For those who don't know, some states in the US offer consumers some protection from buying a defective product (cars, specifically) that can't be repaired within a specific amount of time after purchase. In the last year, some publishers such as EA have released bug-riddled games that can't launch (Sim City) or are so unstable that the game cannot be played as advertised (BF4). However, despite numerous reports online, retailers and publishers are often unwilling to refund money and most often just spin the story away from the problems with tweets of sales figures and accolades. With a gaming press as worthless as these broken games, consumers have no protection or advocates. Perhaps it's time to start discussing efforts to get lemon laws for video games. What are your thoughts?
Seriously though, getting any government to care about the consumer rights of gamers would be extremely difficult but well worth the effort if we pulled together.
Should be a thing with all digital goods. Since the wing-clipped gaming "press" won't do anything, you're on your own.
I think the whole idea of TOS need to be simultaneously tackled as well.
Selling games as licenses instead of items you own blows.
Companies shouldn't be allowed to have us sign a document with the promise of giving us the game they advertised "soon" (TM) when as you stated they launched a broken product.
Arbitration rules currently blow as well.
They prevent customers from filing a class action lawsuits or to combine their claims during the arbitration process so we don't have to individually spend effort fighting against the mega corporation when just a few of us representing our interests would work just fine.
Selling games as licenses instead of items you own blows.
Companies shouldn't be allowed to have us sign a document with the promise of giving us the game they advertised "soon" (TM) when as you stated they launched a broken product.
Arbitration rules currently blow as well.
They prevent customers from filing a class action lawsuits or to combine their claims during the arbitration process so we don't have to individually spend effort fighting against the mega corporation when just a few of us representing our interests would work just fine.
Define a video game lemon. Unlike cars, which, if bought broken, can cost hundreds or thousands to repair for the consumer, there isn't a single thing a games consumer can do to combat a broken game. The limited warranties that come with games are meant to combat the most literal analogy where a defect causes the game to be unplayable, but at what level would the actual data (whether due to incomplete/buggy code or network overload) need to be unusable to trigger such a law? We know devs and publishers will knowingly ship games with bugs, so what's to stop a publisher from just saying, "we know it does that, letting it be this way on release was intentional, and we'll fix it post-launch"? If it works as intended, who's to say the consumer hasn't gotten the product as intended? Because different games try to achieve a broad range of goals, it would be very tough to define a game that is wholly unplayable. Lastly, I'm not personally a fan of legislating the arts because that opens up a point of vulnerability for works to be censored for their content or quality.
So what would a potential law like this look like?
So what would a potential law like this look like?
Last edited by neshcom; Today at 01:44 PM.
Oh my GOD first post
Edit: she is perfection
Edit: she is perfection
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