Poll: Do you think Video Games Need a Lemon Law?

[l3o2828]

My first copy of Persona 4 bought from Gamespot was broken.
it only worked once, and even that time the game just froze at a certain point.
i complained but never got a clear answer, besides the 'no, we will not give you your money back OR give you another copy of the game'
I suppose this is what the thread is about since it isnt quite clear to me.
so yeah, if this is what its about then yes. i would love a lmons law.

BY THE WAY IM NOT SOCIALIST.

 

[GonzoGamer]

Personally, whenever I find that I've paid top price for a game that turned out to be crap-tacular, I blame myself for not reading enough reviews beforehand. This is where games differ from cars: Every copy of the same game has the same qualities. If the reviewer's copy of the game is bug-free, then yours will be too. The only way one copy can differ from another, is if the disc is damaged. And the consumer is, in most cases, already entitled to a refund or replacement if this happens.

I don't think we can expect publishers to keep up with our expectations. That would just be impossible. The quality of the creative isn't something that you can regulate: everyone has a different opinion. Most people liked No More Heroes but I hated it. And as much as it felt (to me) like an unfinished game, it still worked and did not freeze up every 15 mins. I can't blame Grasshopper because I didn't like it.

I did read/hear in a couple of reviews for FalloutNV that there were "a few bugs" but that they were already patching it. To me Fallout 3 had a "few bugs" but was still a playable game: I could play for 2 or 3 hours at a time and it would not freeze up; I can't say the same for FNV. Nothing short of "it's broken so wait until it's fixed" could've prepared me for that but no reviewers said that. I don't remember any of the reviews saying that it is one of the buggiest games and that there's a chance that you wont be able to go a half hour without having to give your console the ol' hard shut down.

And actually there were people who had different experiences. Some claim to have very few problems with FNV.

 

[Risingblade]

You socialist junky pussies make me sick. Always whining because some big corporation ripped you off. That?s what they do, suck it up like I do and save it for your manifesto you hippie.

 

[babinro]

There would be too much opinion to what is and what is not a lemon. One could put the argument forth that nearly every Bethesda game is a lemon because of the frequency of glitches and crashes.

Someone could also argue that Dragon Age 2 was a lemon because a large user base apparently couldn't play the game for about a week until an emergency patch was released. Similar situations exist with many other games, Civ 5 had a lot of consistency complaints.

Someone could also argue that a lemon is simply a game they don't like due to poor controls or the like.

All told, I think people should just continue to research their decisions and be cautious when buying anything new. Personally, my only experience with a buggy unplayable game turned out to be with GTA4 and Gamespot had no problems exchanging the game when I brought this concern to them.

 

[DirgeNovak]

I DON'T WANT YOUR DAMN LEMONS, WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THESE?!

Ahem. No. Bugs have been a part of gaming forever. And now they can patch console games to correct those bugs. I see that as an improvement. There is absolutely no need for that.

Also, your poll options are waaaay too long. There's no need to invent arguments for us.

 

[random_bars]

Yeah, there should be a lemon law. When life gives you lemons - when a dev gives you a broken game - get mad! Say, "I don't want your lemons! What am I supposed to do with these?!" Demand to see the dev's manager! Make the dev rue the day they thought they could give Cave Johnson lemons! - Do you know who I am?! I'm the man who's going to burn your house down, with the broken game! I'm gonna have my engineers invent a combustible broken game that's gonna burn your house down!!

 

[beema]

It would be nice to have such a thing, but in practice it probably wouldn't work so great.

I think "broken" games can be pretty subjective. If a game is really buggy, it's not as clear-cut as say, a car that has brake failure or something. There can be games that people call too buggy to play, but that you can actually play, just with a lot of annoyances.

It is interesting though, because as software, games are prone to issues that other forms of media (books, music) do not have, yet games are still grouped in with those things when it come to how they are viewed as retail items.
It would be akin to selling a book that is completely full of typos or something I guess. Maybe it just happens less in music/books/film because they are subject to more stringent QA processes, since none of them can be patched?

 

[CrystalShadow]

Personally, whenever I find that I've paid top price for a game that turned out to be crap-tacular, I blame myself for not reading enough reviews beforehand. This is where games differ from cars: Every copy of the same game has the same qualities. If the reviewer's copy of the game is bug-free, then yours will be too. The only way one copy can differ from another, is if the disc is damaged. And the consumer is, in most cases, already entitled to a refund or replacement if this happens.

That's not entirely true. Different releases might have different forms of DRM, or slightly different versions. (although if patching is involved that becomes less likely to make much difference).

A download version is often also fundamentally different to one that came on a disk.

But I guess you're still more or less correct.

Even if there are 10 or 20 different versions of a game, with different bugs available, as long as you know which version you're dealing with, your problems will be identical to anyone with that version.

 

[AbstractStream]

I voted first option by accident, I actually agree with the second. There have been times where I have been offered in a game store insurance with the game. If it breaks, comes out defective, or gets scratched up, you go back to the store and they give you a brand new copy no questions asked. Granted, you pay like $5-10 more upon purchase but insurance lasts a year...I think I went off topic. Anyway! Second option. Games are extremely buggy now-a-days.

