15 ms·

EA refuses to refund user for SimCity, threatens account ban

397 points by dutchbrit 14y ago

sangupta 14y ago
A very bad practice - either don't issue a statement or honour it. Am sure as the story creates some noise, the user may get a refund, but not all of them. Sad.
- rplnt 14y ago
  There was no statement by the company. Some employee said it on forums. They honor their ToS - no refunds.
  - sangupta 14y ago
    But aren't the employees speaking on behalf of the company? If not, then the company should add a disclaimer to their statement.
lambada 14y ago
Disputing a card transaction has always resulted in a ban on Origin. But it has also always resulted in a ban on Steam as well. Ostensibly for the reason of card fraud and fraudulent accounts. Note: I'm referring to in the US here, I'm unsure of the legality of doing that in the EU.
- Udo 14y ago
  But in this case it's not the transaction itself that's being disputed. That person wants to return the game because it has a defect. Returning defective goods is not the same as disputing the transaction, is it? The vindictive support worker implied this himself when he said the ban was within his discretion to use as a means to close this support inquiry.
  - DougBTX 14y ago
    You're right, those are different things. The article doesn't make the distinction, but in the screenshot the user says, "I can call my bank and have the refund done that way."
  - dangrossman 14y ago
    Visa Chargeback Code 53: Not as Described/Defective Merchandise 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.
- jeltz 14y ago
  The refund policy is nothing new to online game stores (though I do not like it). What is new here is that they publicly offered refunds, an offer which they did not intend to honour.
- gnu8 14y ago
  This is a mafia-like tactic. "It would be a shame if anything happened to the rest of your games..." A state attorney general should weigh in on this.
  - johnward 14y ago
    I didn't decide to chargeback yet. If I do and I see the same responses from origin support I will at least file a complaint with the Ohio Attorney General. Although in the past it did me no good.
    - gnu8 14y ago
      Perhaps small claims court?
      - johnward 14y ago
        Meh. I don't really have the time to worry about $80. Maybe someone could go class action or something.
        gnu8 14y ago
        It's worthwhile if it can be blogged about. EA might take real action to prevent a wave of small claims cases. You may already have given up the right to a class action in the EA ToS.
        fennecfoxen 14y ago
        As far as blogging-can-help goes, I've had my tweets favorited by @TWCClassAction after posting something about how they demonstrated that they were storing my password in plain text. FWIW. Don't know if that'll come to anything.
- johnward 14y ago
  It's still not fair. We should have consumer laws in place to protect this. You shouldn't lose an entire library of games you paid for because EA refused to refund you for a broken product.
  - deleted 14y ago
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Tloewald 14y ago
It's like Seinfeld at the car rental place. "Sure, you can request a refund..."
Tzunamitom 14y ago
Given the two hour wait I had to talk to a billing advisor to try and buy SimCity yesterday, people are still buying this game in their droves. The problem is that there is no incentive for EA to listen to their customers - the monopoly that they have on many of the best franchises allows them to act in such a petulant and anticompetitive manner. I hate to be the one to say this, but I really can't see this issue being resolved without regulation.
- jrajav 14y ago
  Let's see how long that lasts. It sounds like this time around is different from being unable to cancel subscriptions, or a multiplayer server going down - people who bought the game at release actually cannot play it, or encounter major functionality breaks while doing so. 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.
  - seferphier 14y ago
    It could last quite a while. Look at the COD franchise. I was a big fan of COD4. They ignored their community for a long time and each new edition is still selling like hotcakes.
  - hsmyers 14y ago
    Regarding your comment of toxicity inside---when was this? Is this from personnel experience? Reason I ask is that 'toxic' is counter to my experience while working for them. Had a great time working with an equally great team. No pointy hairs in sight. That however was in 93 and things may well have changed.
    - benparsons 14y ago
      1993? Probably fair to say a lot has changed in the last 20 years! I don't really follow EA closely, but even so they have a poor image (of what it's like internally.) Google "EA spouse" for a start, the resulting material presents them in a very poor light, even in the (poor) context of the games industry.
Kaivo 14y ago
EA chose their words well. "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.
- mikeash 14y ago
  One moon, please!
- Terretta 14y ago
  And it's regrettable you'd feel that way anyway, shmuck.
- ramblerman 14y ago
  Everything about that statement is actually pretty nasty, "if you regrettably feel that we left you down" is the equivalent of "I'm sorry your face got hurt by my hand"
greggman 14y ago
It's frustrating to me that people put up with this instead of boycotting the game FOREVER! 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.
- qompiler 14y ago
  What's more amusing is people keep returning! It's Command & Conquer 4 all over again and I will never forget that.
  - johnward 14y ago
    This is the bigger issue. Gamers will complain about DRM and games being unplayable. Then they will be camping out for the next DRM ruined game. They will complain about it for a few weeks. Rinse. Repeat.
    - jerf 14y ago
