
EA refuses to refund user for SimCity, threatens account ban - dutchbrit
http://www.gamechup.com/ea-refuses-to-refund-user-for-simcity-threatens-account-ban/
======
bobsy
I would like to say this means I won't buy an EA game but considering how many
good franchises they own that would just be a lie. I was going to pick up Sim
City. I remember playing it years ago and I loved it. I thought this would be
awesome. Now I am definitely not getting it and I can confidently resolve that
I will not be buying any future Sim City title.

It is a similar situation with Diablo 3. I was going to get it but after
friends abandoned it after about 10 days I figured it wasn't worth it. It also
had the same problems as Starcraft with requiring you to be online to even
play 'offline' game modes.

A couple of friends and I decided to have a games night a few weeks ago. We
lugged our computers to one person's house like the good old days. Got them
all running. Installed a bunch of old games and were disappointed to find the
majority of multiplayer servers were shut down. Today I read that Sim City
stores your saved games online. (I don't know how true this is.) What happens
in 5 years time when EA cut back or disconnect their servers? Won't the game
be completely unplayable?

Its only in digital good's that you can get screwed like Sim City users are.
If I brought Monopoly and found the board was missing I could take it back.
Buy a game which doesn't work.. well suck it up fella. Similarly, Amazon can
ban your account and you lose access to Kindle books you legitimately paid
for...

I might have my facts incorrect here but if an App is removed from the Play /
iOS app stores isn't it removed from users devices? What happens to any money
you put into those apps?

Pretty much any digital good you buy cannot be resold. Usually reselling your
account under which you made such purchases is also not allowed. All in all
its a shitty deal for anyone buying digital goods.

Yesterday I read how the EU is getting ready to fine Microsoft presumably for
shipping Windows 8 without a browser select screen. I would have thought
investigating how consumers are treated by companies offering digital goods
should be a far higher priority.

~~~
moepstar
>>> I might have my facts incorrect here but if an App is removed from the
Play / iOS app stores isn't it removed from users devices?

No, it's not (at least on iOS)

Source: I've bought a Navigation-App which since seems to be discontinued
(N-Drive or something like that).

~~~
jordan0day
What if you buy a new device? Does the purchase live in your account into
perpetuity, or are you out of luck when you upgrade to the "next" iDevice?

~~~
pilif
If you use iCloud backup and don't ever sync to a local iTunes, then you're
out of luck. If you sync with a local iTunes, the app will be in iTunes and
will be installed to the device. Unless of course something on the new device
prevents the app from running due to technical reasons, but that's the same
with old games and new hardware/OSes

~~~
davidjade
I'm not sure this is absolutely true. Years ago I installed an app on my
iPhone (Now Playing, a movie times app). That app was removed from the store
years ago by the author. Recently I bought an iPad and if I go to
"purchased/not on this iPad" in the App Store on the iPad, the app still shows
as available for download. You can't search and find it in the store though.

Maybe it still shows because all my devices are iCloud backed up and I never
removed it from my iPhone.

~~~
adamisen
I believe the key is that it was removed by the author. Apps that are pulled
for violating the App Store rules don't show up in Purchased, to my knowledge.
I know I have a couple IPAs floating around just in case I need an emergency
tether or something.

------
greggman
It's frustrating to me that people put up with this instead of boycotting the
game FOREVER!

I was thinking of buying having seen the early reviews. Now I won't, EVER.
I've got plenty of other games to play. I don't need this one.

~~~
johnward
Here's the thing. If people don't buy the game because of DRM then EA execs
see this as "no one will ever buy a city sim". So a bunch of people who did
buy the game doing chargebacks seems like it sends a better message. It says
"I wanted this game for so long I pre-ordered. After I couldn't play due to
DRM I wanted a refund."

~~~
EliRivers
It's a long term strategy. If EA never made another Sim City game, eventually,
eventually, someone else would. A Sim City game with a different name, sure.
But a Sim City game.

~~~
dragontamer
Plenty of good building games around from the 90s to today.

