Sony Revokes Fallout 4 Season Passes Obtained Through EU Pricing Error

[Paragon Fury]

Fair, and correct. It wasn't intended to be free nor should anyone have expected it to be so. I somehow ended up with a free copy of Advanced Warfare and AC: Unity on my XB1 account, which I got to play for a few days before XBL fixed it. I didn't complain about it, there was no reason to.

Funnily enough, one time I got credited $30 worth of Xbox Live points to my account when the 360 was still fresh. I called Customer Support to report the error and asked what happened as I was worried my account had been compromised. They determined it had been a system error and that my account was just fine. And they let me keep the $30 worth of points too for being honest and reporting it.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Fair, and correct. It wasn't intended to be free nor should anyone have expected it to be so. I somehow ended up with a free copy of Advanced Warfare and AC: Unity on my XB1 account, which I got to play for a few days before XBL fixed it. I didn't complain about it, there was no reason to.

Funnily enough, one time I got credited $30 worth of Xbox Live points to my account when the 360 was still fresh. I called Customer Support to report the error and asked what happened as I was worried my account had been compromised. They determined it had been a system error and that my account was just fine. And they let me keep the $30 worth of points too for being honest and reporting it.

Over the last 9 years of having XBL I've had nothing but great interactions with the staff. We've got a few freebies for service issues, a couple free name changes and some XBL points/bucks in what I guess was a customer appreciation gift. People give XBL shit but I've been happy paying them for service. Compared to my PSN experiences, its been worth the money. PS+ has only really been worth the cash because of the free games, but the servers have been shitty for download speeds and connections when compared to XBL.

 

[Outcast107]

Fair, and correct. It wasn't intended to be free nor should anyone have expected it to be so. I somehow ended up with a free copy of Advanced Warfare and AC: Unity on my XB1 account, which I got to play for a few days before XBL fixed it. I didn't complain about it, there was no reason to.

Funnily enough, one time I got credited $30 worth of Xbox Live points to my account when the 360 was still fresh. I called Customer Support to report the error and asked what happened as I was worried my account had been compromised. They determined it had been a system error and that my account was just fine. And they let me keep the $30 worth of points too for being honest and reporting it.

Over the last 9 years of having XBL I've had nothing but great interactions with the staff. We've got a few freebies for service issues, a couple free name changes and some XBL points/bucks in what I guess was a customer appreciation gift. People give XBL shit but I've been happy paying them for service. Compared to my PSN experiences, its been worth the money. PS+ has only really been worth the cash because of the free games, but the servers have been shitty for download speeds and connections when compared to XBL.

I also had a great experience with xbox live staff. When the xbox first came out, my dad bought Battlefield 4. Though something odd happen, and some random gamertag got on our xbox. So that profile got it instead of my dad. Called xbox live and told them this, and they gave us a refund.

 

[EyeReaper]

Let the entitlement whining parade commence!

"But it was their error, they should honor it!"

"They can't take away something that I'd purchased. Free or not, I purchased it!"

"The DLC is only worth 'free' anyways and shouldn't be charged for!"

"Boo! They've lost my business and I'll never buy a game from them again."

You forgot the ever classic "I wasn't going to pay real money for it, so somehow I deserve it for free"

Seriously though. No tear is wept from me for these poor people who will actually have to buy things like literally everyone else had to. You have to be either really naive or really stupid to think they'll just give away shit for free.

 

[Narcogen]

So this transaction is reversible because when Sony put it online for free, they didn't mean to.

If I make an online purchase of a downloadable title for $60, can I return it the next day because I didn't mean to?

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Fair, and correct. It wasn't intended to be free nor should anyone have expected it to be so. I somehow ended up with a free copy of Advanced Warfare and AC: Unity on my XB1 account, which I got to play for a few days before XBL fixed it. I didn't complain about it, there was no reason to.

Funnily enough, one time I got credited $30 worth of Xbox Live points to my account when the 360 was still fresh. I called Customer Support to report the error and asked what happened as I was worried my account had been compromised. They determined it had been a system error and that my account was just fine. And they let me keep the $30 worth of points too for being honest and reporting it.