      There's no reason to believe "gamers who complain about DRM" and "gamers camping out for the next DRM ruined game" are the same people. I'm in the first set and not the second, for instance. And the second set generally outnumbers the first, until the companies go a bit too far like this.
      - johnward 14y ago
        There is some overlap of those people. Some gamers will stick to it, but most wont. Look at all of the COD boycots. Once everyone's fiends started giving in then they wanted to play with them. I won't ever buy a COD game again. I'm thinking of swearing off all EA games. It doesn't matter though because millions of people will buy the new sports games and shooters every year.
- johnward 14y ago
  Here's the thing. If people don't buy the game because of DRM then EA execs see this as "no one will ever buy a city sim". So a bunch of people who did buy the game doing chargebacks seems like it sends a better message. It says "I wanted this game for so long I pre-ordered. After I couldn't play due to DRM I wanted a refund."
dman 14y ago
Wonder if users can use credit card chargebacks for cases like this.
- redthrowaway 14y ago
  Easily. You claim the company didn't deliver the product as ordered and is refusing to refund your money. That's what chargebacks are for. 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.
  - mrgoldenbrown 14y ago
    Be careful - if you have bought any other games on Origin, you will lose those too if you do a chargeback and they ban your account. You are not just losing SimCity, you are losing anything you have bought on the same account.
    - daenz 14y ago
      Can they get a chargeback on those games as well? Or how is that not some form of theft? He bought the previous games, and the company forcefully removed them from him and keeps his money.
      - redthrowaway 14y ago
        I'm assuming the EULA says something to the effect of, "you're paying for a license to use the software, not to purchase a copy. You own nothing and we can void your permission at any time".
      - smsm42 14y ago
        Many credit companies would not let you to contest transactions beyond certain limits (90 days? don't remember) so with old games that probably won't work. Not sure if any of them provide warranties for digital goods... Worst case one may try one's luck in small claims court, though what would be the result is anyone's guess - there's certainly language in EULA saying you're not getting any money back but that may or may not be legally true.
camus 14y ago
i smell a class action lawsuit ...
- zalzane 14y ago
  There's probably a dozen clauses in the game's EULA that prevent a class action lawsuit.
  - kefka 14y ago
    That may be true. But 5000 small claims suits would be devastating to their bottom line. Unless they no-show, they have to have a lawyer representing them at each one. Death by a thousand cuts, indeed.
    - gertef 14y ago
      Petitioners' lawyers are forbidden from entering small claims court. They have to send a representative, or no-show. no-show -> default judgement -> refund, worst case.
hubb 14y ago
On the 7th page, the OP posted that his ticket has been closed, and he's been given his refund, more or less without a word from EA.
brisance 14y ago
Considering how litigious America can be, I'm surprised EA and the other majors have not been slapped with a lawsuit. Under the Uniform Commercial Code, the product fails at least the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose.
- Spoom 14y ago
  I'm quite certain implied warranties are disclaimed in the EULA.
  - peacemaker 14y ago
    I fairly certain you can't just disclaim things like that. It's similar to adding illegal clauses to a contract - just because you signed it, it doesn't suddenly change the law.
    - dangrossman 14y ago
      You can disclaim implied warranties. Virtually every EULA and website TOS document does so (OT: it bugs me a bit that you're "fairly certain" about this, while you've undoubtedly agreed to that disclaimer dozens of times a year all your life). The UCC itself sets out the rules for disclaiming the implied warranties. It has to be done in a clear and conspicuous manner to be effective, which is why that's the part that's always in full CAPS in the contract, making it particularly easy to spot. 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/ 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. https://twitter.com/tos https://twitter.com/tos 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 http://www.apple.com/legal/itunes/us/terms.html#SALE http://www.apple.com/legal/itunes/us/terms.html#SALE
bobsy 14y ago
I would like to say this means I won't buy an EA game but considering how many good franchises they own that would just be a lie. I was going to pick up Sim City. I remember playing it years ago and I loved it. I thought this would be awesome. Now I am definitely not getting it and I can confidently resolve that I will not be buying any future Sim City title. 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.
- Mithaldu 14y ago
  > considering how many good franchises they own that would just be a lie Which? The last game they made that can be described as "more than mediocre" was Mirror's Edge.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    I found Mirror's Edge to be distinctly mediocre but I imagine Battlefield and the fact that they seem to create most of the "official license" sports franchises is what is being referred to.
jetti 14y ago
This is ridiculous. The OP said he was going to dispute the charge with his credit card company at which point the customer service rep said if he does that they will ban his account. This is so people don't buy the game, dispute the charge and keep playing that game for free. 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.
- Mithaldu 14y ago
  By "account" he was referring to the Origin account, which contains more games than just SimCity. Threatening to remove SimCity from his account would be perfectly fine. But blocking access to ALL other games as well is simply criminal.
