EA refuses to refund user for SimCity, threatens account ban
gamechup.com
gamechup.com
It is a similar situation with Diablo 3. I was going to get it but after friends abandoned it after about 10 days I figured it wasn't worth it. It also had the same problems as Starcraft with requiring you to be online to even play 'offline' game modes.
A couple of friends and I decided to have a games night a few weeks ago. We lugged our computers to one person's house like the good old days. Got them all running. Installed a bunch of old games and were disappointed to find the majority of multiplayer servers were shut down. Today I read that Sim City stores your saved games online. (I don't know how true this is.) What happens in 5 years time when EA cut back or disconnect their servers? Won't the game be completely unplayable?
Its only in digital good's that you can get screwed like Sim City users are. If I brought Monopoly and found the board was missing I could take it back. Buy a game which doesn't work.. well suck it up fella. Similarly, Amazon can ban your account and you lose access to Kindle books you legitimately paid for...
I might have my facts incorrect here but if an App is removed from the Play / iOS app stores isn't it removed from users devices? What happens to any money you put into those apps?
Pretty much any digital good you buy cannot be resold. Usually reselling your account under which you made such purchases is also not allowed. All in all its a shitty deal for anyone buying digital goods.
Yesterday I read how the EU is getting ready to fine Microsoft presumably for shipping Windows 8 without a browser select screen. I would have thought investigating how consumers are treated by companies offering digital goods should be a far higher priority.
Which? The last game they made that can be described as "more than mediocre" was Mirror's Edge.
I think it had the makings of a fantastic game and was let down by pretty much every element. Initially I found the game was pretty exciting, unfortunately getting shot at made it tedious. There was a point where I got ran over by a train and fell off my chair. First game that made that happen. (I looked left, looked right, no train. Stepped out. HONKING TRAIN! Scared the crap out of me. I play games with the TV really loud)
The cityscape was bland, the story was meh, the free running was trial and error, getting shot at constantly was pretty tedious and combat was awkward. That said the idea's in the game were good. I feel it could be rebooted into an excellent game.
I enjoy Fifa and Battlefield. I am sure there are many more in the list. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Electronic_Arts_games
Worryingly though EA are getting pretty good at breaking franchises. Age of Empires, Ultima Online and Sim City specifically.. Fifa on the Vita severely damaged that franchises reputation.
No, it's not (at least on iOS)
Source: I've bought a Navigation-App which since seems to be discontinued (N-Drive or something like that).
Maybe it still shows because all my devices are iCloud backed up and I never removed it from my iPhone.
And even if they do that, you still have the apk on your harddrive, you can back it up.
To the best of my knowledge, Apple has never removed any app directly from the user's devices.
For example, if one wanted to create a DRM free version of Sim City now would be an excellent time to start a kickstarter.
Or you could just go get Cities XL
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/cities-xl they pissed everyone else off at launch, too
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/cities-xl-2012 not much better
Haemimont's Tropico games are also very good (Metacritic: http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/tropico-4) city-builders, with a smaller scale than traditional SimCity titles but more flavor and atmosphere. Steam has a bundle with the latest version, Tropico 4, plus all its expansions for $40 (http://store.steampowered.com/sub/19282/).
It just has a crazy charm to it, and it also has really nifty features, like how it shows the whole (albeit simplified) production line for food (fisherman catch fish, take them to a fishery, etc.).
Can't comment on the credibility though, nothing solid has been shown yet.
The internet whinging machine should focus on clear statements of what the product does and consumer education. EA should only get in trouble if they fail to make it clear that the game requires a network connection or if they fail to provide servers for the advertised period.
Selling a game with online features should not have to be a commitment to provide those features forever, so finding decent middle ground is the only solution.
This. I've bought a number of $10 games on Steam because I figure I'll get that much value out of a game even if Steam disappears next month. But I won't go much higher for anything encumbered by online DRM or other means of remote shutdown.
I can afford more, but the reasoning is psychological. I'll care and get agitated if a $60 investment disappears, but I can write off $10.
