What are we owed?

Hahaha! I am British, but I live in the specific British country of England, and my accent is specifically a mix of Geordie and poor-Yorkshire :stuck_out_tongue:

Edit: I am owed nothing (staying on-topic :stuck_out_tongue: )

No no no. Your not British lol your English. Those Scots want independence let em have it.

I was Born in Yorkshire, living in Lancashire. The greatest betrayal of all.

I’m owed nothing in game other than a a stack of diamonds

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For me it was a gamble, I could either get all that was promised or not.
I backed the game thinking that probably I wouldn’t even get a game to play and I was pretty much wasting my money, so I feel like after all it was a win for me because I did enjoy my time playing boundless as the way it is and I hope that eventually the game goes back on track so I can keep having fun here with the comuity.

BUT I had to vote that we were owed the promised things because I know its a sensible topic and most people would argue that they in fact deserve to have those perks or a compensation for the lack of them, so I think they have all the right to try and get something back :man_shrugging:

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Yeah, completely understandable and fair.

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Not able to pull any names off the top of my head that were actually found guilty (proof of malicious intent is notoriously hard to obtain) but No Man’s Sky is a famous example of exactly that kind of lawsuit, though a court found them not guilty. None-the-less, it took CONSIDERABLE effort on their part to repair the damage to the playerbase’s trust after that lackluster launch, and many years of consistent and meaningful improvements. That studio is the exception, not the rule.

Actually this is really no different then the legal issues Bethesda is going through they promised something and did not deliver. Then monetized off that content they had promised. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.videogameschronicle.com/news/a-lawsuit-could-reportedly-attempt-to-delay-bethesdas-microsoft-sale/amp/

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Fair’nuff. I honestly have not kept up with drama in gaming since I got burnt out following the shakedown going on at Blizzard.

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Just based on reading the article you linked, I don’t think this is legally similar in any way. The Bethesda case is because one package was sold as including “all of the Fallout 4 DLC we ever do”. They are being sued for releasing additional paid DLC that is not included in that package.

If Turbulenz created Titans and sold them as DLC that the original backers didn’t get, this would be equivalent, but as it is it’s unrelated.


This is a BIG turnaround from claiming they committed fraud and that there is court precedent of fraud convictions. Yeah, it damages reputation and consumer goodwill, but it’s far from fraud.

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The product is faulty - it is missing key features that were promised with our payment.

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I voted yay for the first question but really technically they don’t owe us any communication. The reason I voted yay was because how they communicated with us in the past. I find it kind of shady to go from the most communication I’ve ever seen from devs and then all of a sudden like they dropped off the planet. A quick message doesn’t take time but on the other hand James could have his hands tied because of a contract and he can’t say anything right now. I hope that’s the reason because any other reason I can think of besides that isn’t good what so ever.

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So this was an example of just one lawsuit the gaming industry as a whole is being taken to task for the way they conduct there selves and do business. Another example is CDProjectRed and Cyberpunk. I can give you examples for days at the end of the day it comes down to if you are advertising one thing and you fail to live up to that obligation it’s at best false advertisement. Gaming companies hide behind never ending betas, testing, early release, etc… to release incomplete games take peoples money and give little in return for the money invested. As gamers who spends money in games or gamers who are initial backers of a game should be viewed no differently then shareholders. Our continued or initial investment are what allow them to create these games and yes you should expect something in return and they do need to communicate what they are doing with that investment. Its no different then a Bernie Madoff of the world taking your money to invest in the stock market and instead he invest that money to enrich himself. The gaming industry is no different they just have a lot more ways to hide or manipulate what they are doing.

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As a shareholder, you should understand that you are investing in a potential product, and not purchasing a finished product. You should understand that that potential may be best fulfilled with a change of direction, or could just never be fulfilled. That is the risk of being an investor and not a traditional customer.

Can you provide any examples of “kickstarter style” projects being found guilty when they fail to deliver after making a real effort to deliver the product as intended?

If you buy tickets to a concert or comedy show, you are most likely paying to see the main act. But let’s say you get there, and some lesser known regional performers come out to do their part and then the show just ends. The main act wasn’t feeling up to perform so they just went back to the hotel and left everyone hanging. But hey, you got something so you shouldn’t get any money back. It’s not our fault you waited around hoping you’d get what you paid for.

What are talking about?

It’s date night and you decide to surprise your girlfriend by doordashing from her favorite restaurant. When the food gets dropped off, the entrees are missing.

It’s your sons 4th birthday but you don’t have a lot of money at the moment so you order him a happy meal. He opens it up to find the toy missing.

You buy a desk from IKEA and drive two hours home to assemble it. The top part of the desk isn’t in the box, all you got was the sides and supports.

Your parents bought you a game boy color and a copy of Pokémon blue for Christmas. The game cartridge shipped corrupted and black screens before you can finish the elite 4.

Not getting what you expected when you purchased something.

My point is that in the context of when the game was released, the case for fraud was very appropriate.

What did they actually say that was actually fraudulent? If they used “planned for 1.0” or “should be ready for launch”, that’s not fraud.

I wasn’t around then, so please provide details to back up your accusation.

Not @ you in particular, just replying to you bc you presented it in question form…

A. Companies have a moral & ethical obligation to deliver promised goods & services. Legally though, it seems to stop there, for the most part (in regards to crowdfunding).

B. After doing a little research on crowdfunded projects (in regards to entertainment/software/etc), people are investing in the plan or idea. Things can change throughout development due to several reasons: things cost more than expected, trouble with implementing specific changes and updates, employee logistics, it just doesn’t work out, etc. Changes & adaptations are to be expected. There is assumed risk.

So, while it would be great if all the boxes were checked off from EA and all promises fulfilled, there is probably no legal obligation to do so. Especially after this much time has lapsed. In this case, it would boil down purely to moral/ethical obligations & nothing more.

In the US, the FTC, state Consumer Protection agencies, and Attorney Generals are the ones that handle class action suits against companies for non-delivery, misleading/deceptive conduct, etc. I could not find any cases that involved video games or crowd-funded projects within the past 5 years or so. In 2015, there were a couple of cases where the FTC took action when the services/products were cancelled and the funds were used for personal expenses or to fund other projects.

Other MMOs tend to create a new iteration after awhile. If the software is so out of date, hard to work with, a messy tangled web of several devs’ code that is causing conflicts/bugs, etc - I wonder if they’d consider creating a newer version or a spin-off with fresh, clean code? Is BL written in C++ or?

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That’s my whole point. I got what I expected at the start. Maybe my desire for more has changed. Definitely got what was expected when first purchased the game.