Those parameters are pretty well established - if something isn't there as was advertised, the company will have to answer for it. "Game companies just need to be careful in what they're saying, just like with any product. "It's primarily an advertising and marketing issue," said Sweeney. To Patrick Sweeney, head of Reed Smith's Video Game Practice and a member of the Video Game Bar Association's board, it's less about legalities and more about customer service. That means this is just one more thing blown out of proportion by the gaming press." Curiously, NO reviewer that I am aware of pointed out the lack of ending choices. I suppose there may have been a comment from someone at BioWare that 'every' choice would affect the outcome, but it would be difficult to prove that furnished the sole basis for the purchase. "Arguably, this could be construed to mean player choice affected the outcome. Rather, the player was offered a choice of three ending paths," Pachter continued. "I am not sure that I even accept the premise of the complaint: as far as I know, the company said player choices would influence the outcome, but I don't think there was a guarantee of limitless outcomes. I agree that 'only' 3 endings didn't give gamers what some expected (unlimited permutations based on player choice), and agree that it was disappointing to have so few choices at the end, but the 'damage' here is at most a refund for those who were dissatisfied, not any massive government action against EA/BioWare." "That means dog meat instead of beef, not rare instead of medium rare. "The claim is based on deceptive business practices, where the vendor lies to the consumer and gives a different product than promised," noted analyst and lawyer Michael Pachter, Managing Director of Equity Research for Wedbush Securities. How many other games and movies have had bad endings without this kind of backlash? I could name dozens."
Moreover, this is the first case I can think of where 'I don't like the ending' has led to this kind of uproar. "Mass Effect is a better case, since the outcome wasn't dictated by choice to the effect suggested in interviews, but interviews aren't generally treated as true ads. All they're really doing is saving some bandwidth for the DLC." For the Capcom one, unless Capcom had advertised those characters as being free, it's almost a non-issue entirely. "While there may be enough for a false advertising kind of suit here, even a class action one, neither case seems that egregious to me. "I would tend to fall on the 'blowing things out of proportion' side of the line," said Mark Methenitis, Author and Editor-in-Chief at Law of the Game. "In many situations, our litigious nature is just a waste of everybody's time" Given how lawsuit happy so many Americans tend to be, we posited a question to a few legal experts: is there actually any legal ground for consumers in a class-action lawsuit or are players and the BBB just blowing this whole scenario out of proportion? The response was almost universally towards the latter. and were told that you had complete control over the game's outcome by the choices your character made and then actually had no control over the game's outcome, wouldn't you be disappointed? The issue at stake here is, did BioWare falsely advertise? Technically, yes, they did," said Marjorie Stephens, Director of Communications at BBB of Northern Indiana. "Consider this: If you had purchased a game for $59.99. More prominently, the BBB has raised the possibility that Electronic Arts and BioWare misled consumers with the advertising for Mass Effect 3. This stemmed from several complaints relating to Street Fighter X Tekken's on-disc DLC. Take, for example, the recent comments put forth by the Better Business Bureau (BBB) in the US, which fueled by angry consumers, recently downgraded Capcom from an "A+" to a "B" rating. However, since the average gamer is now older and more aware of his/her rights as a consumer, repercussions can end up being much greater than just angry remarks on a message board. No matter how good a particular video game might be, some gamers will always find something to complain or have misgivings about it's been a reality of the business practically since video games have been in existence.