I have a small number of games in my library, maybe 12, and I only have 3 of them installed on this computer. If they went out of business, it would be physically impossible for them to send me the files.
Yes, I know they could have some sort of "graceful shutdown period", but what if I don't hear about it?
We're dependent on Valve's good will and intentions for Steam. There is no technical solution that the community can implement without Valve's blessing.
All of the above should be factored into the grandparent post about factoring DRM into discounting the price you're willing to pay. Valve's reassurance reduces but does not eliminate my personal DRM discount. By contrast but also comparison with Valve/Steam, the attitude of EA and many other publishers and platforms instantly pegs my personal DRM discount at 100%.
Valve have always treated their customers pretty well. They're not viewed like EA or Activision for a good reason, they've garnered a great deal of good will by behaving in an exemplary way. You're envisioning a hypothetical of the all the worst possible outcomes. At the moment we have no reason to imagine anything other than them keeping their word. I do agree that it's not ideal having no solution we can implement ourselves.
My criteria for price is actually mainly dependent on how many hours of enjoyment I get out of something. I'm not willing to spend the cost of a triple A game for 10-12 hours gameplay. If it's got something upwards of 40+ hours then I'm quite happy to spend money on it.
Selling a game that requires online features to work is very different to eventually shutting off the servers of a game that has some online features.
Stating it a little bit differently, if it is ok to put "Some features require an internet connection and are only promised to be supported until Jan, 2015" on a box, then I think it is ok to put "Game requires an internet connection and will be supported until at least Jan, 2015".
A requirement for accurate labeling is reasonably simple, especially in comparison to hairsplitting over whether it is appropriate or allowable to depend on the internet for a particular feature.
Look at Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Electronic-Arts-Simcity-PC-DVD/dp/B0...
It doesn't say anywhere that you must have an internet connection to play at all. Amazon add this text. "Some customers have reported issues when trying to connect to the SimCity servers." Again this gives little indication it will leave you with a broken game.
The labeling you suggest wouldn't get past advertising watch dogs as it would be confusing. Both are too similar.
"Some features require an internet connection and are only promised to be supported until Jan, 2015"
"Game requires an internet connection and will be supported until at least Jan, 2015"
I didn't know Diablo 3, Sim City or Starcraft 2 required an Internet connection to play single player until people were complaining about it.
Also, after the collapse of THQ how valid would such promises be? If EA failed next month and no one purchased the Sim City franchise the game wouldn't work..
Digital or not you assume that in purchasing a game the game will work for the foreseeable future. It isn't like an MMO where you pay for a month's access. You are paying for a license to play the game. You accept that multiplayer servers will eventually be turned off. Generally you don't expect largely single player experiences to stop working.
A lot of PC gamers specifically expect games to always work. Starcraft:Brood War is like 15 years old and I have installed and working on my Windows 7 PC. I gave Grim Fandango a spin a little while ago. Remember that game? Fantastic.
My point is that 'works forever' isn't a battle you are going to win, so aim low and succeed.
My wording doesn't have to be what ends up on boxes. The point is that it should be possible to clearly communicate connection requirements to the purchaser. Do that and they have all the information they need to make (or not make!) the purchase. I'm not terribly sympathetic to the 'the consumer is a moron so you can't try to inform him' line of reasoning.
The fact that companies go out of business isn't that big a deal, if you are concerned EA is going bankrupt, don't believe their promise to provide servers for 18 months and spend your dollars elsewhere.
I bought the damned thing. I didn't buy it "for X years".
The only "middle ground" that works is that if you take down the servers, you must provide the ability for end users to run their own. But that'll never happen, because then they can't sell you New SimCity as easily.
Misunderstanding what you bought doesn't actually entitle you to anything more than what you bought. No one promised you that your game would last forever. It was clearly advertised as reliant on an online connection to their servers, and the overwhelming majority of plaintiffs here demonstrate an understanding that such a connection connotes an eventual cessation of service.
If you want to have full ownership over the capability of running the game, get it in writing before you pay.
Shame that those consumer protection laws are toothless.
