Gamer Sues SEGA and Gearbox over Aliens: Colonial Marines Quality

Um, okay. Isn't this a silly reason to sue someone? Please tell me I'm not the only one thinking that.

If you're one of those people (which I myself am not) that cares more about quality than having fun, rent the game first. It's that simple.

• Source: Metro
• Published: 5/1/2013

 

When a game is in development as long as this one was, and despite how bad it was, it's only natural that some people would be disappointed by the quality. If someone says something, I expect it to be that and nothing else. SEGA and Gearbox made the demo better than the actual game, and that's false advertising. Some would even say it's like "let's make the demo all cool and then sell a terrible game that people will buy because the demo was cool."

They should be held accountable for their mistakes. If people were disappointed with it, it's the developers' fault.

And it's not about having fun, it's about the quality being so bad you CAN'T have fun.

 

It's not the quality that was the problem being sued over, but the false advertisement of quality. What the consumers were told they were getting and what they got were entirely different to the point of being insulting towards the consumer. While the game might indeed be an okay game in its own right, the advertisements showed it as being far better than it ended up being.

 

It's sorta the debate I put up: Do companies go too far in advertising? There is so much hype and lies that are posted now about games. Hell, I remember when Duke Nukem Forever finally came out and a group of friends played it for a night hyped beyond belief from all the trailers and excitement. The next day after the host got sober he went on Youtube and publicly apologized for how horrible the game was and how his friends complained about how bad it was.

It happens, should it not? Yes, games shouldn't be bad. The ending alone from Aliens is considered the worst ending so far this year. Should a company be sued over it? Maybe, but you have to also make a choice as a consumer to not buy the game. To read the reviews and see the warning signs that the game isn't going to be good. The gaming industry has enough red flags now that you should see it. I'm not saying gaming companies should not be held responsible for what they did, they should, but they shouldn't be sued either. Don't buy anymore games from them. Return it and warn others of the game. Suing isn't going to help.

 

I suppose you could sue them for false advertising, ridiculous as it may be. You should always expect for a game to be different in a demo than in the final production. If it was intentionally done by the company solely for the purpose of making sales, then let them go for the law suit. I myself wouldn't bother. I'd take it to the chin and say, "Well, you got me." Given I'd never buy another game they produce thereafter, but I wouldn't make that big a deal of it. Lest I paid sixty dollars for an overclocked version of Pac-Man when it was supposed to be an outstanding third-person shooter, I probably wouldn't cry. You always keep receipts for this reason.

 

The article lays it out pretty cleanly: If people are trying to scam their customers, they should be held accountable, no matter the field of business. No two ways about that. I play games to have fun, but I also watch trailers and game play demos to help me figure out if I think a game will be fun. If those trailers and demos are lying to me, how am I supposed to know? If I end up with a steaming pile of garbage that's not fun at all, am I just supposed to pretend it's ok?

I don't blame the guy, and I hope more people step up to the plate. Especially if it's Sega at the reins, since they're particularly bad at making good on their promises or listening to the fans. Maybe they'll listen when we're waving lawsuits in their face.

 

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Well, I haven' t played that particular demo, but most demos I' ve ever played, if not all, had a "this demo is based on an unfinished product and as such yaddy yaddy yadda" message. If memory serves most official trailers have it too, precisely to kill any attempt at that kind of lawsuit in the egg.

All the lawsuits against "dishonest" movie trailers I' ve ever heard of have failed, legally I think their asses are pretty much covered on that front.

http://www.screengeek.co.uk/features/article/the-drive-lawsuit-and-other-misleading-trailers

I can think of a more obvious contender : not a single shot in the Paranormal Activity 3 trailer was from the movie. It made it look like it would address a specific plot point from the previous entries, but the actual movie didn' t even mention it. They probably wouldn' t do that kind of thing if they didn' t know for sure they could get away with it.

 

Yeah, but why can they get away with it? Is it because it's legal, or because nobody would challenge them?

 

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I think when it comes to trailers they aren' t legally hold to add any warning because people are expected to implicitely know they' re being lied to. Marketing is a seduction operation, when you' re flirting you probably avoid mentioning upfront that you really have a wart on your ass, fart in bed and snore, more realistically you' re wearing make-up and disclaiming (more or less blatantly) asspulled qualities or facts about yourself.

Of course, we can draw a line between lies by omission and outright outrageous deception, but the thing is that a marriage based on outright lies affects your life significantly, whereas 60 bucks wasted on a video game doesn' t. Do you have a point on paper ? Sure. Is it worth wasting ridiculous amounts of state money in courts ? I take it most judges would classify this as a blatant frivolous lawsuit. At least that' s my assumption, I take it if there was a way to make money in court based on that, somebody would already have. Just snob that editor and let it be a cautionary tale as to why you should be more cautious from now on, problem solved.

But hey, this is just my own guesswork, Forsaken probably knows more than I do about the legal consensus on that matter.

Reminds me of MGS2 btw, some people complain to this day about Kojima making it look like we were going to play as Snake, whereas the whole point of the game was to show us how easy it is to manipulate us and how naive we' d have to be not to expect it.

 

I don't see this winning. Expectations held by fans of series usually are subjective and not quantifiable. There aren't laws that put forward a criteria for media mediums to say what is representative of a final product and what is not, it seems stupid if you tried to.
Also, why the hell sue a company for a game you didn't enjoy? I get it's over the whole demonstrations compared to final product, but from thenlittle snippets i've seen, they look like the same product to me. I know the final product is a disappointment, but it's not worth sueing over.

Like libre says, Gearbox should be getting sued for their actions and responsibility over this product.

 

To be fair, Duke Nukeum Forever was damn bad and no one really sued them for it did they?

Suing a game because of how bad it is makes me wanna facepalm. Really? It''s a ridiculous reason to sue someone over that. The problem with this is the GAMER THEMSELF. They don't take to time to research the game before buying it. Every game I bought I've done research on and made sure it had components in them I would enjoy, even if the mainstream media says they suck. This would be even more embarrassing if the gamer actually pre-ordered the game. If that's the case, then he should have NO RIGHT to sue. Pre-ordering a game literally says, "I trust the game producers and the game itself that it's gonna be a good game and I will actually invest money and time to this game, knowing that I will enjoy it once it comes out." Unless the company made news about major changes, there's no excuse to blame the company.