Google translation (from french major newspaper)

The UFC-Que choice (a french major costumers association) announced on Tuesday, have filed complaints against four video game publishers (Codesmasters, Warner Interactive, THQ, Bethesda Softworks) and three distributors (Micromania, Fnac Direct Game and France), for "deceptive marketing practices ".
In the sights of the organization of consumer protection, the practice of activation codes, more and more frequently used by publishers to fight against piracy ... and s' ensure that each player pays the price of the game at the editor, even though it would have legally purchased as used.
Based on a study conducted by him , the UFC-Que choose denounces a series of practices of publishers and distributors to him "unacceptable".
She denounces the first marketed games incomplete affected by multiple bugs or too short. "Publishers sell dearly what amounts to simple demos must be complete with paid content, "said the association.

The second problem is partly related to the first: the obligation for the player to have an Internet connection to play online course, but also to activate the game or to prove that he is not using a pirated copy.
Network access is also increasingly required to download patches and updates required by the multiplication of bugs.
However, "it has to deplore the laxity of publishers who do not seem to invest accordingly, "criticizes the association, which notes that 13% of his players who responded reported problems connecting to the servers of the publishers.

Finally, the association is addressing the practice of activation codes, which "aims to kill the second hand market because the consumer who buys a set of second hand should invest in a new activation code and making the game gained as much as a new game. "
Particularly common for PC games, this common practice and very restrictive, is also rarely indicated clearly on the box of the game.

The association also asked the DGCCRF, in charge of consumer protection, to open an investigation.


http://www.lemonde.fr/technologies/article/2011/11/29/l-ufc-que-choisir-porte-plainte-contre-des-editeurs-de-jeux-video_1610586_651865.html

Excellent news.

About time someone is fighting back in the name of the consumer.

Only in France.

Too short? Where is Microsoft Games Studio on the list? Did they play fable 2 and 3? It takes like 20 hours to play through both of the games. Or are they just too afraid of them?
Multiple bugs? I can agree with this. But on the contrary, Bethesda (for one), never said there were not going to be any bugs. In fact, every single time they release a game they describe how GRAND it is. Someone who works in this industry should know how games like these can be marred with bugs.

The anti-piracy thing? I can solely agree here, it's dumb and [censored] but it's the choice of the developer, not anyone else. I remember when i played AC II on my computer. A pirated version played better than my legal one, because every time i would so much as get a disconnect from the internet my game would crash. Where is Ubisoft on that list? just because it's a french company doesn't give it the right to not be there.

Do some more research before you post an article and actually take up legal actions UFC-Que, or else the games will disappear from your market, and you will have one hell of an angry gamer population that can't get their games anymore.

On Topic: Great, now we'll get even more dumbed down games, and the entire world will play MW 237 and Battlefield 70. Give me buggy open-world games anytime over that crap.

Kind of silly if you ask me.

No one is forcing anyone to purchase a game. If they don't like the 'practice' of online activations, then don't buy those games. Vote with your pocket book. Personally, anything a company can do to limit the piracy of their products is perfectly acceptable to me. I want to keep the gaming industry strong and profitable. I want as many companies and developers out there pushing out games because there is money to be made. Piracy of PC games is why we have so many developers switching over to console development in the first place. I HOPE that some day that the profitability of the PC gaming market will return such that it is once again chosen as the primary development platform. If that means having to "suffer" through some restrictive activations, then so be it.

I highly doubt a company would abandon several million euros in sales because of this. Anything that came from this action would end up being EU wide as it would need to be legislated at that level because of the various trade agreements in place between member states. M$ still sell windoze in the EU despite being hit with a massive anti-trust suit for example.