  - jetti 14y ago
    Ahhh well that makes more sense on the severity of the issue. However, I highly doubt that EA would want their CSAs to threaten to ban anybody based on asking for a refund or threatening to do a charge back and it is just the work of a terrible CSA
    - mikeash 14y ago
      It's actually par for the course for these places to ban your entire account if you ever do a chargeback. Steam does it routinely, and I'm sure EA does it too. Just another way that this Brave New Digital World is disenfranchising consumers.
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MarkMc 14y ago
When I buy SimCity, how long will I be able to play the game for? 30 days? 100 years? 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?
- res0nat0r 14y ago
  None? The same could be said if the WoW servers get shut down tomorrow. Game over and move on. It's probably in the Eula you agree to at first login.
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  - ceejayoz 14y ago
    WoW is a different case. It's sold as an MMO and very clearly doesn't have a single-player version.
    - res0nat0r 14y ago
      I'm not sure if user ignorance is a valid legal claim. diablo 3 is in the same boat. You can play single player but need to authenticate with the blizzard servers. It those go away its game over.
      - saraid216 14y ago
        > I'm not sure if user ignorance is a valid legal claim. 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-reasonable-expectations.html http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/doctrine-of-rea...
cpeterso 14y ago
What are the biggest challenges that open-source game developers face? Can open-source games ever approach "AAA quality" game designs or art?
- eropple 14y ago
  I wouldn't worry about game design--if you've looked at an AAA game recently you can probably whiteboard out something more interesting and refine it with iteration once it's playable. 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.)
offdrey 14y ago
Apparently, a petition has been started on change.org to refund SimCity customers : http://www.change.org/petitions/electronic-arts-refund-simcity-customers-2 http://www.change.org/petitions/electronic-arts-refund-simci... There is another hn thread about it : http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5343715 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5343715
mariuolo 14y ago
It's sad to watch another company I loved as a kid to go in the shitter.
k3n 14y ago
Suspiciously, the chat log doesn't include the agents greeting, and seems to pick up mid-convo. Why would someone include part of a transcript and not the entire thing? Makes me think there's something embarrassing to the OP that was omitted. 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.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  If OP felt ripped of to the tune of $60, I think it is quite understandable if he was a bit of a douchebag. I can hardly see that as a reasonable justification for denying a refund.
zaptheimpaler 14y ago
I think the big problem here is that EA enjoys a near monopoly in some sense (say for PC games, certain genres). Most of their PC games in the past few years have been a giant shit show of bugs and server failures, but no one else in the industry has the money to be able to compete with them. Result: The monopoly exploits its customers, and the customers come back anyways, because there is no choice.
deleted 14y ago
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technifreak 14y ago
I wasn't aware the game didn't release for Mac until later this Spring. I bought it, tried to install it and contacted EA after realizing my mistake. After waiting for 45 minutes for a person to answer the LiveChat, then 5 minutes after that, and I had my refund. I've rethought my purchase and probably won't buy it when it comes out for Mac. (Unless they make major changes to the Mac version because of the backlash. nudge nudge EA)
BigBalli 14y ago
doubt they can get away with it for much longer. Even amazon is reporting the issues directly on the product page: http://amzn.to/16cCByx http://amzn.to/16cCByx
degenerate 14y ago
Hilaroius (and sad) timelapse video someone made of them "playing" the game... mostly server error messages. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m62ppOUwFhk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m62ppOUwFhk
dreamdu5t 14y ago
People should be looking at this as an opportunity. Start a game company that has a sane distribution model.
catchoftheyear 14y ago
I'm the odd one out I know. EA refunded my money for BF3 after I complained about silly requirement for a browser plugin to play single player. 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-WFZC-5519 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.
smsm42 14y ago
I remember when I was playing these games you could just buy it, run it and enjoy. Now you have DRM, overloaded servers, all kinds of trouble - I actually feel good I'm not that interested in this anymore, and if I want to play for old times' sake I'd just fish out old copy of Starcraft, C&C or Civilization and play it as much as I want without having to rely on anybody for permission. What happened to that? 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.
Kiro 14y ago
You clearly have no idea how big a problem chargebacks are for companies. I have no sympathy for anyone who threatens with it.
- jekub 14y ago
  You clearly have no idea how big a problem DRM are for customers. I have no sympathy for anyone who use 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.
  - Kiro 14y ago
    No, I don't. What exactly is the problem and would it still be one if the servers were running smoothly?
norswap 14y ago
I'm watching this, sipping a cocktail and waiting for the crack to come out.

