Gaming Advocacy Group Reports Black Ops to UK Government

[teknoarcanist]

If I bought a new car and the engine didn't turn on, you bet your ass I would want that fixed or I would sue. Same basic principle. Access by the common man to the courts, over matters of corporate/industrial deception and exploitation, is one of the great equalizers of our society. The guy who said "just buy it on 360 and shut up" actually made me cry a single tear for my land, like that Indian in that 60's PSA.

 

[zehydra]

should I say it?

yes, I should.


YOU bought a game.

If the game is not up to expectations of what YOU think it is, by all means sell it.


this is like someone buying a shit sandwich and complaining that their shit has corn in it.


edit: I mean really, if a game isnt good then get rid of it and voice why you got rid of it, example, Halo Reach because it was just Halo 3 with jetpacks.

That is not a good comparison, with the shit sandwich analogy.

This is a better one: A new brand of car is to come out in half a year that will be easily available for purchase by people in the US, Canada, and Britain. It advertises a lot of special features like 4 wheel drive, OnStar, Rear View Camera, and a built in navigation unit. When the car does come out, tons of people from the US, Canada, and Britain buy the product as soon as it comes out in all the hype. However, people in Canada and Britain start to notice that the navigation unit only has certain places mapped out and back roads are not in the system. The 4 wheel drive works, but the car has barely any torque that renders off roading nearly impossible.

The US version of the car works much better. Better torque and the navigation unit has most of the US mapped out. The reason why the US version of the car works a lot better is the company is based in the US and made the US version before altering it slightly for Canadian and Britain customers. However, what they should have done, was take as much effort in the foreign exports as they did with the domestic products.

Now say that you are a Canadian customer who has bought this defective car whose features did not live up to what it was advertised to be. You paid 30K for this car and if you sell it now, you'll only be able to get maybe 22K. You've lost 8k buying a product that falsely advertised its features and by no means lived up to your expectations. Should you just be like "well, it was my fault. I bought it. I'll just sell it." or should you hold the company accountable for falsely advertising the car and wasting your time and money?

I'm not sure that the presence of these bugs in CoD indicates that you didn't buy what was advertised.

In the example I gave, you did get all of the features advertised in the car, but there are severe problems with these features that did not live up to what the advertisements made the features out to be. You got a navigational unit, but it did not work correctly in your country of origin. You got 4 wheel drive, but not enough torque to make using 4 wheel drive of any use.

With Black Ops at least for PS3, you got multiplayer, as stated on the case of the game. However, the horrible service for that multiplayer can make playing it nigh impossible for a lot of people. Constant mid game disconnects, disconnecting from lobbies, etc. So yes, people got Black Ops multiplayer but if they got it for PS3, it is very hard and frustrating to get multiplayer to work. Customers should not have to put up with this, and there should be something done, and soon.

but is it really the government's job to do that?

 

[IAmWright777]

Halo Reach because it was just Halo 3 with jetpacks.

No, don't insult the jetpacks. I loves the jetpacks.

I can agree with your point though.

 

[-Ulven-]

Won't this cripple gaming industry... giving us less titles (some might be better) but also dumbing things down to avoid bugs.

So we will boil down to one winning formula of games... bah.

How dare we ask for playable games.

The point where someone can literally throw out the game in disgust after being glitched out of a life/an incompleteable objective/stuck in walls and requires a restart/save corruption, then you clearly need an extra month on bug fixing.

Offcourse I am not saying that bugs are good and people should throw it out bugged. Still who buys games? We do and we are responsible for making buggy franchises succsesfull... would you try something new with games if you risked legal action?

Still, how activision releases games is unnaceptable. They do treat their customers as crap.

 

[p3t3r]

wtf people are really complainy these days

 

[Spawny0908]

just get it on the 360 and stop complaining. jeez. its not that hard.

Not everyone can afford two consoles, and it should work equally on all versions.

For reference, I own a 360.

Amen. I own a 360 and a PS3 but I too believe games should work as designed on all available platforms. If we put up our money you should put in the time to make sure it works right. Is the PS3 version that bad? I haven't played in a bit but I do remember the 360 version not being a bed of roses either. PS3 owners how bad is it?