Gool Ol' Games offers plenty of classics if you haven't played them. Ceasar 3,
Roller Coaster Tycoon, Pharaoh / Cleopatra, Stronghold Crusader... all DRM-
free and less than $10 each.

Dwarf Fortress is free as well with an awesome following. If you can get over
the ASCII / tileset thing, its a good game.

~~~
drivingmenuts
Well, that's awesome if you're into that, but personally I like games that
leverage the abilities of modern graphics card. I'm not afflicted with a lot
of nostalgia, though, either.

------
jetti
This is ridiculous. The OP said he was going to dispute the charge with his
credit card company at which point the customer service rep said if he does
that they will ban his account. This is so people don't buy the game, dispute
the charge and keep playing that game for free.

There are people that are good at customer support and those that aren't. I
would think this individual falls into the latter category. Does that mean EA
is plotting to scam everybody? Hell no. It means that this CSA didn't do a
good job explaining WHY they won't issue a refund. This "article" is just
fanning the flames of hatred towards EA and not adding anything. If the OP is
truly that unhappy, talk to the credit card company to get the money back and
then re-buy when the game is stable. But don't expect money back AND the
ability to play the game.

~~~
Mithaldu
By "account" he was referring to the Origin account, which contains more games
than just SimCity. Threatening to remove SimCity from his account would be
perfectly fine. But blocking access to ALL other games as well is simply
criminal.

~~~
jetti
Ahhh well that makes more sense on the severity of the issue. However, I
highly doubt that EA would want their CSAs to threaten to ban anybody based on
asking for a refund or threatening to do a charge back and it is just the work
of a terrible CSA

~~~
mikeash
It's actually par for the course for these places to ban your entire account
if you ever do a chargeback. Steam does it routinely, and I'm sure EA does it
too. Just another way that this Brave New Digital World is disenfranchising
consumers.

------
Kaivo
EA chose their words well.

 _"if you regrettably feel that we left you down, you can of course request a
refund for your order."_

As far as I know, they didn't state they would proceed with the request, only
that you can "request" a refund. I can ask for the moon, it doesn't mean I'll
get it.

~~~
Terretta
And it's regrettable you'd feel that way anyway, shmuck.

------
Tzunamitom
Given the two hour wait I had to talk to a billing advisor to try and buy
SimCity yesterday, people are still buying this game in their droves. The
problem is that there is no incentive for EA to listen to their customers -
the monopoly that they have on many of the best franchises allows them to act
in such a petulant and anticompetitive manner.

I hate to be the one to say this, but I really can't see this issue being
resolved without regulation.

~~~
jrajav
Let's see how long that lasts. It sounds like this time around is different
from being unable to cancel subscriptions, or a multiplayer server going down
- people who _bought the game at release_ actually _cannot play it_ , or
encounter major functionality breaks while doing so.

I know that it may be unlikely, but I do hope that this affects their bottom
line. EA is a toxic company inside and out.

~~~
hsmyers
Regarding your comment of toxicity inside---when was this? Is this from
personnel experience? Reason I ask is that 'toxic' is counter to my experience
while working for them. Had a great time working with an equally great team.
No pointy hairs in sight. That however was in 93 and things may well have
changed.

~~~
speeder
I never worked for EA, but I know people.

1993 EA has nothing to do with EA from 1996 onwards...

EA screwed Origin (that then they already owned, just read stuff about
development of Ultima 8 and 9... there are lots of documents about how
executive meddling made U8 a meh game, and U9 a totally ruined game), then
bought and ruined Westwood, and so on.

Also as the time passed they got more and more problems with employees. Then
we had crazy shit, like when EA closed a studio in LA, and people found out
that the studio had more middle managers than grunts, and this is why the
studio could not decide what to do, it simply had so much people giving orders
and so few people doing, that doing stuff was impossible.