Over the last 9 years of having XBL I've had nothing but great interactions with the staff. We've got a few freebies for service issues, a couple free name changes and some XBL points/bucks in what I guess was a customer appreciation gift. People give XBL shit but I've been happy paying them for service. Compared to my PSN experiences, its been worth the money. PS+ has only really been worth the cash because of the free games, but the servers have been shitty for download speeds and connections when compared to XBL.

I also had a great experience with xbox live staff. When the xbox first came out, my dad bought Battlefield 4. Though something odd happen, and some random gamertag got on our xbox. So that profile got it instead of my dad. Called xbox live and told them this, and they gave us a refund.

I absolutely judge companies and services most by their customer service departments, then of course by their products. Its really a balance, and if I'm on a first name basis with the service dept., of course there's a problem. However, I've rarely needed XBL's support but when I do I'm so damn confident they will take care of any problem I have.

 

[ecoho]

Let the entitlement whining parade commence!

"But it was their error, they should honor it!"

"They can't take away something that I'd purchased. Free or not, I purchased it!"

"The DLC is only worth 'free' anyways and shouldn't be charged for!"

"Boo! They've lost my business and I'll never buy a game from them again."

Yeah yeah, throw out the words "Entitled" and "whiny" as much as you want, it doesn't change the fact that Sony looks like assholes as a result of this.

They look like assholes to those with no business sense, maybe. If they let those who snatched up the erroneously free Season Pass actually keep what they got, then it'd be a big slap in the face to all paying customers. Bethesda already did their one time 'okay, you can have this.' with their acceptance of pre-order payment through actual bottle caps, anyway. You seriously don't think the decision is down to Sony alone, do you?

yes they look like assholes to those with no business sense and look like morons to those of us who do, and have PR experience. this was colossally stupid on their part as sony has fucked up royally the past few years, and make no mistake I blame this fully on sony who made the mistake. Bethesda has no reason to give these people the DLC for free but sony does and should by just biting the bullet paying Bethesda for the error and giving whats most likely at most a couple hundred people the DLC for free. Why should they do this? Because it GOOOD FUCKING PR and will make people more likely to use your service again. But hey what do I know, I just work in public relations.

Please try again with proper spelling, grammar, and general care for the presentation for your post. Really, you were a few missing punctuation marks away from a complete run on sentence. And no, no matter how good it would've been for PR, Sony would not have benefited from paying for the error outright. It would cost them money, and companies rather enjoy saving it.

So far the arguments I've seen in favor of the free season pass grabbers seem rather emotionally charged. It's almost as if people think it's a personal attack to have something they shouldn't have kept from them until they actually own it.

sorry for the grammar never has been my area of expertise.

good will comes in handy when your a company that continually fucks up epically and then takes forever getting compensation out to their customers. so yeah this was a PR disaster on top of another PR disaster. Your profile says you work in retail so ill ask if one of you cashiers screws up who is it who ends up paying for it, the company or the customer?

Depends on the screw-up, really. Did a customer walk out with a product that they were aware that they did not pay for? If I failed to catch them, usually a police report was filed and we made sure that the customer that did so never enters the store again. We eat the cost, of course, but the customer in the end is both at fault and should pay for it.

But that's different than what's happening here. See, a product was temporarily marked as free on accident and again, people took advantage. However, it's much easier to deal with given that the Season Pass is a digital purchase. No money was exchanged, which makes dealing with the problem easier.

All that you're really saying is that a policy 'fuck you, got mine' should be taken here, completely devaluing the worth a paying customer has in comparison to a non-paying customer who takes advantage of errors in digital shopping services.

Also, that reminds me, I gotta update my profile. I actually stopped working in retail a while back!

ok now I see were your coming from and will now no longer refer to you as well I was calling you something that I wont repeat here this is more a simple we fucked up moment give what you should fire the employee who made the mistake and move on as the amount of money that would be lost would be considered minimal. now that's not to say your wrong it could devalue the DLC for those who didn't get theirs for free but it would have been a better business decision to simply let those who already "bought" it keep it for free as in the long run the good PR would be worth the couple thousands a multimillion dollar company lost.

