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EA's responsibility in APB
twilothunder
Member Posts: 3
This post is in regard a previous post titled "EA response to consumer about APB".
I'm not trying to resurrect a locked thread; however, after reading through that thread there seems to be a lot of confusion as to what EA, or more specifically the EA Store, is responsible for in regards to APB. I hope to clear things up a little bit. Please note that I am not a lawyer, but I have taken some basic law classes dealing specifically with contract law, so I know a little bit about the subject.
Although EA, as the publisher of APB may not be responsible for its upkeep, the EA Store is responsible for the sale of the products available on their website. On the EA Store's website, in their "Terms of Sale" document, which can be found here: http://tos.ea.com/legalapp/termsofsale/US/enl/PC/ - EA themselves stipulate under the "Performance of the Contract" section that "The products and services that we make available on the Websites may be downloaded or accessed for at least one year after you have completed your purchase."
As we, the purchasers of APB all know, the game is no longer available for download, and its been much less than a year since that happened. Some of you may be saying: "but the EA Store only provided an access code and download link to APB on RTW's website, and did not actually host any files related to APB on their website." This is where it gets a bit tricky.
There is no doubt that this document is a legally enforceable contract between the consumer and EA, and is binding to all purchases through the EA Store website (unless EA made a separate Terms of Sale specifically for APB, but if there is one I'm not aware of it). Basically, it is the interpretation of the claims of the contract that is important to courts when they make a ruling on a contract dispute. The statement that "The products and services that we make available on the Websites may be downloaded or accessed for at least one year after you have completed your purchase" implies that the products they sell (i.e. make available) will be available for download (somewhere) for at least one year, regardless of whether or not the product is produced by another company. If EA wanted to stipulate that they were not responsible for hosting the download for 3rd parties, they probably should have said so explicitly in their Terms of Sale document, but they didn't. If this Terms of Sale document does indeed apply to all purchases on the EA Store website, then by not offering APB available for download, they have misrepresented the terms of the contract, and are probably liable for breach of contract.
So, in the case that what I'm saying is true, it is EA's responsibility to either make the game available for download, or refund the money for all the people who purchased the game through EA's online store.
The difficult part comes next. How do you go about getting your money back from EA? If you are lucky enough to live in the same state as where EA is headquartered (I'm guessing California), you may be able to file a small claims suit. But, for people like me who don't even live in the same country, we are not left with many options. You will likely be required to file the suit in the same court district in which the company is located, which would mean at least one trip to that location. Obviously, this is not a viable option for most people since the cost of the trip would likely be more than the cost of the game. The other option, like someone mentioned in the previous post, is that if you payed by credit card, seek dispute resolution through your credit card provider. Give them all the details about the Terms of Sale, and maybe you'll get lucky.
Similarly, people who purchased the game through other sources, such as Steam, may be binded to similar terms of sale documents that could be enforcable and lead to a refund for the purchase of the game. However, I have not looked into this myself so I can't say for sure.
Good luck getting your refunds, I'm still waiting for mine.
Comments
So what you want EA do? make APB clientdownloadable even though there are no server to play?
Since they can get around the legal issue like that. But I don't see how it helps.
Like I mentioned in the earlier Threads about this subject. Keep whining about your rights in the EA Live Chats until you get another game key in return. My second try resulted in a gamekey for Bad Company 2.
I thought it was obvious that I just want to get my money back for a game I hardly got a chance to play. I don't play games on a daily basis. I have school, and other priorities. I wasn't even able to use up the 50 hours of time that came with the original purchase, and I even pre-ordered it. It's nice to have it, in writing, that I don't have to worry about using up all my game time all at once because it'll be available for at least a year. But then, of course, that turned out not to be the case.
Yes, its true they can get around a legal issue like that, but I'm sure I'm not the only slightly annoyed person who purchased the game. If they actually did uphold their contract and made it available for download, just think of all the people who might download it out of spite. Bandwidth ain't free.
I have tried to make my point many times to their customer service. I now have four $20 coupon codes for their store because every chat session ends with the csa throwing out another code, which would be fine, I guess, if there was some other game I actually wanted to buy from there.