 

[VelvetHorror]

In the example I gave, you did get all of the features advertised in the car, but there are severe problems with these features that did not live up to what the advertisements made the features out to be. You got a navigational unit, but it did not work correctly in your country of origin. You got 4 wheel drive, but not enough torque to make using 4 wheel drive of any use.

With Black Ops at least for PS3, you got multiplayer, as stated on the case of the game. However, the horrible service for that multiplayer can make playing it nigh impossible for a lot of people. Constant mid game disconnects, disconnecting from lobbies, etc. So yes, people got Black Ops multiplayer but if they got it for PS3, it is very hard and frustrating to get multiplayer to work. Customers should not have to put up with this, and there should be something done, and soon.

but is it really the government's job to do that?

Government should not have to get involved, but sometimes it does need to if services and products are not living up to the majority of customer expectations and nothing is being done by the manufacturer or provider of the product/service. For example, I'm pretty sure that you cannot get refunded by Activision itself, for all the value of your purchased product. You MIGHT be able to get a nice coupon or maybe free download of the upcoming first strike map pack if you complain long enough over the phone, but something needs to be done for the majority of customers that aren't going to unanimously unite over this to get the problem fixed. Some sort of agency needs to get involved. Perhaps the Better Business Bureau, I dunno. I'm just interested in seeing what the Gaming Advoccy Group can get done. Even if their attempt does not work, it'll bound to get Activision's attention, and may persuade them to really do SOMETHING for PS3 and PC users.

 

[newwiseman]

So when is the lawsuit against Bethesda for Fallout: New Vegas constantly crashing.

 

[MrTub]

Good! I still have some friends that cant play BO cause it simply wont work with for them.

 

[Easton Dark]

Wait, so the Wii version is bug-free? MIGRATION, GO GO GO!

well then too bad. you knew the risks of getting into PC gaming, just have to go with it until Activision or the community fixes it then. sorry :/ *shrugs*

Buggy games are not a risk of PC gaming...... They shouldn't be a risk of ANY GAMING.

I'm getting tired of the model of releasing 5 patches the month after release. Why is it that people that pay MORE for a game when it comes out get a less enjoyable experience (in most cases)?

 

[qeinar]

I wish these guys would have played New Vegas when it first came out...

OT: I've not played the ps3 or pc version myself but I've never heard complaints about this kind of thing when talking to friends about it.

on pc not all computers have the lag. it's just not optimized for alot of the hardware. also "before it was fixed" is the clue here. having played all the fallout games i know there have been alot of glitches and well none of them are as bad as playing black ops on one of my 2 pcs.

 

[jebbo]

This is something I've always wondered about with the games industry, because it doesn't seem to work the same as any other industry. If I bought a book that had one page where the ink had run and was completely illegible, I would be fully in my rights to have a refund and replacement, if I got a DVD that due to an error didn't have the end of the movie (happened when I bought Predator, I'm not just hypothetical) then I take it back and get a refund for a faulty product. If I buy aguitar I expect it to work as advertised.

In fact, if I buy any piece of technology, especially at full price, I expect to be fully compensated if it doesn't work as advertised. But games get away with having multiple bugs and glitches, most of which are never fixed, and yet I never get a refund, or a replacement, or even an apology about how crap the quality of the game is.

Game developers provide a service, which is developing a fully functioning game, I pay them the full amount of money they demand for that game, and I expect it to work as a fully functioning game. It should be a contract in the way that all purchases are, but for some reason videogames don't seem to be held to the same standards.

On an unrelated note, this Captcha thing is starting to really piss me off.

Unfortunately there are rules that govern the sale of "software" that differentiate it from sales of other goods. Video games fall under the category of software. These rules [VERY] basically say that the consumer has no right to refuse and ask for a refund if the software performs as advertised.

Now this is an odd stance to explain. If the product is not 'faulty' ie it works as sold and the code intended has designed it to run then it cannot be exchanged. If for instance an entire portion didn't load then it would be faulty.