 

[Booze Zombie]

I thought there were already laws pertaining to consumer-quality standards that pretty much functioned like a "lemon law"?

 

[GonzoGamer]

I think it's going a little far, but I do think if a company releases a game so buggy that it doesn't work they should be held accountable, and made to sink as much time and money as they need to get it fixed ASAP.

And what if (as is the case with many games this generation) they don't fix it.

And I'm not expecting every glitch and bug to be ironed out (hell, as someone suggested, some minor bugs can be entertaining) but if some people find that they have to do a hard shut down every half hour, that's something that needs to be fixed. And if it isn't fixed, do you think we should be able to demand our money back from the publisher?

It's too bad that these companies can't regulate it themselves/each-other (Sony should not allow Bethesda to release a patch that adds a whole new bug to an already buggy game) but they obviously don't.

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That?s beautiful man.

Honestly, compared to the crap we had to put up with in the older days (I can't tell you how many NES games had some sort of crazy problem), it's pretty unnecessary these days. Quality control is much better now, and even if there are problems, patches can usually fix it.

I never played any NES game that was nearly as bad as FNV. Most had a bug here and there but it seems to me that quality has gone way down since those days.

Almost every glitchy game gets patched, and then you don't have that recurring problem anymore. So that law wouldn't even apply.

Exactamundo! "Almost" every one.

If you don't see it that way, it confuses me, because if a publisher is supposed to have full control over all their IPs, then fuck, we don't need any design companies out there, just let EA and Activision run the gaming industry straight into the ground.

You say that like it's not exactly what the pair of them are doing .

On topic: I'm anti-government in general, so I'd be against legislating quality control. I will say, however, that I came into this topic expect it to be something about mandating combustible lemons in video games, and that I wholeheartedly support.

Yea, I hear anarchy is coming back.
I?m not exactly anti-government (though they don?t do many useful things do they) but I would never expect them to regulate this stuff. The game industry has the resources to regulate itself. In fact it already does but just with how appropriate the content is for younger gamers. Why not have that same body regulate how buggy a game can be for launch. Or maybe they can rate it:
E for Endearing little bugs that will probably make you laugh.
T for Tiny bugs you probably wont notice.
M for slightly maddening amount of bugs.
AO for Assholes would Only release something this bad.

 

[Xaio30]

When life hands you a lemon, burn down your neighbor's house with it.

 

[linwolf]

Where are the option for have never brought a game that I wasn't happy with, it's not that hard to do research before buying.

 

[Magicman10893]

But that would mean Obsidian would be out of business! That wasn't even an attempt at trolling, I love their games, but the amount of glitches would put so many people off.

 

[FarleShadow]

Go get Civilization V. Play a Huge map and play Conquest only. I double fucking dare ya
(If you're extra masochistic, play it on Marathon mode too. And while you're at it, you could also chew on some broken glass)

PS
That's not the only place it's broken, just a way you'll get to see the full extent of how broken it is, with the exception of witnessing the shitness of the AI in it's full splendor (fear not, you'll witness most of it anyway, just not the other victory-related stuff)

Hah, well I do play Civ, but I wouldn't buy it until its cheap (Same as the other genres I don't care for, but would play if it was cheap), by which time it'll be patched.

Checkmate, sir!

 

[Zantos]

I think it's going a little far, but I do think if a company releases a game so buggy that it doesn't work they should be held accountable, and made to sink as much time and money as they need to get it fixed ASAP.

And what if (as is the case with many games this generation) they don't fix it.

I think the easiest to enforce would be to simply fine the company for every extra day the game has faults that make it unplayable as determined by independent committee. With a certain company that won't be named but sounds quite a lot like Dethesda Coftworks you could probably pay off a good chunk of the US deficit with the quality they release at. If them messing up is going to cut into the profit margin for the release I'd imagine they'll put in that little bit extra attention when they test it.

 

[Vrach]

Go get Civilization V. Play a Huge map and play Conquest only. I double fucking dare ya
(If you're extra masochistic, play it on Marathon mode too. And while you're at it, you could also chew on some broken glass)

PS
That's not the only place it's broken, just a way you'll get to see the full extent of how broken it is, with the exception of witnessing the shitness of the AI in it's full splendor (fear not, you'll witness most of it anyway, just not the other victory-related stuff)

Hah, well I do play Civ, but I wouldn't buy it until its cheap (Same as the other genres I don't care for, but would play if it was cheap), by which time it'll be patched.

Checkmate, sir!

7 months post release, barely any issues solved, still plenty of things buggy, further bugs introduced via patches, game crashes still not even close to being eliminated. And even x years from now if they're still doing patches, they'll never sort out their code, making the game laggy and slow even on computers well past their required specs.

The word you were looking for was "check", without the mate part, for it belongs to me

 

[PurplePlatypus]

Games are not cars, and the simple idea of tacking on a law for cars onto something very different, like video games, is inherently a stupid idea.

Games are extremely buggy now-a-days.

Horribly buggy games are anything but a recent occurrence.