397 points by dutchbrit 14y ago

A very bad practice - either don't issue a statement or honour it. Am sure as the story creates some noise, the user may get a refund, but not all of them. Sad.

rplnt 14y ago
There was no statement by the company. Some employee said it on forums. They honor their ToS - no refunds.
- sangupta 14y ago
  But aren't the employees speaking on behalf of the company? If not, then the company should add a disclaimer to their statement.

lambada 14y ago

Disputing a card transaction has always resulted in a ban on Origin. But it has also always resulted in a ban on Steam as well. Ostensibly for the reason of card fraud and fraudulent accounts. Note: I'm referring to in the US here, I'm unsure of the legality of doing that in the EU.

Udo 14y ago
But in this case it's not the transaction itself that's being disputed. That person wants to return the game because it has a defect. Returning defective goods is not the same as disputing the transaction, is it? The vindictive support worker implied this himself when he said the ban was within his discretion to use as a means to close this support inquiry.
- DougBTX 14y ago
  You're right, those are different things. The article doesn't make the distinction, but in the screenshot the user says, "I can call my bank and have the refund done that way."
- dangrossman 14y ago
  Visa Chargeback Code 53: Not as Described/Defective Merchandise 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.
jeltz 14y ago
The refund policy is nothing new to online game stores (though I do not like it). What is new here is that they publicly offered refunds, an offer which they did not intend to honour.
gnu8 14y ago
This is a mafia-like tactic. "It would be a shame if anything happened to the rest of your games..." A state attorney general should weigh in on this.
- johnward 14y ago
  I didn't decide to chargeback yet. If I do and I see the same responses from origin support I will at least file a complaint with the Ohio Attorney General. Although in the past it did me no good.
  - gnu8 14y ago
    Perhaps small claims court?
    - johnward 14y ago
      Meh. I don't really have the time to worry about $80. Maybe someone could go class action or something.
      - gnu8 14y ago
        It's worthwhile if it can be blogged about. EA might take real action to prevent a wave of small claims cases. You may already have given up the right to a class action in the EA ToS.
        fennecfoxen 14y ago
        As far as blogging-can-help goes, I've had my tweets favorited by @TWCClassAction after posting something about how they demonstrated that they were storing my password in plain text. FWIW. Don't know if that'll come to anything.
johnward 14y ago
It's still not fair. We should have consumer laws in place to protect this. You shouldn't lose an entire library of games you paid for because EA refused to refund you for a broken product.
- deleted 14y ago
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Tloewald 14y ago