What this group is effectively trying to do is blur the boundaries by saying that even the code isn't 'broken' it still doesn't provide the intended experience. This becomes a subjective argument and therefore very difficult to hold up in litigation.

For one I hope they can though, this along with New Vegas have been blights on the industry recently

 

[freakonaleash]

well it only occasionaly freezes on multiplayer on the PS3 for me, so I don't see how it is broken.

 

[captaincabbage]

Why didn't they report Fallout: New Vegas then? I've had no issues with Black Ops, but New Vegas is a glitchy-glitch-fest.

 

[qeinar]

So when is the lawsuit against Bethesda for Fallout: New Vegas constantly crashing.

wow i have nearly no problem with the crashes in new vegas, shure it's anoying, but not close to as anoying as the lag i get on black ops. imagine your aiming at something, but the aim freeze up so i can't move it for 1-3 secounds, and after the freeze period it instantly moves to the place of where i have moved the mouse. since both my computers are way above the minimum requirements, meaning i should be able to run the game without lag this comes across as false advertising to me, when they are clearly stating i should be able to run this game on my computers.

 

[squid5580]

Woah if they do win this could put quite a spin on the console wars. Saying that they favored one console over the other platforms (which seems to be happening more and more) could lead to us all getting the same vanilla versions of the same games. Wouldn't that be a treat. No more feeling ripped off because that version got exclusive content that the other didn't. Like it should be. Not to be confused with exclusive games mind you.

 

[JohnGD117]

Case in point... Fallout: New Vegas.

I have never played such an absurdly broken, untested, buggy, crashridden pile of unfinished-ness in my life, and I even had the 360 version, which had the fewest bugs!

All the DLC for the game should be free just to make up for it, and it really rubs me the wrong way that the developer not only got away with it, but got Game of the Year in some circles!

The game is still good, but imagine how much BETTER it would have been.

 

[Unesh52]

should I say it?

yes, I should.


YOU bought a game.

If the game is not up to expectations of what YOU think it is, by all means sell it.


this is like someone buying a shit sandwich and complaining that their shit has corn in it.


edit: I mean really, if a game isnt good then get rid of it and voice why you got rid of it, example, Halo Reach because it was just Halo 3 with jetpacks.

It's not that the game isn't good (I mean, it's not for the most part, but that's not the point). It's that it doesn't work properly. If you buy a new car from the dealer but then decide you really don't care for how cold leather gets in the winter, you have no right to expect some sort of compensation. But if you buy a new car and you find out a few weeks later, when they break, that the supports for the seat are made of bread, you have the right to expect a new car. Or at least to get the car fixed. It's still legit if they tell you it was made of bread beforehand, but if they don't, that's called fraud. And it's very illegal.

Now, this isn't nearly as cut-and-dry fraud as that situation was, but players bought the game with the expectation that they would be able to play it. I don't know about you, but 9 times out of 10, the reason I stop playing cod:blops is because it keeps kicking me out of games and failing to connect. That being said, I didn't notice any glitches in the campaign. I think they have a case, and some sort of action should be taken against those at fault. Then again, there might be little they could do that would remedy the situation. C'est la vie.

Now, while I'm thinking about it, that reminds me of the situation with Sony removing the other OS feature. Did they every get that feature back?

 

[Unesh52]

Buggy games are not a risk of PC gaming...... They shouldn't be a risk of ANY GAMING.

I'm getting tired of the model of releasing 5 patches the month after release. Why is it that people that pay MORE for a game when it comes out get a less enjoyable experience (in most cases)?

In an ideal world, you're right, no game should glitch. But it's just impossible to be %100 sure you've tested everything. And don't forget that testing costs money and loads of man-hours. At a certain point, it's just economically counter-productive to continue testing your games. And this is a much bigger problem on PC, because every gamer has his own particular system, any component of which might interact with the game in an unexpected way. That's why they have to patch at launch. I mean, they have a responsibility to make sure it works most of the time on most systems, but launch instability is just part of the process. Again, c'est la vie (I just learned that expression, and I rather like it).