That is, if a company wants to sell bananas, they shouldn't have to meet your expectations surrounding apples.
Markets don't work without fair access to information. If a company commits, with a posted bond, to support the game through date X--sure, you're right. But they're not. They are selling the proverbial cat in a bag. That is anti-consumer, and consumers--people--are more important than the companies that exist to serve them.
The company longevity thing is problematic, but I have trouble getting worked up about it for $50 luxury purchases.
Long story short, I agree. maxerickson's idea of labeling is a good one, since the point isn't really the mechanism so much as the principle of stipulating the contents of the contract in detail. If the game industry decided to standardize on only promising a year of service, I suspect that would be fine: it's explicit, it's well-known, and the game-maker will almost certainly run longer than that if their product is remotely successful.
Which is the point of accurate labeling, it creates fewer restrictions for everybody.
(I do think fit for purpose is a good test, but it can't just apply to any imagined purpose that any person can come up with)
Technically speaking, Google does have this capability to remotely wipe apps from devices [1], but they only do it when the app constitutes a security threat (i.e. malware) to users who were tricked into installing it. As far as I know, they've only done it twice ever [2].
iOS also has this capability [3], and similarly has not done it often (someone correct me if I'm wrong, I'm only an occasional iOS user).
[1] http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/06/exercising-ou...
[2] Both times were to proof-of-concept apps. http://jon.oberheide.org/blog/2010/06/25/remote-kill-and-ins...
[3] http://techcrunch.com/2008/08/07/apple-can-remotely-remove-a...
You aren't buying digital goods, you are either renting or buying a lease on those digital goods. The terms and conditions of those purchases of leases or by paying rent do not provide you with the same rights and obligations as a hard copy or un-DRM version would normally provide (either through terms and conditions or various national legislation & regulations). That is part of the agreement you make when you pay for digital goods.
It is for these reasons why I have stopped spending on large priced digital items and only buy a lease when the items are on significant discount, such as costing less than $10, or rent when substantially discounted. There are few things, including hot new games which I'd normally want to buy, that I'm willing to pay for a virtual copy. I have close to zero trust these services will be around in a few years, or that their servers are sufficient to not lose my purchase record in the coming year or two. While I'm sure I would get my $20-80 worth of use out of the game or book, the concept of the inevitable loss of the item is more important as an influence to me, than the utility & pleasure of the use of the item now.
His mentioning DRM was ancillary to the main point, that you don't buy digital goods in the classical sense, but instead lease the right to use/play them. This applies to every form of software that has paid-for licensing, even those that don't have DRM attached to try and protect it.
You are still buying a "lease" to use the software from GoG. I'm not completely familiar with their license agreement, but I suspect it allows you to install the software on all computers you use/own. If you were to give it to a friend, that would be violating the terms of the agreement (even though GoG could not stop you).
The agreement may allow you to resell your license, provided you stop using your existing copies. (Again, GoG would have no way of knowing.)
So don't pretend that only games have this issue.
It's not even an issue to me. I'm not sure what your point is.
I was just trying to clarify that game purchases are still essentially software licenses, even from the least restrictive providers (GoG).
I don't get it. If you believe the experience of playing the game is worth than the cost of the game, why do you care you may lose access to it later on? It's like not going to cinema because you won't have the movie recorded afterwards.
TL;DR: If you're willing to charge in the single-digits for your game, sure, make it as limited as you want. If you want to charge like a real game, don't try to shortchange me with brittle DRM.
Still, even Blizzard could not avoid server problems at launch.
I was thinking of buying having seen the early reviews. Now I won't, EVER. I've got plenty of other games to play. I don't need this one.
If you just don't buy it, EA will assume everyone pirated the game and cancel any future SimCity games... then we end up stuck in a DRM-filled loop forever. Requesting a refund is far more productive from a feedback perspective.
Or does EA now hold all the patents on drawing roads and zoning buildings onto an isometric tilemap? :)
I definitely with the strategy you bring forward. Just let the Sim-City franchise (it is only a name at this point, Will Wright and the majority of original Maxis crew are out), any other studio can get a better game with less stupid DRM.