It's like Seinfeld at the car rental place. "Sure, you can request a refund..."

Tzunamitom 14y ago

Given the two hour wait I had to talk to a billing advisor to try and buy SimCity yesterday, people are still buying this game in their droves. The problem is that there is no incentive for EA to listen to their customers - the monopoly that they have on many of the best franchises allows them to act in such a petulant and anticompetitive manner. I hate to be the one to say this, but I really can't see this issue being resolved without regulation.

jrajav 14y ago
Let's see how long that lasts. It sounds like this time around is different from being unable to cancel subscriptions, or a multiplayer server going down - people who bought the game at release actually cannot play it, or encounter major functionality breaks while doing so. 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.
- seferphier 14y ago
  It could last quite a while. Look at the COD franchise. I was a big fan of COD4. They ignored their community for a long time and each new edition is still selling like hotcakes.
- hsmyers 14y ago
  Regarding your comment of toxicity inside---when was this? Is this from personnel experience? Reason I ask is that 'toxic' is counter to my experience while working for them. Had a great time working with an equally great team. No pointy hairs in sight. That however was in 93 and things may well have changed.
  - benparsons 14y ago
    1993? Probably fair to say a lot has changed in the last 20 years! I don't really follow EA closely, but even so they have a poor image (of what it's like internally.) Google "EA spouse" for a start, the resulting material presents them in a very poor light, even in the (poor) context of the games industry.

Kaivo 14y ago

EA chose their words well. "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.

mikeash 14y ago
One moon, please!
Terretta 14y ago
And it's regrettable you'd feel that way anyway, shmuck.
ramblerman 14y ago
Everything about that statement is actually pretty nasty, "if you regrettably feel that we left you down" is the equivalent of "I'm sorry your face got hurt by my hand"

greggman 14y ago

It's frustrating to me that people put up with this instead of boycotting the game FOREVER! 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.

qompiler 14y ago
What's more amusing is people keep returning! It's Command & Conquer 4 all over again and I will never forget that.
- johnward 14y ago
  This is the bigger issue. Gamers will complain about DRM and games being unplayable. Then they will be camping out for the next DRM ruined game. They will complain about it for a few weeks. Rinse. Repeat.
  - jerf 14y ago
    There's no reason to believe "gamers who complain about DRM" and "gamers camping out for the next DRM ruined game" are the same people. I'm in the first set and not the second, for instance. And the second set generally outnumbers the first, until the companies go a bit too far like this.
    - johnward 14y ago
      There is some overlap of those people. Some gamers will stick to it, but most wont. Look at all of the COD boycots. Once everyone's fiends started giving in then they wanted to play with them. I won't ever buy a COD game again. I'm thinking of swearing off all EA games. It doesn't matter though because millions of people will buy the new sports games and shooters every year.
johnward 14y ago
Here's the thing. If people don't buy the game because of DRM then EA execs see this as "no one will ever buy a city sim". So a bunch of people who did buy the game doing chargebacks seems like it sends a better message. It says "I wanted this game for so long I pre-ordered. After I couldn't play due to DRM I wanted a refund."

dman 14y ago

Wonder if users can use credit card chargebacks for cases like this.