 

[Lord_Jaroh]

Hmmmm...I don't know how to feel about this, first of all anyone using the phrase "entitled gamers" or claiming its "Justice, because screw whining crybaby consumers" can fuck right off, entitled is a worthless word when it comes to companies, consumers are entitled to a great deal if you ask me especially when it comes to the game industry, now as for whether or not gamers have a right to be upset about the DLC being revoked...well I don't know I do think that it would have been better to just let the consumers keep it, I mean really how much money would it possibly cost the company? So a few customers got some DLC for a game for free.. the game industry is in desperate need of some proper consumer goodwill and getting some free DLC would certainly help...if Fallout 4 was free I would understand revoking it more, but the players already owned a legit copy of Fallout 4 I don't see why some DLC should be revoked, I think a better solution would have been revoke the season pass but let them keep whatever DLC was already downloaded. But no heaven forbid that a game actually give something to its consumers for once, nonono you must only get the exact value out of your games the company deems appropriate

You should check out a small game called Fallout Shelter, given away for free before Fallout 4 was released and is still updated now, for free.

 

[Kahani]

But once the sale is made and ownership of the item transfers to the customer, taking it away from them amounts to theft.

The problem here is the "sale" part. In the UK, and I assume in most other countries, there's a fundamental difference between buying something, no matter how small the cost, and getting it for free. This is why there are such things as peppercorn rents [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppercorn_%28legal%29] - where an organisation, often a charity or community group, will be allowed to rent land or buildings in exchange for one peppercorn per year. In that case it's not even money that is paid, the important point is that there is an exchange, and this gives rights that would not exist in law if they were simply allowed to use the space for free. This is also why effectively worthless or heavily in debt companies will be sold for ?1 (see this recent example [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35883134]); a transaction in which an utterly insignificant sum is exchanged is fundamentally different from giving away something for free. This extends to general consumers as well. Look at how many things are offered on Amazon for ?0.01 plus postage, for example, while none are offered for free. Sites like Gumtree for second-hand goods have to have separate sections for things that are sold and things that are given away.

I'm not aware of these principles being tested in court for digital goods, but there's no reason to think they wouldn't still apply. If you are accidentally able to download something for free, there has not been any sale and you do not have the same rights you would if you had actually made a payment. Whether their actions are ethical or good PR is a different question entirely, but from a legal point of view Sony are almost certainly in the right.

Of course, it's also worth noting that this is far from the first case of the kind. In one of the most ironic actions ever taken, Amazon famously removed the book 1984 from people's Kindles when they discovered the publisher didn't actually have permission to sell it. That involved people who had actually paid for the book (they gave a refund), but there was never even a suggestion that anything criminal had taken place. There was a civil lawsuit, but it focused on the effect removing the book had on notes made about it rather than the legality of the removal itself, and in any case was settled before the court made any decision.

 

[Mr_Spanky]

To me that simply amounts to theft. Make all the grovling apologises you want but if the fuck up is YOURs then you get to have to live with it. This BS that corperate law and legality is somehow retractable after the fact fills me the want to vomit. Try having a go at "I bought your game by mistake and I dont want it please refund me" and see where the fuck it gets you.

Let the entitlement whining parade commence!

"But it was their error, they should honor it!"

"They can't take away something that I'd purchased. Free or not, I purchased it!"

"The DLC is only worth 'free' anyways and shouldn't be charged for!"

"Boo! They've lost my business and I'll never buy a game from them again."

Spout this all you will but, regardless of these points, do you not think the wiser (and definitely more PR+ desicion) would have been to say: "We didn't mean to do that but we will accept the losses due to our own mistake" (et al)?

Of course it depends of the precise amount that they would stand to lose as a result of this - but given it's such a well known franchise I'm having difficulty believeing it would have been THAT much comparatively.

Your use of the word "entitlement" fyi is plain dumb. Learn what the word means before internet cunts took it - then maybe you'll be able to use it like an adult.

Although I guess you're right in last part of your (somewhat) inane post: I was considering buying FO4 when It came on sale but now . . . I've been a fan for many years - but shit like this tells me where it's all going.

Cause if you think it devs making the choices behind shit like this you're gorram wrong.