It's Official, EA is being sued - Controversy over Battlefield 4

[WYP]

Electronic Arts faces a Legal battle over its recent release Battlefield 4, with the law firm Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP leading the charge.

Most of us are well aware of the bad press for this game, its random bugs, connectivity issues and crashes making the game difficult to play for pc and console users alike.

EA is being accused of making "materially false and misleading statements" about battlefield 4 which has inflated EA share prices allowing several unnamed senior Executives to sell their shares at a higher price, profiting greatly from these statements.

The case seeks to recover the losses sustained to everyone who purchased EA stock between July 24th and December 3rd. Specific claims against EA are quoted below.

(a) Battlefield 4 was riddled with bugs and multiple other problems, including downloadable content that allowed players access to more levels of the game, a myriad of connectivity issues, server limitations, lost data and repeated sudden crashes, among other things; (b) as a result, Electronic Arts would not achieve a successful holiday season 2013 rollout of Battlefield 4; (c) the performance of the Electronic Arts unit publishing Battlefield 4 was so deficient that all other projects that unit was involved in had to be put on hold to permit it to focus its efforts on fixing Battlefield 4; and (d) as a result, Electronic Arts was not on track to achieve the financial results it had told the market it was on track to achieve during the Class Period.

An EA representative said that, "We believe these claims are meritless. We intend to aggressively defend ourselves, and we’re confident the court will dismiss the complaint in due course."

The official class action is available here on PDF.

I think it is despicable that Battlefield 4 was released in such a state and have personally chose not to play it until I know it is fixed (or possibly to test mantle).

What do you guys think of this case? Are any of you happy with the current state of Battlefield 4? Please post any of you thoughts below.

Source - Gamespot

 

[CalVic]

I bought an Xbox One and to be fair, I've hardly played it due to the BF4 issues. Granted I have Forza 5, but that get's a little boring

 

[SeekaX]

not gonna make a difference, they make so much money off of that game, there is no way they'll have to pay that much back.

 

[Snortan]

not gonna make a difference, they make so much money off of that game, there is no way they'll have to pay that much back.

Exactly, and even if they lose the trial EA is not a company that learns from it's mistakes, BF5 will be released in the same state most likely.

 

[SieB]

Good, that is all.

 

[ShaunB-91]

The state of the game is a joke. I hope they suffer. You shouldn't be allowed to release a game in the state it is, the odd bug here and there fine, but I bet 90% of people own it on all platforms have issues.

 

[Coxey]

Exactly, and even if they lose the trial EA is not a company that learns from it's mistakes, BF5 will be released in the same state most likely.

Pretty much this. Which is a shame.

 

[kaseyfleming]

It actually just got worse for anyone running sli or crossfire on the Dec 16 patch.



super.

 

[Deilwynna]

If just EA would let DICE finish the game before releasing the game, that would be great... Only played through the campaign because it's relatively bug-free... Tried play multiplayer but crashing every 2-5 minutes, no matter what map or server.

I hope EA learns from this and lets their developers finish the game properly and have a longer and proper beta phase rather than a rushed open beta like with BF3 and BF4

 

[ShaunB-91]

There was another patch on the 16th? Lol to be honest I can't even be bothered trying it, it'll probably not fix all the crashes I get.

 

[Chadwokie]

tbh its about time games got sued for releasing games that simply are broken when they are released. i know there is a big difference between selling a brand new car that doesn't work and people dieing as result of it. that being said if this was a car it should be recalled

 

[altereDad]

Win or lose, this will not affect anyone here unless they've invested in EA during the period. Never played the game since its release. Of recent history I don't think there has been a completely smooth game release. There's always a patch here or there. Personally, I can still wait it out. I've been playing CoD for the most part.

 

[boogman]

i just think its crazy that a multi million pound company cant get it right yet 1 or 2 guys with a laptop and a microwave meal can

fair enough our expectations are lower for indie games, but in turn they charge alot less and are at least a lot more helpful fixing bugs (if they exist in the first place)

patching was mentioned

but take prison architect (top selling indie game) its now on alpha 16 and has not had any bugs for a long time,

every alpha just adds more features or performance boosts to allow larger maps

convert this to ea (sim city) release a bugged game, patches fix it, the bonus material the costs MORE Money

sorry rant over

 

[FoodStampz]

i just think its crazy that a multi million pound company cant get it right yet 1 or 2 guys with a laptop and a microwave meal can

fair enough our expectations are lower for indie games, but in turn they charge alot less and are at least a lot more helpful fixing bugs (if they exist in the first place)

patching was mentioned

but take prison architect (top selling indie game) its now on alpha 16 and has not had any bugs for a long time,

every alpha just adds more features or performance boosts to allow larger maps

convert this to ea (sim city) release a bugged game, patches fix it, the bonus material the costs MORE Money

sorry rant over

I'm not trying to defend EA, but to be fair there is plenty of games that come out filled with bugs. I bet people wouldn't be half as butthurt if the game wasn't crashing. (which hasnt happened to me after the patch) I do agree they needed to do more testing before launch, and the beta/alpha was a joke.
You also have to take in to consideration that they are really trying to fix a lot of the issues, and are making a lot of progress, quickly.
Also, you shouldn't really compare this to an indie game either, as it is likely far more complex than any indie game out there.\
I am sure this mantle thing isn't helping stuff either.

 

[ShaunB-91]

I'd be butthurt if any game was as buggy as that. If a game has a couple of glitches fine, but when it's as bad as causing your rig to crash and freeze every minute then it does make you angry.

As for progress...well it seemed to fix the bug I had (I hope) but it makes my game crash now, great, nice one, well done, bravo.

 

[SuB]

I love how they patched in a fault that Cod had at launch lol.. flickering stuff with SLi was a release day issue for Cod.. how do they miss stuff like this? seriously

 

[CristoSanchez]

Personally I think BATTLEFIELD died with Bad Company 2, sadly not because of DICE but thanks to the greed of EA.

I loved BC2, I preordered BF3 and didn't like it... thank God didn't even bother to get BF4.

 

[SeekaX]

Personally I think BATTLEFIELD died with Bad Company 2, sadly not because of DICE but thanks to the greed of EA.

I loved BC2, I preordered BF3 and didn't like it... thank God didn't even bother to get BF4.

lemme give you a hug mate, i experienced the same.

 

[MrWhiteRX7]

Dem feels

 

[Aaronh713]

They are trying to have an annual release of battlefield which is ridiculous...