CoD: Black Ops 'not fit for purpose', fans claim
Call on OFT to probe Activision
After last year's petition, in which gamers demanded their money back for Call of Duty: Black Ops, an independent pressure group has reported Activision to the Office for Fair Trading.
Gamers' Voice, which lobbies on behalf of UK gamers, claims Black Ops' fails to function as advertised.
In an open letter to the OFT, the group said that "with [Black Ops] not functioning as intended, we can only conclude that as a product it is faulty and should not have been released in this state".
The group said: "The list of problems that have beset the multiplayer online component of Call of Duty: Black Ops are as follows:
- Sudden disconnections from online multiplayer game sessions
- Inability to join servers that play host to multiplayer game sessions
- Freezing of PlayStation 3 console, forcing the user to reset it
- Main menu freezing as the game is started on the PC version
"Some of these issues could be generated by user error," the group admitted. "However, we have carried out checks on these complaints and we have determined that this was not the case."
It wants the OFT to take action against Activision because, it claims, the company is "in breach of the Sale of Goods Act 1979 (as amended) which states that when a consumer buys goods they must be: as described; of a satisfactory quality; and fit for any purpose made known at the time of sale to the seller.
"It is clear that Call of Duty: Black Ops for the PlayStation 3 and PC is not ‘as described’; of a satisfactory quality or fit for purpose i.e. to entertain, which was stressed at the time of its release."
We will not be pushed around!
Activision's senior support rep, Dov Carson, recently told one annoyed gamer that shutting down the game servers on PS3, "may be a viable solution" and the publisher had every right to do so, Wired UK reports. This will not happen, Activision subsequently said.
A free patch has just been released for the PS3 version of Call of Duty: Black Ops. It is claimed to improve connectivity issues as well as other bugs.
Black Ops was the best-selling game of 2010, setting record sales figures in the process. ®
COMMENTS
Just Me Hoping they win?
Is it just me that hopes they get this pushed through as a problem? Yes we all know that there are bugs in software and expect them. But I find now-a-days there are more and they affect the customer more.
If Activision are brought to terms with this it would make the companies that release trash make sure it works rather than using the public as beta testers and releasing a patch later (maybe.)
A spelling and grammar flame?
Really? Was it, I mean really and truly was it, worth it?
£5 remainder bin
Once again, my policy of being too tight to buy games at full price has been proven correct. Once it drops to £5 ish, I'll buy with all the bug fixes in place.
Paris because she's getting cheaper too.
I hope
I hope there's more of this, ever since access to the internet became wide spread game developers have got far to used to releasing sub standard broken games and then releasing a patch a few month later to bring it up to a production state.
Sure you used to get similar problems before but not as wide spread, I think moo3 was the first game that shipped in an unplayable state (though they'd also butchered the franchise so you were left wondering if it was actually playing the way it was supposed to) with a patch of some 80 megs coming out several months later that made the game playable (but no more fun.)
One of the biggest downsides of internet connectivity for consoles is that now the games industry can get away with similar behaviour for them.
Re: Right then
Note: I am a solo player, so online part of the games don't matter to me.
No one is saying that the game should be released in a perfect condition from the start. Sadly patches have become part of our gaming experience, even on the console. The difference here is:
1 - CoDMW2 have made over a US$ 1bn, so the publisher had tons of money to spend on polishing the CoDBLKOP.
2 - CoDBLKOP have made over a US$ 1bn since it was released.
3 - From 1 and 2, there is a _lot_ of money with the publisher that can be spent on patching this game.
4 - The game have been released 2 _months_ ago, with the amount of money earned (see point 1 and 2) and the amount of time that have passed since the game was released (see point 3), the publisher can _NOT_ claim that they are unable to fix this problem. Especially when the Xbox 360 version is not suffering from these same problems!
so I hope that this have clarified the problem for you. The game have been released 2 months ago, it have made tons of money (ignoring the CoDMW2) and the developer haven't patched it yet!
