Raw Deal for computer gamers

OlliesDad

esuhl wrote: »

I presume (not 100% sure) you'd be covered by the Sale of Goods Act which states that goods must be fit for their purpose and of a satisfactory quality.

If this is the case, maybe you could threaten the retailler with legal action and make a small claim in the county court if they refuse to give you a refund...?

With software it is not that easy as the actual is working how it should (it is just not as good as people expected).

If the SoGA was to apply, imagine the floodgates that would open. People would be able to return DVD's where the acting is poor due to it not being of satisfactory quality, or people could get money back for theatre tickets because the actor forgot a line. The list would be endless.

esuhl

OlliesDad wrote: »

With software it is not that easy as the actual is working how it should (it is just not as good as people expected).

If the SoGA was to apply, imagine the floodgates that would open. People would be able to return DVD's where the acting is poor due to it not being of satisfactory quality, or people could get money back for theatre tickets because the actor forgot a line. The list would be endless.

I can see your point, but "satisfactory quality" in the SoGA is usually interpreted to mean "of a standard that a reasonable person would consider satisfactory". If enough people think that the quality of the coding is shoddy...

But I'm no legal expert. So why does the SoGA not apply?

RobertoMoir

I think it ought to apply but as its not really a 'hard' test of quality, you run aground trying to prove it...

Besides, the thread here shows that some people seem willing to accept poor quality games code.

ChrisCobra

This is why i download games , and if i like them i buy them

Fed up with game developers using us as beta testers.

techno12

Interesting!

I have been in the videogames industry for over 13 years now - currently working as a programmer for one of the 'big 3'.

There are months and months of end phases where we try to iron out the bugs but you can never catch them all!

We tend to waive some of them as they are not show stoppers but I would like to think that we pretty much get it right first time as we kind of have to being a console product and patching is a no-no.

With the PC its different as you can patch away but that is no excuse if it is bugged to f**k initially as you cant assume everyone is online..

So I reckon you may have a case

Mupette

RobertoMoir wrote: »

I think it ought to apply but as its not really a 'hard' test of quality, you run aground trying to prove it...

Besides, the thread here shows that some people seem willing to accept poor quality games code.

It's not that I accept, its hard to get anywhere, I'll give you an expample.

DS bought a microsoft flight similator game (well Microsoft game at least)
the game was buggy, took back to shop,shop didn't want to know, my son then spent 6 months via email and phone calls to Microsoft who just didn't want to know.. everytime we spoke to someone it was step one try this, step two try that...
we would politely explain each time we have done this with the last person, but each person insisted that we had to do what they said, and re instal game, by which point each person rang off and said call back if it didn't work...

I think my son eventually had to see if as defeat, he was 13 at the time.

esuhl

Mupette wrote: »

DS bought a microsoft flight similator game (well Microsoft game at least) the game was buggy, took back to shop,shop didn't want to know, my son then spent 6 months via email and phone calls to Microsoft who just didn't want to know..

Your rights would be with the retailler, rather than Microsoft. If it's "hard to get anywhere" you could sue them. They can't ignore a court summons! It's fairly cheap to sue a company in the county courts, so surely someone must have given this a go. It would be interesting to know the outcome. The shop may wish to settle out of court anyway.

For anyone who's interested, there is some information on the small claims procedure here (though it's a few years old). There's some information about the court fees here (again it's a few years old, so the fees may have changed, but it looks like a claim issued via the government's Money Claim Online website would cost £25).

vyle

I think the difficult thing with software (or games in general) is that whether a game is well made or not, it's still a GAME. It provides a game experience and so as a game could be seen to be acceptable.

Whether it's well made is another issue and could be down to interpretation.

Then you've got the fact that with PCs there are any number of different hardware configurations and software conflicts that the developer couldn't possibly account for. For instance, I thought Soul Reaver 2 on the PC was bugged to death as it kept crashing.

It turned out that my display drivers weren't installed correctly.

The game may well work on another system in which case, it could be your computer to blame. If that's so, then it's similar to buying a TV and not having the right aerial... you didn't buy a faulty product.

One thing that I think should be stamped out is the current gen's penchant for releasing clearly unfinished games and going "ah we'll patch it later."

Wonderful. If I need to replace my 360 in about 6 years' time, fallout 3 will barely function. Fable 2 will be unplayable and i'll have no way to fix it.

There's no excuse with these games because the console configuration is standard. They could release finished games (with more content, too) up until the previous gen and should be able to do it fine, now.