Which is a bit of a shame, since _City Life_ (the predecessor) was an okay game.
Gool Ol' Games offers plenty of classics if you haven't played them. Ceasar 3, Roller Coaster Tycoon, Pharaoh / Cleopatra, Stronghold Crusader... all DRM-free and less than $10 each.
Dwarf Fortress is free as well with an awesome following. If you can get over the ASCII / tileset thing, its a good game.
It would be nice if we didn't have to treat game companies as adversaries like this.
ea are treating their entire target market as adversaries; game companies have been doing that for years.
Remember, don't cross EA, it's only through their glowing generosity that they allow you to use some of the programs on your computer.
You like those programs, right?
My general advice is to ignore all EA games until they either change their ways(lol ya rite) or die.
Also remember that not only do they love to fuck up a launch, but they also love to discontinue games with online components to screw everyone who bought them, and a lot of these games are on current platforms (360) or feature somewhat recent IP (some bf3 item in there). http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:0L266ui...
Personally I have refused to use their Origin market place from the start, as I do not support market fragmentation when it comes to electronic delivery service on a single plateform (Windows PC in this case). This and the really poor customer experience I have had with them in the last 10 years.
In the technology sector, the greatest success stories have emerged not when one company executes flawlessly, but when one company executes competently in an environment where all of the other competitors act like barking idiots. You can't even count the number of times this has happened, but citing Microsoft, Google, and Apple should be enough to get the point across.
That's what's happening with Valve, IMHO. It's not that they are perfect... but when your competition is Electronic Arts, it's hard not to look good.
Imaging that, going to your local super market (ASDA for an example) you could not find a major brand of cereals (Kellogs for the sake of argumentation). And that you would have to go to a direct competitor to find it (Tesco in this case). This is a fairly strait forward hurdle against a free market.
I don't think it's necessarily bad to have a few different distributors, after all it was not so long ago that people would get their meat and vegtables from different shops for example.
People that spend $20 or $40 to go to a movie for 2 hours can't be that worried about maximizing the value they extract from a $60 game. I do look at it from the standpoint of not wanting games to work like this, but I can see how someone might not care much, especially if things smooth out soon.
Maybe it's just the fact that I'm getting older, but I will happily choose spite over entertainment. I disagree with the companies practices, than that is that. No sale. This goes for all things.
Honestly, I'm even getting a little wary of Steam. They too share EAs account banning or a chargeback. Where else do we allow a company to destroy our goods by exercising our rights as consumers? It's maddness! Some people's steam libraries are easily worth a $1k or more. What gives them the right to take away what we've paid for?
I just don't know if it's worth supporting this kind of business model anymore. Even if that means I just don't get to play the games I want to anymore. Following the steam example, Gabe is getting up there in years. He's not going around forever. When the new CEO comes in, are they going to stay a private enterprise, will they still "focus on the customer first?" If any of that changes, you suddenly have a massive investment teetering on the goodwill of a company.
Why almost? EA as publisher is a big warning sign and in combination with the DRM what's happening now is exactly the expected outcome.
There are people that are good at customer support and those that aren't. I would think this individual falls into the latter category. Does that mean EA is plotting to scam everybody? Hell no. It means that this CSA didn't do a good job explaining WHY they won't issue a refund. This "article" is just fanning the flames of hatred towards EA and not adding anything. If the OP is truly that unhappy, talk to the credit card company to get the money back and then re-buy when the game is stable. But don't expect money back AND the ability to play the game.
Additionally, that does not explain why EA doesn't offer a refund.
The lack of a refund is easily explained by EA's short term greed and having franchises that people really like.
"if you regrettably feel that we left you down, you can of course request a refund for your order."
As far as I know, they didn't state they would proceed with the request, only that you can "request" a refund. I can ask for the moon, it doesn't mean I'll get it.
I hate to be the one to say this, but I really can't see this issue being resolved without regulation.
