Hi @bufflovechest ,
Though I fully understand your frustration and want of getting your money back from EA for this broken game then...
At the investor meeting this week we actually brought up that very question in the following Q&A session they hosted for the business analysts. As we wanted to understand EA's position on reimbursing disgruntled players, as the EA brand is taking a mighty dip in value. Likewise EA are loosing significant trust and loyalty from their player/customer population.
So our question to the leadership was two pronged:
- Do EA/DICE sr leadership consider the relevance and right thing to do being reimbursing all BF2042 customers that expresses their preference to get their money back?
And as they started vigorously to shake their heads... and said "No, absolutely not." Then our follow-up question was:
- So if that is a 'no', then what are the potential liabilities and legal consequences of this that EA/DICE may face, considering the poor game performance, missing content and substantial delays? (in the context of EA knowingly had launched the game with these flaws and conditions...)
And here again the EA response was quite shocking to listen to, as they hinted towards having spent considerable time ongoingly already from before the technical playtesting with a legal counseling team to go through the BF2042 contractual obligations and SLA on EA's responsibilities and very deliberately made all the wording so vague and broad that EA under no circumstance could be brought to court (aka class action law suit by the customers/players, as they have been in previous flawed game product launch). Despite knowingly selling a broken product...
I think we even in recent BF2042 game update had again to accept further dilution of customer rights and EA responsibilities for the BF2042 game performance and contents?
It tells a lot about the mindset of these executives, to the length they go to keep your money in their pockets despite knowingly they deliver a severely flawed product to their customers.
Personally I would propose a reimbursement of all licenses to players that want their money back. Right away! Then keep the game free to play of the entire gamepack as like open beta testing, until we get this train wreck properly fixed. And then kick back in again with Free To Play on Portal servers while selling licenses for the full game access (incl to the Portal editor) when we get the Season 1 update launched, including more maps, weapons and we have the vast majority of all the missing legacy BF features back into the game!
The best way to respond to them is by stop buying anything further on.
Which ain't happen sadly, will still have a bunch of people pre-ordering or buying immediately.
One could think after EA killing a second franchise in just a few years (look at what they did to Battlefront), people might finally understand the power they have by choosing to not purchase. It's not like if there were not plenty other games to go on instead.
i wonder if instead of people making a petition for refunds, the petition should be about a length of waranty for digtial goods/games as service not meeting expectations. like a tv has a in 1 year warranty so should a digital purchase of an online service.
ive played bf2042 about 80 hours. half of which being in the settings menu, reintalled 3 times, few weeks ago had a decent performance of 60 fps, but today and yesterday horrible framerates, experience is distracting to unplayable. leave the game feeling like i got ripped off.
to me thats a faulty product. like an appliance that turns on, but screws up every few days.
i gave the ea/devs the benifit of the doubt to fix it, but now they talk about free to play, and delaying it. so by the time it is (if) playable it will be free or on ea play and i payed for it for nothing.
Totaly agee, Don't preórder, do major research first and wait after release how the game is reviewed.
The day that we could trust EA/DICE is over.
As I read it they already covered their bases legally which is pretty normal strategy when you know youre in trouble (or it can end there).
The only thing to do is not giving them your money at all, or wait out to see what the game brings when it hits the streets.
Its sad though to see how they treat their customers but theres nothing new in that from EA... shame on you.
