Battlefield 3

THE BUZZ: As we talked about late last month, EA had originally promised PS3 owners that they’d receive a free copy of Battlefield 1943 with the purchase of Battlefield 3.

However, with the release of Battlefield 3, that bonus was suddenly missing. After the story became big news on the internet, a representative from EA said on Twitter that to make up for the lack of an included copy of Battlefield 1943, PS3 owners would get all Battlefield 3 expansions before players on the Xbox 360 and/or PC would.

There was one problem with this gesture of goodwill: That promise had already been made back in September.

So now, according to internet website Kotaku, law firm Edelson McGuire has filed a class action suit against EA on the behalf of PS3 owners. The suit claims that EA “misled and profited from thousands of their customers by making a promise that they could not, and never intended, to keep”.

According to the Edelson McGuire representative that Kotaku spoke with, the main goal of the suit is simple: to get players the free copy of Battlefield 1943 that they were promised.

EGM’s TAKE: I have a number of opinions on this one. Having worked for a short time in a law firm myself, I know very well that lawyers are often great men and women who tend to get a bad wrap. On the other hand, there is a segment of them that will jump on any potential case they can find, and far too often, class action lawsuits benefit lawyers far more than they do the people being represented.

At the same time—EA did make the promise of a free copy of Battlefield 1943 for all PS3 owners who purchased Battlefield 3, and absolutely no comment about that offer no longer being on the table came out until after the game’s release. There is a long history of over-promising and under-delivering in the games industry, and at some point, both publishers and developers need to take more seriously the promises they make to consumers.

Source: Kotaku