now.

All advertising does, its practically the point. Has been for as long as I can remember, and it was TV, not videogames that set the standard. If someone actually believes that any advertising is 100% true they are at the top of the "at risk to be scammed" list.

This is a false comparison. What TV advertising does is to try and sell impressions, lifestyles and such but without actually saying that they are. When did you last see a TV advert that said anything factually untrue? You may have to read the small print a couple times but it IS there. But something like this is (arguably at least - that what the law-suit would be for) the same kind of case that forced Carlsberg to change their slogan from "The best beer in the world" to "Probably the best beer in the world".

You can't sue someone for having an opinion or a theory. If Killzone had "the possibility of supporting 1080p resolutions" according to devs etc then there would be no case. But saying it WILL and then not coming up with the goods . . . well thats at least questionable. Certainly imo raises it above the level of morons and scammers.

 

[Ishigami]

While I am in favor of kicking corporate this seems a rather weak case.
The case with BioWare lying about the ending of ME3 seemed like a stronger case but it was rejected for some reason.
I just would like to see any company punished for a PR lie just as an example. We simply had enough of those just tell the truth about your damn games and stop making shit up!

 

[QuadFish]

How tragic that the new consoles have to resort to tricks and subjective effects, particularly in light of audacious claims about the experience. Is the hardware incapable? Is it too new? Are the developers unable to optimise properly? Tricks were the domain of the last, long in the tooth generation where devs had to use any and every trick they could to get something new out of 2005 hardware.

I can't take it seriously anymore when companies make bold claims about the powerful new console generation, even though we're obviously still making compromises when it comes to visual quality. We're getting an increased polygon budget and then immediately pushing it so hard that a bunch of games have to sacrifice resolution and framerate to make up for it.

Seriously, I'm not sharing the same enthusiasm as the Sony and Microsoft devs until they can actually promise enough power for devs to not have to feel pressured to continue the problem. It feels like a marketing trick, like people are more likely to pick up game with the novelty factor of better visuals, even if losing crucial gameplay specs makes it less enjoyable in the long run.

 

[Big_Boss_Mantis]

What I heard is "many crybabies ended up crying because they wanted their pacifiers corn-flower-blue and they got it light-cerulean".

Have you floated this past PC users? Because they're already complaining about games not having 4K support when not even advertised as 4K.

See, even though I don't particularily care for performance shenanigans (resolution, fps, level of detail, etc), and anything that looks right and runs better than Drak Souls 1's Blighttown is fine for me, I DO accept that it might be a big deal for some people.

So, I do understand the PC crowd demanding the latest greatest thing tech has to offer. It is just catering to the PC audience. It is their target demographic.

On the other hand, console gaming is not about better resolution or fps.
It is about exclusives, optimization and, mostly, about laying down on a couch with a wireless controller and playing on a big ass TV without having to think much about the setup.

And, my main point, is that it really means nothing. Sony said 1080p. They made it 1080p using the tricks they had up their sleeves (as console games do, time and time again).
The gamer didn't liked what they did to get to 1080p. But that was never part of the deal... If he was so sensitive about the performance, he should be playing on a PC, that is the platform that best serves his needs.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

However multiplayer uses what Sony describes as "temporal projection," utilizing multiple lower-resolution frames effectively stitched together to create the 1080p effect, achieving "subjectively similar" results. Many gamers, Ladore included, found the result unacceptably blurry.

I'm curious what this technique actually does. It sounds like a weird form of interlacing.

Are they liable to lose all profit from the latest iteration of Killzone? Probably not. Should the US equivalent of the Advertising Standards Commission have called bullshit years ago? Yes, they should have.

Yeah see there's your problem. I'm pretty sure we don't have one of those. 'Cause yanno, corporations are the real government in this country.

The more interesting part of this case is how the judge will weigh the PSN EULA in all of this, since it removes the option for the end user to file a class action lawsuit against Sony. That could probably destroy this case as soon as it enters court.

Or the EULA, depending on whether or not the judge decides it matters that some other judge halfway across the country decided it was valid a couple of years ago.

 

[CaitSeith]

A lawsuit? Hmm... I don't know. When Sony advertised the 1080p he was clearly aware about how the gamers would interpret it. But several PS3 games already had a 1080p label on their boxes, and no one said "Hey! It's not 1080p! It's a fraud!" (or at least, not as loud as in this generation). I doubt someone can make these details understandable enough for a judge or a jury (specially with Sony's lawyers doing the opposite).

 

[Something Amyss]

-snip-

Sounds like special pleading to me. Or at least, "it's different because ponies."

 

[JSoup]

Has been for as long as I can remember, and it was TV, not videogames that set the standard.

Actually it was consumer product producers after the FDA started requiring everything in a given product to be put on a label in the 1920s (estimated, might have been earlier or later).

 

[MrHide-Patten]

That shit is not worth 5 fucking million dollars. I don't care about sticking it to the man, that amount is just obscene and undermines the whole argument as a shallow cash crab.