The second-hand point is a completely different issue, as it is more to do with the inability to re-license a digital copy of a piece of software that has no physical media. Buying a physical copy of the media signifies ownership of the product, whereas downloading digitally provides a unique license (key) to the downloader. You can't trade games you have already played via Steam (or other distributors) for example, only give them as gifts at time of purchase. The law is a little behind in that respect, as digitally downloading is a vastly more efficient method of distribution assuming everyone has internet access. This then leads to an even bigger philosophical question in that if this is the sole method of distribution then is internet access a right or a privilege in today's world given our reliance on it, and is it acceptable to effectively give a commercial entity an on/off switch to this access?

that is true in the case of registration/activation, but in the case of some companies like EA on certain XBOX games like MASS EFFECT, they require you to enter a one-use code just so as you can access the EA Marketplace network OVER the XBOX LIVE network. no other XBOX games need that, why on earth did they just not use XBOX MARKETPLACE.

it is certainly one way as the article mentioned by the OP "...to kill the second hand market...". one would think that it would be illegal to force one to buy something in order to buy something else.


the danger of that is one of being slightly naive.


perhaps. another is that consoles have zero Deployment Tech Support worries but ALL XBOXs, PS3 and WIIs are the same. the same cannot be said for PCs or MACs.

+1

are you saying that i will be a paying beta tester for all my life....... ?
well...........NO !

Good. It's about time someone took these companies to task; their behaviour has been getting out of hand for too long and they've been putting an unreasonable burden on their paying customers. Glad to see someone finally standing up for the "little guys".

They obviously haven't played Call of Duty MW3 then, 6 hours on Veteran is NOT a campaign
Meh, if in this day and age you buy a game round about release without expecting some bugs your somewhat delusional.
Games need more open-beta testing to squash bugs, look at Minecraft for example thats been getting solde for years now at tester stages and has only now been offically released, and as far as I've played over these few months there are no bugs.

Stupid lawsuit. I thought the French is better than this.

If a developer must publish a bug free software, there will be no software in this world. If they're just complaining about activation code, well I'd ask the consumer to do more research from the web before making purchase. You simply can't write down the whole business model on the box.

Oh really? Well that's great. Guess what, Norway isn't in the EU so i don't care.


Really? I can tell you that everyone here (99%) were screaming for a release, an early one as well, and now this is what happens. Bethesda used the release date for marketing schemes. They released it before they fixed ALL the bugs (that by the way, do not happen to everyone).

Are you new to elder scrolls games? Will you cry like this when TES VI comes out as well. Please be one of the people that never buys a bethesda game, it would help the community a lot. Beth games are full of bugs, they have pretty much always been. Do they work? Yeah. Do they get fixed? Yeah.

As far as Second-Hand game industry....seriously? Is this such a big deal to people? If so fine, i agree.

On one hand you're arguing that piracy should not be there, that everyone should get their money, and on the other you are arguing that people shouldn't use any anti-piracy programs. You can't have both.

The problem with the video game industry is myriad in this day and age. Publishers are only looking at quick profit income as opposed to a quality product. Look at Skyrim, Minecraft, New Vegas, and whatever other games are out with controversy over bugs. Honestly, we all KNOW the reason the bugs happen is QA teams either 'accidentaly' overlook bugs to greenlight things quicker. If the game industry tired harder to make a quality game instead of appeasing the vocal community (Which is 99% of the time the worst part of it) we'd see games like Minecraft having better quality instead of opening out gold dust powdered silken gift wrapped game and finding the game is a turd compared to it's clear potential.

Wow you're sounding really touchy and mad at the moment. Anyway, you're just as bad for the community. You're going 'But they always have bugs, it's tradition'. If I know there's a bug problem in my house I'm not going to sit on the sofa and go 'Eh, it's okay, they've always been here' I'm going to do something about it. Of course a bug is to be expected, and in time, a bug will be fixed, but they will still not fix some bugs though.

As to the antipiracy thing, you're overgeneralizing it to the point misconstruing. People don't mind the concept of anti-piracy, it's that the method being done is HIGHLY intrusive to many gamers. Me personally, I enjoy the second hand market games, I find many games I'd never heard of had it not been for perusing the wares in Gamestop. Greed will be as greed is to greed in these corporations. Frankly, the gaming industry is trying to run a monoply by saying 'DEY NO CAN HAZ DIS SECUN HAN GAEM!'. But look at all these other pawn shops and thrift stores. You dont see Sears demanding you connect your used washer to the internet every time you want to wash clothes.

Indeed that's why I refuse to play BF3 since it requires Origin. Personally I understand the need for anti-piracy technology however there are times when it is taken to a dangerous level. EA has been under the gun lately for what some are calling spyware tech monitoring your computer and scanning it to see if you have illegal downloads. The automatic quote from people is "Don't steal stuff and there won't be a problem" well there's always the chance of false positives like anti-virus software scanning your system.