redthrowaway 14y ago
Easily. You claim the company didn't deliver the product as ordered and is refusing to refund your money. That's what chargebacks are for. 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.
- mrgoldenbrown 14y ago
  Be careful - if you have bought any other games on Origin, you will lose those too if you do a chargeback and they ban your account. You are not just losing SimCity, you are losing anything you have bought on the same account.
  - daenz 14y ago
    Can they get a chargeback on those games as well? Or how is that not some form of theft? He bought the previous games, and the company forcefully removed them from him and keeps his money.
    - redthrowaway 14y ago
      I'm assuming the EULA says something to the effect of, "you're paying for a license to use the software, not to purchase a copy. You own nothing and we can void your permission at any time".
    - smsm42 14y ago
      Many credit companies would not let you to contest transactions beyond certain limits (90 days? don't remember) so with old games that probably won't work. Not sure if any of them provide warranties for digital goods... Worst case one may try one's luck in small claims court, though what would be the result is anyone's guess - there's certainly language in EULA saying you're not getting any money back but that may or may not be legally true.

camus 14y ago

i smell a class action lawsuit ...

zalzane 14y ago
There's probably a dozen clauses in the game's EULA that prevent a class action lawsuit.
- kefka 14y ago
  That may be true. But 5000 small claims suits would be devastating to their bottom line. Unless they no-show, they have to have a lawyer representing them at each one. Death by a thousand cuts, indeed.
  - gertef 14y ago
    Petitioners' lawyers are forbidden from entering small claims court. They have to send a representative, or no-show. no-show -> default judgement -> refund, worst case.

hubb 14y ago

On the 7th page, the OP posted that his ticket has been closed, and he's been given his refund, more or less without a word from EA.

brisance 14y ago

Considering how litigious America can be, I'm surprised EA and the other majors have not been slapped with a lawsuit. Under the Uniform Commercial Code, the product fails at least the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose.

Spoom 14y ago
I'm quite certain implied warranties are disclaimed in the EULA.
- peacemaker 14y ago
  I fairly certain you can't just disclaim things like that. It's similar to adding illegal clauses to a contract - just because you signed it, it doesn't suddenly change the law.
  - dangrossman 14y ago
    You can disclaim implied warranties. Virtually every EULA and website TOS document does so (OT: it bugs me a bit that you're "fairly certain" about this, while you've undoubtedly agreed to that disclaimer dozens of times a year all your life). The UCC itself sets out the rules for disclaiming the implied warranties. It has to be done in a clear and conspicuous manner to be effective, which is why that's the part that's always in full CAPS in the contract, making it particularly easy to spot. 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/ 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. https://twitter.com/tos https://twitter.com/tos 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 http://www.apple.com/legal/itunes/us/terms.html#SALE http://www.apple.com/legal/itunes/us/terms.html#SALE

bobsy 14y ago

I would like to say this means I won't buy an EA game but considering how many good franchises they own that would just be a lie. I was going to pick up Sim City. I remember playing it years ago and I loved it. I thought this would be awesome. Now I am definitely not getting it and I can confidently resolve that I will not be buying any future Sim City title. 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.

Mithaldu 14y ago
> considering how many good franchises they own that would just be a lie Which? The last game they made that can be described as "more than mediocre" was Mirror's Edge.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  I found Mirror's Edge to be distinctly mediocre but I imagine Battlefield and the fact that they seem to create most of the "official license" sports franchises is what is being referred to.

jetti 14y ago

This is ridiculous. The OP said he was going to dispute the charge with his credit card company at which point the customer service rep said if he does that they will ban his account. This is so people don't buy the game, dispute the charge and keep playing that game for free. 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.

Mithaldu 14y ago
By "account" he was referring to the Origin account, which contains more games than just SimCity. Threatening to remove SimCity from his account would be perfectly fine. But blocking access to ALL other games as well is simply criminal.
- jetti 14y ago
  Ahhh well that makes more sense on the severity of the issue. However, I highly doubt that EA would want their CSAs to threaten to ban anybody based on asking for a refund or threatening to do a charge back and it is just the work of a terrible CSA
  - mikeash 14y ago
    It's actually par for the course for these places to ban your entire account if you ever do a chargeback. Steam does it routinely, and I'm sure EA does it too. Just another way that this Brave New Digital World is disenfranchising consumers.
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MarkMc 14y ago

