not_you said:
shintakie10 said:
For video game publishers, especially those that have shareholders, sayin you fucked up opens you up to all kinds of legal repercussions. Think about the stock price drop. Ubi comin out and directly sayin we screwed up leaves them totally open to shareholders suin them for a loss of value in their shares.
Wait, a company can be sued because said company isn't worth as much when people bought shares?
That's all kinds of... *sigh*
Hmmm. Kind of. Long post - my apologies in advance. It's dubious enough a prospect to make generalizations about something as complex as any element of corporate law even WITH working knowledge of it, let alone with out any working knowledge.
Shareholders can, and do, sue. Yes. But the impetus for action has to be severe for them to bother doing so. And they don't generally go after their own company, as an entity, in which they have a stake (they usually will want to protect their investment). Instead, they go after the board of directors and the executives. Examples of activity that frequently results in suits from shareholders include: the directors and executives intentionally mislead shareholders; withhold material investment information from shareholders; act against the corporate entity's best interests in a material way; act in a manner that results in dramatic losses in share value beyond the margin of what normal market fluctuations would reflect, had those actions been responsible. *Note that all of these reasons and the vast majority of others I can think off the top of my head indicate an impetus to act for compensation as a result of damage to shareholders -- not damage to consumers.
In the case with Ubisoft, an admission of being overly restrictive with review policies, unrealistic with release schedules, and poor with PR is not enough of an impetus to leave them wide open for legal action all around from pitchfork weilding shareholders. Consider product recalls for example, particulary those in the auto industry. An auto maker has a poorly engineered car, and under the right conditions this car can catch fire (I'm just using an example, but things like this are real - this has happened). The company admits the mistake, has a recall, does a lot of damage control, mitigates it's losses, settles claims with injured parties, and goes right on about its business without ever worying about mass lawsuits from shareholders. And that's for serious mistakes - mistakes that can hurt people. They do recalls all the time for little things that don't hurt anyone, and it's business as usual. Engineering teams get fired, maybe a few corporate heads roll, but their operations don't skip a beat. Owning up to a mistake is actually pretty ok. An admission would not hurt Ubisoft in the slightest.
For that matter, when stock prices rebound as a result of owning up, making corrections, and restoring customer faith and relationships - admitting to a mistake can actually be VERY ok!
The world of corporate fiduciary duty between the corporate entity, the board of directors, and the shareholders has nothing to do with, and is absolutely nothing like the world of medical malpractice (or any other malpractice) to which the person your are quoting compares it (and I'm not even going to bother addressing that one).
OT: Why doesn't Ubisoft just wait until they make their game not shit? Then they can be proud of it, smile everytime they send out a review copy, and have a great time interacting with their consumer base. Wouldn't you rather do that, Ubisoft? Doesn't that sound like a lot more fun?