Games/software (our rights)

tommy45

Hi, i was wondering what amount if any of consumer protection do we have to deal with software &games publishers, when quite often these companies are based overseas,

My problems are with after sales support, with a major games publisher Ubisoft, they released at least 2 unfinished games being Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas & Vegas 2 both have similar issues that they refuse to fix or even acknowledge, they have abandoned these and possibly more games,but to add insult to injury there master server system located in Montreal Canada is frequently going offline this means no online multi player gaming, so in my opinion Ubisoft have stolen from the consumer basically by selling a product that is supposed to be supported and it isn't, is there anything that can in the future be done to legally require that these companies have to supply a minimum standard of support?

You could say get a refund, but you can't once you removed the protective film on the cover,plus my and others problems with Ubisoft have been going on for years

Apples2

I would be surprised if ANY game is bug free.

Simple advice, stop buying Ubisoft, then have the same complaint against someone else.

Flogging a dead horse with this.

Mupette

if you are on-line playing these games are you also paying a subscription to it, if so, are you getting free days.. for that?


It is blinking hard to get money back from big organisations like that, my DS had trouble with a Microsoft game, the shop he bought it from refused to refund, Microsoft just went over the same procedure every time you called, even though we told them this was done by x y and z when we spoke to them.

And then you have someone like games network who take over the hosting of a game and completely destroy it, or similar who take your monthly subs and do a moonlight flit.

Good luck with this, although i think you would get better results if it was a dungeon and a 'Leroy Jenkins' (only funny if you know about Leroy)

Elaniel

I haven't played these two games myself, but I know that all the online games that I own on the XBox show that they have a right to pull down servers at any time.

There are many other games that are bugged to hell that sadly don't have any fixes.

I guess the best way is to vote with your wallet and show Ubisoft you are not happy with their products.

Send them an email maybe?

Because technically we are paying for the LIVE service, we have no warrant on individual game servers being offline, as we are not paying Ubisoft, EA, Activision, etc. We are paying Microsoft for the service itself. No game companies see any money from the LIVE subscriptions. So unfortunately there's nothing we can do about it.

Also, since these games are 4 and 2 years old respectively, I don't see Ubisoft caring very much if they didn't fix them in the first place.

What is it that is unfinished in the games can I ask?

Elaniel

Mupette wrote: »

It is blinking hard to get money back from big organisations like that, my DS had trouble with a Microsoft game,

By DS do you mean the console? Microsoft have never released a game on the DS. That's like Mario being released on the PS3.

vyle

Elaniel wrote: »

By DS do you mean the console? Microsoft have never released a game on the DS. That's like Mario being released on the PS3.

I have been wondering this for years on this forum. People keep talking about their DSs, DDs (direct debits?) DHs (god knows) and other out of place abbreviations. It's quite perplexing.

I have a longer reply to this thread in a bit, but I'm on my way to work right now.

fozmcfc

It's an interest situation and I think the only way we will ever find out the answer, would be if a large group of people got together and claimed in a court of law against Ubisoft for not providing the product advertised and saying the product is not fit for purpose.

I would imagine the agreement you enter when first opening and installing the software, has tons of get out clauses though.

Elaniel

I think one of the ways companies can get out of it, is by saying the online portion of the game is an addition to the actual single player game.

There are many games that are online capable on the 360 that have had their servers shut down, and can only be played in single player or local co-op.

I've done some digging around too. DS means Dear Son.

I got confused when I saw someone use the abbreviation in a thread about a video game (Assuming it meant the Nintendo DS)

I've also had a look around at some of the glitches being referenced in these games. Sure, some are annoying, but some can be resolved by reloading a save, or doing a mission in a different order. Sadly it seems to happen in a lot of games.
Check out Dragon Age, there's some serious quest-breaking glitches in that game. That was a major pain, but just doing things in a different way managed to get around them. Sure, it's not ideal but at least it works.

Mupette

DS dear son
DD dear daughter
DH dear husband

vyle

Ok, now I'm home from work:

I kinda hate this generation of gaming. Too many games are shipped unfinished and rely on post release updates to make them functional, meaning that should I have to replace my console in 10 years time and I want to play a game, the chances are i'll be stuck with a barely functioning mess that's missing most of its content.

When I DO want to play a new game, now (for instance, uncharted 2) I'm met with about 10 updates and nearly 1gb worth of downloads before I can even start. It sucks and I hate it.

However, I expect that we have no rights on the matter, because games are creative works. You can't really return a book or a painting because they're not very good. A book is a book, regardless of how awful the prose is.

A painting of nelson mandella is still a painting of him, even if it looks like a squished lemon.

And a game is still a game, even if the code is terribly written.

The only place where you may have a claim is the online service, or lack thereof, but you could only really get anywhere with a class action lawsuit. It's most annoying.

fozmcfc

vyle wrote: »

Ok, now I'm home from work:

I kinda hate this generation of gaming. Too many games are shipped unfinished and rely on post release updates to make them functional, meaning that should I have to replace my console in 10 years time and I want to play a game, the chances are i'll be stuck with a barely functioning mess that's missing most of its content.

When I DO want to play a new game, now (for instance, uncharted 2) I'm met with about 10 updates and nearly 1gb worth of downloads before I can even start. It sucks and I hate it.

However, I expect that we have no rights on the matter, because games are creative works. You can't really return a book or a painting because they're not very good. A book is a book, regardless of how awful the prose is.

A painting of nelson mandella is still a painting of him, even if it looks like a squished lemon.

And a game is still a game, even if the code is terribly written.

The only place where you may have a claim is the online service, or lack thereof, but you could only really get anywhere with a class action lawsuit. It's most annoying.

The trouble is particularly for PC gaming, there are millions of possible set ups, so it is impossible to release a game, without it working properly or at all on at least 1 persons machine.

Patches can be a good thing also, as they can add extra features to a game.

When it comes to consoles though, I can't see why so many patches to fix software need to be released. In the console versions case surely it has to be lack of testing or delibrately releasing unfinished software although when Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo update their firmware etc, games can become unplayable I guess.

As for the rest of your post, I think you sum it up very well, imagine the chaos if everyone who didn't like a game, could just take it back cause they didn't like/enjoy it.