When I buy SimCity, how long will I be able to play the game for? 30 days? 100 years? 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?

res0nat0r 14y ago
None? The same could be said if the WoW servers get shut down tomorrow. Game over and move on. It's probably in the Eula you agree to at first login.
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- ceejayoz 14y ago
  WoW is a different case. It's sold as an MMO and very clearly doesn't have a single-player version.
  - res0nat0r 14y ago
    I'm not sure if user ignorance is a valid legal claim. diablo 3 is in the same boat. You can play single player but need to authenticate with the blizzard servers. It those go away its game over.
    - saraid216 14y ago
      > I'm not sure if user ignorance is a valid legal claim. 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-reasonable-expectations.html http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/doctrine-of-rea...

cpeterso 14y ago

What are the biggest challenges that open-source game developers face? Can open-source games ever approach "AAA quality" game designs or art?

eropple 14y ago
I wouldn't worry about game design--if you've looked at an AAA game recently you can probably whiteboard out something more interesting and refine it with iteration once it's playable. 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.)

offdrey 14y ago

Apparently, a petition has been started on change.org to refund SimCity customers : http://www.change.org/petitions/electronic-arts-refund-simcity-customers-2 http://www.change.org/petitions/electronic-arts-refund-simci... There is another hn thread about it : http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5343715 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5343715

mariuolo 14y ago

It's sad to watch another company I loved as a kid to go in the shitter.

k3n 14y ago

Suspiciously, the chat log doesn't include the agents greeting, and seems to pick up mid-convo. Why would someone include part of a transcript and not the entire thing? Makes me think there's something embarrassing to the OP that was omitted. 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.

jlgreco 14y ago
If OP felt ripped of to the tune of $60, I think it is quite understandable if he was a bit of a douchebag. I can hardly see that as a reasonable justification for denying a refund.

zaptheimpaler 14y ago

I think the big problem here is that EA enjoys a near monopoly in some sense (say for PC games, certain genres). Most of their PC games in the past few years have been a giant shit show of bugs and server failures, but no one else in the industry has the money to be able to compete with them. Result: The monopoly exploits its customers, and the customers come back anyways, because there is no choice.

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technifreak 14y ago

I wasn't aware the game didn't release for Mac until later this Spring. I bought it, tried to install it and contacted EA after realizing my mistake. After waiting for 45 minutes for a person to answer the LiveChat, then 5 minutes after that, and I had my refund. I've rethought my purchase and probably won't buy it when it comes out for Mac. (Unless they make major changes to the Mac version because of the backlash. nudge nudge EA)

BigBalli 14y ago

doubt they can get away with it for much longer. Even amazon is reporting the issues directly on the product page: http://amzn.to/16cCByx http://amzn.to/16cCByx

degenerate 14y ago

Hilaroius (and sad) timelapse video someone made of them "playing" the game... mostly server error messages. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m62ppOUwFhk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m62ppOUwFhk

dreamdu5t 14y ago

People should be looking at this as an opportunity. Start a game company that has a sane distribution model.

catchoftheyear 14y ago

I'm the odd one out I know. EA refunded my money for BF3 after I complained about silly requirement for a browser plugin to play single player. 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-WFZC-5519 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.

smsm42 14y ago

I remember when I was playing these games you could just buy it, run it and enjoy. Now you have DRM, overloaded servers, all kinds of trouble - I actually feel good I'm not that interested in this anymore, and if I want to play for old times' sake I'd just fish out old copy of Starcraft, C&C or Civilization and play it as much as I want without having to rely on anybody for permission. What happened to that? 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.

Kiro 14y ago

You clearly have no idea how big a problem chargebacks are for companies. I have no sympathy for anyone who threatens with it.

jekub 14y ago
You clearly have no idea how big a problem DRM are for customers. I have no sympathy for anyone who use 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.
- Kiro 14y ago
  No, I don't. What exactly is the problem and would it still be one if the servers were running smoothly?

norswap 14y ago

I'm watching this, sipping a cocktail and waiting for the crack to come out.