Gearbox Responds To False Advertising Lawsuit

As some have mentioned, the build was created specifically for the event. It almost shouldn't be called a "demo" because people take it as representative of the final product when it's *meant* to be representative of development/progress. That's how it works as trade shows guys. Often you're showing a game so early in development that you're putting together a build almost like a little movie to show tech/gameplay (think about basically every *demo* that went with the Wii U first-reveal).

If devs can get sued for whether that literal work-in-progress represents the final product then we might as well close down every gaming trade show. Yes, it sucks how badly the game turned out. But it was a wake up ca to those who drop money on pre-orders and don't think it's a risk.
 
But didn't they have scenes that did not show up in the game at all? And from what I hear, the sophisticated AI was non-existent. Like... the enemy literally only had two command in their AI, which was get close and hit.

While those tech stuff and how kinect works and such, it's there, but not as responsive as it should've been.

As for food not looking like what they were advertise... eh, I can sort of get that being a problem. But it's not like they didn't have the lettuce, cheese,m meat, etc. It just isn't stylized to look as pretty.

This, it seems to me, would be more like a 3 deck burger missing 2 of the decks of meat.

If you haven't already guessed, I didn't buy the game and so I have not personally played it. But I have seen vids. It really did look utterly unimpressive.
 
Here's a specific example from an MMO. A dev wants to show an invasion mechanic so, for the show, they build this into an instance. Then, upon testing this mechanic in the real game, they find the server code can't support that many things happening at once and the AI is killing the client's performance. So, in the actual game, this eventually gets dropped or watered down into a basic group battle because they can't fix it in time. Players who pre-order the game rage at the dumb AI and lack of epic battles shown before.

This is how it happens. It's not some nefarious agenda and if you pre-order a work-in-progress you're betting that the devs can deliver the experience they're showing.

I'm betting in Gearbox's case the game changed hands too much for the dev team to get the AI and engine polished and they had to toss together the levels. They showed the product they wanted to make, they just fell far short of being able to make it happen with the resources, time and leadership they had.
 
adrift02 said:
Here's a specific example from an MMO. A dev wants to show an invasion mechanic so, for the show, they build this into an instance. Then, upon testing this mechanic in the real game, they find the server code can't support that many things happening at once and the AI is killing the client's performance. So, in the actual game, this eventually gets dropped or watered down into a basic group battle because they can't fix it in time. Players who pre-order the game rage at the dumb AI and lack of epic battles shown before.

This is how it happens. It's not some nefarious agenda and if you pre-order a work-in-progress you're betting that the devs can deliver the experience they're showing.

I'm betting in Gearbox's case the game changed hands too much for the dev team to get the AI and engine polished and they had to toss together the levels. They showed the product they wanted to make, they just fell far short of being able to make it happen with the resources, time and leadership they had.
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Sure, but the consumer should have some recourse to get their money back for a product that turns out to be complete shit.

I'm not talking about the people who played diablo 3 for 250 hours and then demanded refunds from blizzard, that's just idiotic. I'm talking about people who buy a product, get home, and 20 minutes later find out it's complete garbage. We all want publishers to stop releasing unfinished trash, but until we eliminate the old "you broke the shrinkwrap, can't return it" crap, we're going to be stuck with it. Same thing applies to digital distribution like Steam and Origin. BTW, having a refund mechanism does work. Look at the android market, works fine there. Developers can't rely on hyping up a product to sell as many copies as they can before everyone notices that it's actually trash with no way to get their money back.
 
But couldn't you just wait a couple days after release to see how it's being reviewed? I mean in Aliens case it was clearly rushed and from what I've read, terrible. But other games *you* may say suck in 20 minutes but others love. Should the developer be forced to jump through a bunch of hoops to accommodate your subjective evaluation of quality for an entertainment product? I don't think so. I think that, as with any form of entertainment (movies come to mind) you're betting on being entertained. Unless the product is flat out broken or incomplete you made your bet.

I sympathize with you to a point. But it's hard enough to make a game and sell it, adding some post-sale forced return system just wouldn't work.
 
Merc1138 said:
Developers can't rely on hyping up a product to sell as many copies as they can before everyone notices that it's actually trash with no way to get their money back.
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That is exactly what these companies are doing. They promote pre-orders, sometime to the point of withholding certain contents and make you pay extra for it if you do not pre-order. They do these stuff because they know there will always be a number of these pre-order customers who would never pay full price for it had they waited.

So, we just have to keep that in mind. The next time you see a pre-order promotion, know exactly why they are doing it, and avoid it. If they withheld contents for those who doesn't pre-order, fine, they should not see your money until they release a GOTY version.
 
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