UK gamer advocacy group Gamers' Voice is taking the kid gloves off and reporting Activision to the Office of Fair Trading over Call of Duty: Black Ops multiplayer on PC and PS3. The move follows an open letter sent to Activision on December 22 informing the publisher that the group had been "inundated with complaints from people who have bought copies of Call of Duty: Black Ops."
The letter asked Activision if they planned to compensate consumers that bought the game in the UK and gave them one month to respond. This week the group took action by asking the government agency to look into the matter.
"As a result of their inaction we will test the might of government agencies against Activision, "Chris O’Regan, Head of Industry Relations at Gamers’ Voice, told IncGamers. "We can only hope this brings about some litigious action. These agencies do exist to protect our rights as consumers, let us see if they can fulfill their remit on this pressing issue.
"GV wish to set an example with Activision to ensure games are not released in an unfinished state," he added. "If litigation is initiated, then a precedent would be set. In other words, publishers will have to reconsider releasing unfinished code in the future, in the UK at least."
While GV is hopeful, O'Regan admits that it could take "months" for a formal government investigation. He hopes that this might encourage Activision to take some action before the government has to step in.
Source: IncGamers
Comments
Re: Gamers' Voice Calls for UK Govt. Investigation into ...
I don't really think this should be Activision's problem honestly. I say it falls more on Sony than anything else.
Activision deilvered a game and people bought it in droves, Activision really has no obligation to release patches or anything of the like, they do so, so people keep buying copies and the community keeps going because word of mouth sales are like gold.
Also, as long as humans are creating and exploiting software you will never have an end to buggy software, so just because you glitch out on your 7th or 8th kill and you couldn't use your kill streak doesn't give you the right to demand compensation.
Re: Gamers' Voice Calls for UK Govt. Investigation into ...
The strange thing is that I can almost accept problems on early releases for PC, there's a whole plethora of different configurations and set-ups that can lead to all kinds of problems for developers, since they cannot test every possible one. On something like a console, however, I'm not sure I understand how these errors manage to get through. I'll accept that sometimes people think of things that the developer did not consider, they are not omniscient, after all, but for games to come out with real showstopper problems on day one for a console is really confusing.
Re: Gamers' Voice Calls for UK Govt. Investigation into ...
That's true, I usually expect problems or configuration/performance issues with PC games. In the case of console games, generally they are guaranteed to be playable but it's difficult to make a game 100% bug-free, especially with the complexity of current-gen titles. In the past, developers would revise games after release, so some later copies (e.g. Platinum/Classics/Players' Choice releases) are less buggy than earlier copies, but now you can just download a patch.
Re: Gamers' Voice Calls for UK Govt. Investigation into ...
"It happens on Xbox too.."
Yes it does, but if you notice Microsoft at least has some dignity to attempt to keep their network secure from people that hack their console. And yes they can ban you. It doesn't deactivate your console, it prevents you from using XBLive from the console. You agreed to their EULA when you sigend up for Live, they have a right as a service, to terminate your use of it as they see fit. Hacking, and trolling other users games is a valid reason to terminate service and I doubt anyone would be able to win in court against them for doing so.
And didn't microsoft just release a security patch to help with the Black Ops and MW2 hacking like this last week?
Re: Gamers' Voice Calls for UK Govt. Investigation into ...
could we really see an end to unfinished buggy games? an end to after release patches? an end to day one patches atleast?.
Re: Gamers' Voice Calls for UK Govt. Investigation into ...
No you won't see an end to bugs and patches. Perhaps you will see an end to bugs that make the game unplayable though.
Re: Gamers' Voice Calls for UK Govt. Investigation into ...
That would be good, wouldn't it? Although, at least devs are releasing patches, it's better than if they didn't. In fact, I remember a lot of buggy older games which really could have done with patches.
Re: Gamers' Voice Calls for UK Govt. Investigation into ...
Say what you will about XBox Live multiplayer being a paid service, but MS seems to have more involvement in protecting the purity of online play/conduct than Sony. While the PC has always been the wild west (dedicated and private servers help solve this problem), Sony would do well to take a more hands-on role in managing online players. Banning hackers from PSN at the hardware level is a place to start. Of course, this involves paying someone to oversee such issues, and the PSN being free makes this problematic. As they say, you get what you pay for.
Re: Gamers' Voice Calls for UK Govt. Investigation into ...
The problem is, the moment someone is banned at the hardware level, someone's gonna scream bloody murder, because "they paid for that hardware and have an inalienable right to use it however they want."
It happens on the Xbox, too.
Either way, it's not like hacking is new, and Sony doesn't owe people anything due to their problems with a game played on it's system. Should Sony protect it's system? Absolutely. However, you can't say Sony needs to protect from hackers and then complain that they're too harsh, which happens every time anyone does anything to prevent hacking.
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With the first link, the chain is forged.
Re: Gamers' Voice Calls for UK Govt. Investigation into ...
True but it is just like when someone claims the unalienable right to drink and drive when his liscense is revoked. He knew the rules before hand and he broke them so his rights to the liscense/system are removed. Just read the fine print on the user agreement it does have a clause in there about tampering/cheating/hacking.