Gamer Sues Sony Over Killzone Multiplayer 1080p Claims

Karloff

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Gamer Sues Sony Over Killzone Multiplayer 1080p Claims


Douglas Ladore seeks damages for anyone who bought Killzone: Shadow Fall under 'false pretenses.'

When Sony released Killzone: Shadow Fall [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/8696-Killzone-Shadow-Fall] some gamers were disappointed that its multiplayer mode output was, at best, variable, and certainly not the 1920x1080 standard they were expecting. Douglas Ladore has taken his disappointment to California's District Court and filed a class action against Sony, seeking damages for those who bought the game under what he describes as "false pretenses."

The suit seeks in excess of $5 million, to "restore to Class members any money acquired by means of false advertising (restitution)" as well as cover legal fees. In essence, Ladore's looking to take every dime Sony made from Killzone: Shadow Fall as well as damages, preferably exemplary damages if it can be proven that Sony's conduct as willful.

Sony's position, as reiterated in a March blog post [http://www.killzone.com/en_GB/blog/news/2014-03-06_regarding-killzone-shadow-fall-and-1080p.html], is that both single and multiplayer output in 1080p, as promised. 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.

"We recognize the community's degree of investment on this matter, and that the conventional terminology used before may be too vague to effectively convey what's going on under the hood," said Sony in its blog post. "As such we will do our best to be more precise with our language in the future."

The class action specifically references a March Eurogamer article [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-in-theory-1080p30-or-720p60] on graphic performance, which did point out the Killzone issue, though at the time Eurogamer wasn't sure what the cause was. The article goes on to warn that achieving an actual 1080p performance isn't as straightforward as many gamers believe.

Anyone seeking the full text of the class action can find it here [http://ia902304.us.archive.org/23/items/gov.uscourts.cand.279671/gov.uscourts.cand.279671.1.0.pdf].

Source: Ars Technica [http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/08/california-man-sues-sony-over-killzones-1080p-graphics-claims/]


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major_chaos

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Feb 3, 2011
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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!!!".
 

tzimize

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Mar 1, 2010
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Good luck, I hope he succeeds though I have my doubts. Sonys lawyers will bury him I bet.

While I normally scoff at the low bar for lawsuits in the states, I applaud this effort and hope that it can contribute to teach companies not to bullshit their customers.
 

BeerTent

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May 8, 2011
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While I would normally say 'Jesus Christ States' I recently watched a documentary, and now I'm thinking back to my time in court. There really is no such thing as a frivolous lawsuit. An action like this changes your life. What this man is doing is extreme. There is no 'Lawsuit Lottery.' He is doing the right thing.

Companies need to be held accountable for their lies. If Sony promised true 1080p resolution for their game and didn't deliver, then rock on buddy! Take them for all their worth. Hell, take them for a bit more. Sony can take the hit. Let's hope it's not in a state with an arbitrary cap on damages.

Also, for those who'd immediately disagree with me on the "No such thing as Frivolous Lawsuit" bit... Get educated. Look up "Hot Coffee Documentary" on youtube. It's freely available.
 

Andy Shandy

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Jun 7, 2010
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If what the lawsuit claims is correct, then I hope it succeeds, no matter how petty it may seem. Hopefully, it would teach companies not to falsely advertise their games.
 

tdylan

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major_chaos said:
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.
 

Velociferocks

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While I most certainly think that Sony and Guerilla should not get off this false advertising thing with no consequences (nor any other company), I don't think giving some schmucks 5 million will make anything different. We will still get alien: colonial marines and it's ilk.
 

Ratty

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While I always support (trying to) making companies answer for blatantly false advertising, I don't expect this to go anywhere. I just hope when this case falls on its face it doesn't set any precedent that helps more serious abuses of "subjectively equivalent" advertising to slide by.
 
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However multiplayer uses what Sony describes as "temporal projection," utilizing multiple lower-resolution frames effectively stitched together to create the 1080p effect
I find this incredibly amusing. The 1080p effect indeed! 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 know people won't like to hear it, but I'll just say "PC" and be done with it.
 

Kargathia

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major_chaos said:
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!!!".
While it's not something I'd sue over, describing it as a "pointless moronic scam of a suit" is a bit much - especially since the gaming industry has been skirting the edges of blatantly false advertising for quite a while now.
 

XenoScifi

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To me the right thing would be for Sony to just publicly announce they had some wording issues with the 1080p claim, reiterate the way their games are being rendered to give consumers the feel of 1080p and offer a refund for those who want it.

Drop the lawsuit, fix the wrong and come out on top as somewhat of a good guy if you are Sony. At most you may get a few thousand wanting their money back for the game.

Happy world, happy people, can't we all just get along so on and so forth.
 

JarinArenos

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Kargathia said:
major_chaos said:
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!!!".
While it's not something I'd sue over, describing it as a "pointless moronic scam of a suit" is a bit much - especially since the gaming industry has been skirting the edges of blatantly false advertising for quite a while now.
That's basically my opinion here. The lawsuit seems frivolous on first glance, but anything that stops the shitty, shitty advertising lies the AAA games industry has been pumping out over recent years can only be a good thing in my book.
 

Vivi22

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major_chaos said:
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!!!".
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.
 

Elijin

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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.
 

EyeReaper

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Aug 17, 2011
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So wait, this guy wants to sue for 5 mil. and upwards over a blurry screen on a video game?

Now, I know false advertising is a bad thing and all, and I know legal fees can get pretty hefty in cases like this, but isn't that a bit much? Basically what I'm asking is, if this guy wins, does he get all this money, or will it be distributed to everyone who bought the game? Cuz, if he gets the cash... doesn't that mean he'll be profiting from all the saps who fell victim to the advertisements?

Of course, most of my law knowledge comes from buddy cop movies, so If I'm talking out of my ass, just ignore my comment.
 

Scorpid

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Jul 24, 2011
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I hope he wins this lawsuit. Not because blurry video games are such a tragedy but because publishers blatantly lying to their customers has become far too common. If he wins this it could open up publishers to more lawsuits (at least in California) for similar reasons. So go get em!
 

Scorpid

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oggebogge91 said:
While I most certainly think that Sony and Guerilla should not get off this false advertising thing with no consequences (nor any other company), I don't think giving some schmucks 5 million will make anything different. We will still get alien: colonial marines and it's ilk.
IF he wins this it becomes easier to sue over games like Aliens:CM. Wouldn't that be nice?
 

major_chaos

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Feb 3, 2011
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Vivi22 said:
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.
tdylan said:
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)
Kargathia said:
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.