I know that it may be unlikely, but I do hope that this affects their bottom line. EA is a toxic company inside and out.
1993 EA has nothing to do with EA from 1996 onwards...
EA screwed Origin (that then they already owned, just read stuff about development of Ultima 8 and 9... there are lots of documents about how executive meddling made U8 a meh game, and U9 a totally ruined game), then bought and ruined Westwood, and so on.
Also as the time passed they got more and more problems with employees. Then we had crazy shit, like when EA closed a studio in LA, and people found out that the studio had more middle managers than grunts, and this is why the studio could not decide what to do, it simply had so much people giving orders and so few people doing, that doing stuff was impossible.
The EA that wrote this: http://chrishecker.com/Can_a_Computer_Make_You_Cry%3F doesn't exist anymore.
But their games back then start to suffer from lots of executive meddling, with EA interfering more and more on the artistry of their game authors.
My best guess it is related to the launch of Playstation in late 1995, spurring a race for 3D games and FMV games, requiring much more money than before, and thus requiring more "risk management."
There's your problem. At some point EA started buying up studios to take the IP and fire the employees. Then they went on a micro purchase bender and got rid of any idea of respecting the customer.
That will effectively make business impossible for them if even 0.1% of buyers do this, and it doesn't cost any customer anything.
Plus the banks have incentive to side with the customer, not EA. EA absolutely needs them, but customers can easily run to a different bank.
If you try this with Steam, they flag you for fraud and shut down your without recourse. All previously bought games are lost.
If you try this with Amazon, they flag you for fraud and shut down your account without recourse. Your previously bought e-books are automatically deleted from all your devices.
I certainly don't like EA's DRM practices and some of their other practices, but now that I'm another day into the future, I could easily see this happening to any company as well-used as them.
Addendum: Startups that claim they don't/wouldn't have these sorts of problems are probably because their load comes slowly, steadily, and these problems are caught early, or refactored out for efficiency, and the developers miss the potentially catastrophic results. When you get hit by a LOAD of traffic all at once, or other similar thing, bad things happen.
See: Diablo 3, Starcraft 2, Half Life 2: Deathmatch
The cost of Sim City is literally half an hour of consultancy work. This means the lawsuit would cost me more than I could hope to gain from it, and I would only be doing it to spite the publisher.
If that is my goal, it is a more efficient use of my time to accept the sunken cost, give some negative reviews, and badmouth the publisher.
Think about it.
All regulation would do is cement EA's position as legal or even required.
Does EA make any promises about how long they will keep their servers running? If not, what would be the minimum time they would need to keep their servers running to avoid a 'false advertising' prosecution?
IANAL, but there is a case that can be made for reasonable expectation [1]. On the other hand, most people who complain about this actively demonstrate foreknowledge, which AFAICT immediately invalidates their legal standing for reasonable expectation.
I think a talented lawyer may be able to figure out how to draw together law into a strong case where there is some obligation to make sure your game can run mostly-featured without an internet connection... but in order to set precedent, you're probably going to have to sue an indie company to have a fighting chance in terms of money (which would also probably kill said indie) or put together a large enough legal fund to go after a worthwhile target like Ubisoft or EA... and I don't rate your chances high, there.
[1] http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/doctrine-of-rea...
Note: I'm referring to in the US here, I'm unsure of the legality of doing that in the EU.
MasterCard Chargeback Code 53: Cardholder Dispute Defective/Not as Described
Discover Chareback Code RM: Quality of Goods or Services Dispute
Charging a credit card but providing a defective product is a valid chargeback reason.
You may already have given up the right to a class action in the EA ToS.
Don't know if that'll come to anything.
For example, Google's TOS:
> SOME JURISDICTIONS PROVIDE FOR CERTAIN WARRANTIES, LIKE THE IMPLIED WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, WE EXCLUDE ALL WARRANTIES.
http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/terms/
Or Twitter's:
> THE TWITTER ENTITIES DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT.