Their little program scans your system finds something you got legally yet say it is illegal next thing you know there's the feds knocking on your door. It's why I absolutely hated that internet idea where ISPs could permanently block you for downloading stuff if they believed it to be illegal (Weird 3 strike rule).

since morrowind, and with a computer since 1982.
I know how its difficult to make a game. i know some games dev.
i know its usual to have bugs in a game as in software in general.
But this time i am fed up.
Because its not a dev problem. Its a company one.
Dont you thinks dev have pc too ?
Do you think they hadnt bugs too ?
Do you thnik they wanted to do a bad work ?
I dont think.
I think they wanted to do a very good game.
And i wanted to play with and to give them money for that game.
I give my money (i am working for it) to this company.
What i have now ? A game i can't PLAY with ?
what dev have now ? Complaints !
i think devs and i have the same dispointment.

If that article says what I think it says about anti-piracy/second-hand market measures taken by publishers, than I agree whole-heartedly. About time someone tried to do something about that [censored]. I haven't even bought Skyrim and Deus Ex:HR because of it, which would have been guaranteed purchases otherwise. Thank the gods for CD Projekt.

I really hope the second and third points are pressed hard. These are the real practices that are killing PC gaming.

On the subject of bugs - minor ones are ok I feel. Not "ok", but I can understand that as games become larger and/or more complex there will likely always be little things missed, but likely either patched up later or simply become part of the charm of the game (watching NPCs get knocked into the stratosphere by giants is my favourite past time at the mo).. But the big bugs, like that PS3 one in Skyrim where apparently many people simply can't use their product after a while because of the saves game file, is really bad. I don't know of any other bugs in this particular game which renders it entirely unplayable, but that kind of thing does strike me as very unfair for the consumer.

I'm not a PC gamer, but those issues relating more to PC gaming do sound pretty bad too. Although I'm not sure this complaint will necessarily achieve anything.

I am sure this complaint (not mine) will necessarily achieve nothing. But i untersdand this complaint. and the fact is this complaint was linked by a major newpaper means that this problem of the game market is important not only for us.



the fact is there is major bugs in PC, xbox and ps3 versions, as you can see when you read each forums.
I can easely understand minors bugs in a such game/world. I was X3 player too... its not the same thing that to do a pacman.

I dont blame devs.

But yes, its very unfair for the customers.
And for the piracy, i dont think DRM is a real solution.
A good product you want to buy because you want to have another one is a real solution.

It is, at least here in the USA. It is called Tying and is a violation of Anti Trust laws, if you have to patronize a specific service it is called 3rd Line Forcing. The laws are in place to prevent companies from forming large trusts, for example if you were to buy a car you know that you need to do maintenance, change tires/brake pads and put fuel in it; this is a reasonable expectation. If you were told that you could only use a specific mechanic (no doing it yourself even) or a specific brand of tire or only fuel from one company due to an agreement between the car manufacturer then that would be illegal. Where and when you service your car is up to you. Like wise a home appliance company could sign a deal with Costco so that they are the only store that can carry the companies line of blenders or whatever, this is not illegal. But what if the appliance company wants to broaden it's customer base by letting other stores "sell" their appliances, the customer just has to take the reciept to Costco and sign up for a membership (if they don't already have one) to pick up the item they paid for; would that be illegal? I would think so, but yet Steam, Origin and GFWL have been allowed to get away with it. Sure no one is forcing you to buy a specific car or blender (which is an absurd yet common argument) but you cannot be forced to patronize a specific company after the point of purchase.

This is good news I hope it gains traction maybe other groups and nations will join in. If not well at least SOMEBODY tried, go French!

I think if they're going to go after games for being buggy they need to conduct some actual research and not just look at people crying on forums.

Google translation

The game turned zamechatelnoy.S than you and congratulations!
But if the next game will be the same relation to PC players (basically, I mean crooked xbox PS3 platformers management), then the principle will play a pirated version.

That's true. It might not end exactly how they would like, but at least it's getting people reading/talking about it.

Why wasn't EA named in the suit?? Seriously, EA is so much worse than Bethesda. At least when you need some help on an issue from Bethesda you can usually find someone to help. EA just closes the door on you after they get their cut.