EA's biggest mistake other than the Easter Debacle

annettemarc wrote:

neuroheart wrote:
Of course it's wrong town. Crashing and lag isn't fun or anything, but no one is losing their donuts. Everything else listed is an inconvenience, while wrong town has resulted in outright theft. :?

Funchal13 wrote:
It would warrant to sue EA for the resulting mess!!!!!!!! :evil:

The TOS say no class action suits, just so you know. Clever of them.

Perhaps not as clever as it seems. It is very possible that would not be sufficient for them to sidestep liability that simply.

There are things working strongly against them:

MAIN ONE: They ask our age. Think about the logic here. If I admit that I am a minor, I am then -- according to TOS -- REQUIRED to act responsibly enough to understand and assume responsibility for making my parents read the TOS. By requiring the parents to read the TOS for me, EA acknowledges that minors are NOT responsible enough to understand and assume responsibility.

So, make up your mind, EA -- is a 14-year-old responsible enough to accept responsibility or is a 14-year-old NOT responsible enough to accept responsibility?

Major Catch-22.

Other reasons?

The game requires me to set a password. (I can't "opt out" of having a password.)
Passwords are for "protection". Requiring one shows a knowledge on EA's part that there IS something of value that REQUIRES protection.

EA has actually STRENGTHENED the requirements for their passwords. It now requires at least one letter to be capitalized, at least one letter to be lower case, and for the password to include at least one non-alphabetical character. It did not used to have any of those requirements.
That shows a NEW knowledge on their part that the protection must present at least SOME challenge to someone trying to thwart it. It must meet a specific standard of complexity. Why? Even stronger acknowledgement that something is valuable enough to protect.

The documentation of the wrong town glitch is plentiful. They have admitted their knowledge of the existence of the glitch. They have done NOTHING.

Contracts do not always protect blatantly negligent behavior, especially when one part is well aware of the financial risk to the other party. Especially if they have had a reasonable time to correct it.

Terms of Service are OFTEN dismissed by courts of law, especially when there are pages of fine print. A company can scream all it wants that I pushed a button or clicked a box saying "I read the terms of Service" but in the situation of a game like this one, often played by kids, the court is gonna say "ptui"

If there were a button next to a short statement saying "If things get screwed up, I understand that I can't sue you" then it's more likely to hold some water. But this disclaimer of liability is BURIED in a loooooong Terms of Service.

The little button saying "I have read and agree to Terms of Service" is a good way to convince 90% of the people to never even bother trying to contest that. Companies know that. It "protects" them from being bothered. EA may convince a court that it's good enough. But that's not at all a guarantee. Courts have been known to be fickle.