Or the iTunes store:
> APPLE, ISSUER, AND THEIR LICENSEES, AFFILIATES, AND LICENSORS MAKE NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, WITH RESPECT TO GIFT CERTIFICATES, ITUNES CARDS, CONTENT CODES, ALLOWANCES, OR THE ITUNES STORE, APP STORE, MAC APP STORE, OR IBOOKSTORE, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
I am more familiar with UK law, but I am certain that under US law if there is a constradiction between what is stated in an otherwise valid contract and US law, then US law takes precedence and the legal contract is modified to comply with US law. It must be that way otherwise you could sign people into slavery by just saying "look its here in the contract". Or "no I am legally allowed to beat my wife, see she signed this contract saying I could".
2. Everything you listed there is a FREE as in beer product. Note that "iOS" is not on the list of non-warranted products.
And either way there's a good argument to be made that you can't "sign away your rights" in this regard without EA providing some concrete 'consideration' in return, even in states where you can waive right to implied warranty.
You paid $60 for something (i.e. the game), and until you have a working game EA hasn't provided any consideration in return.
Steam/Valve on the other hand actually did the opposite. They did not refund my money for games that had invasive DRM and were not marked but pointed me to their EULA that said they would disable my whole account if I made a charge back.
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=5406-WFZ...
I despise online only DRM, but please lets not only bash EA here. Valve is just as bad.
That said, chargebacks aren't a blanket get out of jail free card. Some CC plans offer consumer protection insurance, which goes above and beyond simple chargebacks.
If you've got a dozen other games, that'd be a big hit.
Either way, this is like seeing a fight but not seeing who threw the first punch: the OP could've been a massive d-bag in the beginning of the convo. If so, I'd completely understand (as a former tech support agent) why the customer may have been denied remedy.
There is another hn thread about it : http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5343715
What I would worry about is labor costs. People got-ta get paid. An AAA-quality game isn't something you're going to do nights-and-weekends for free when you could be leveraging those skills to get paid. You might get the help of wannabes who don't have the skills to get paid, but do you want to rely on that to push a game that by your own definition is going to require some fairly serious chops to ship?
Sure, open source blah blah blah--but most open source projects that get significant, large-scale contributions have knock-on effects like being able to be easily hired for consulting gigs, that sort of thing. Game development, not so much. And artist types are not inculcated into the open-source world to nearly the extent of programmers, so I find it unlikely that you'll be able to really source all the media you need.
There's usually a ton of overly naive hand-flapping about how you have Wesnoth and Nexuiz and the rest, but if you look at the games, they're not what a reasonable person would call an AAA title on the level of a Starcraft 2 or a Halo (and Nexuiz in particular is based on a closed-source game engine opened up years after its licensing viability was over).
I'm sure you can make good, fun games in an open-source way (because it has been done) but I strongly doubt you'll make anything that's competitive in the AAA market space without accepting that you're lighting a few million dollars on fire (because let's get real, effectively nobody's going to pay you a dime for it).
.
(This is also why I laughed at the guy upthread who said "oh, the market should solve this, someone should start a Kickstarter for a city sim game!". That's not how Kickstarter works and it's not how somebody who can do math approaches a game. To get attention for a high-ask Kickstarter you need a decent chunk of work already done, and by the time you get there the shitbomb of SimCity will probably have departed and taken its stink elsewhere. To build a game on the scale of SimCity in a length of time that won't have your backers screaming for your head, you're going to need a couple million dollars. With extremely rare, you're-not-it exceptions, Kickstarter backers laugh at such requests. It's the "zeitgeist projects" that manage to hit their targets and then a high multiple thereof--and the worst thing that can happen to you if you're hoping to be one of those projects is that you make your goal and no more.
Economies of scale suck for the ambitious, because no matter how cool your idea, people gotta get paid.)
OTOH, there are normal publishers, like Steam, from which I bought a couple of games and never had any trouble. So it's possible to do it right. EA just doesn't want to do it.
Especially in this case where the DRM have totally screwed up the game, where EA have explicitly said people to ask for a refund, and denied it in the end.
Death by a thousand cuts, indeed.
no-show -> default judgement -> refund, worst case.