The EA that wrote this:
<http://chrishecker.com/Can_a_Computer_Make_You_Cry%3F> doesn't exist anymore.

~~~
anonymous
Can you elaborate on what happened in '96? EA have been on my "pirate their
games if you really MUST see them yourself" list for a decade at least.
However, I wasn't really a gamer back in '93-'96, so I don't know how they
used to be and how they changed.

~~~
speeder
I never tried to track what happened exactly, or why.

But their games back then start to suffer from lots of executive meddling,
with EA interfering more and more on the artistry of their game authors.

My best guess it is related to the launch of Playstation in late 1995,
spurring a race for 3D games and FMV games, requiring much more money than
before, and thus requiring more "risk management."

------
MarkMc
When I buy SimCity, how long will I be able to play the game for? 30 days? 100
years?

Does EA make any promises about how long they will keep their servers running?
If not, what would be the minimum time they would need to keep their servers
running to avoid a 'false advertising' prosecution?

~~~
res0nat0r
None? The same could be said if the WoW servers get shut down tomorrow. Game
over and move on. It's probably in the Eula you agree to at first login.

~~~
ceejayoz
WoW is a different case. It's sold as an MMO and very clearly doesn't have a
single-player version.

~~~
res0nat0r
I'm not sure if user ignorance is a valid legal claim. diablo 3 is in the same
boat. You can play single player but need to authenticate with the blizzard
servers. It those go away its game over.

~~~
saraid216
> I'm not sure if user ignorance is a valid legal claim.

IANAL, but there is a case that can be made for reasonable expectation [1]. On
the other hand, most people who complain about this _actively demonstrate
foreknowledge_ , which AFAICT immediately invalidates their legal standing for
reasonable expectation.

I think a talented lawyer may be able to figure out how to draw together law
into a strong case where there is some obligation to make sure your game can
run mostly-featured without an internet connection... but in order to set
precedent, you're probably going to have to sue an indie company to have a
fighting chance in terms of money (which would also probably kill said indie)
or put together a large enough legal fund to go after a worthwhile target like
Ubisoft or EA... and I don't rate your chances high, there.

[1] [http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/doctrine-of-
rea...](http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/doctrine-of-reasonable-
expectations.html)

------
lambada
Disputing a card transaction has always resulted in a ban on Origin. But it
has also always resulted in a ban on Steam as well. Ostensibly for the reason
of card fraud and fraudulent accounts.

Note: I'm referring to in the US here, I'm unsure of the legality of doing
that in the EU.

~~~
Udo
But in this case it's not the transaction itself that's being disputed. That
person wants to return the game because it has a defect. Returning defective
goods is not the same as disputing the transaction, is it? The vindictive
support worker implied this himself when he said the ban was within his
discretion to use as a means to close this support inquiry.

~~~
dangrossman
Visa Chargeback Code 53: Not as Described/Defective Merchandise

MasterCard Chargeback Code 53: Cardholder Dispute Defective/Not as Described

Discover Chareback Code RM: Quality of Goods or Services Dispute

Charging a credit card but providing a defective product is a valid chargeback
reason.

------
brisance
Considering how litigious America can be, I'm surprised EA and the other
majors have not been slapped with a lawsuit. Under the Uniform Commercial
Code, the product fails at least the implied warranties of merchantability and
fitness for a particular purpose.

~~~
Spoom
I'm quite certain implied warranties are disclaimed in the EULA.

~~~
peacemaker
I fairly certain you can't just disclaim things like that. It's similar to
adding illegal clauses to a contract - just because you signed it, it doesn't
suddenly change the law.

~~~
dangrossman
You can disclaim implied warranties. Virtually _every_ EULA and website TOS
document does so (OT: it bugs me a bit that you're "fairly certain" about
this, while you've undoubtedly agreed to that disclaimer dozens of times a
year all your life). The UCC itself sets out the rules for disclaiming the
implied warranties. It has to be done in a clear and conspicuous manner to be
effective, which is why that's the part that's always in full CAPS in the
contract, making it particularly easy to spot.

For example, Google's TOS:

> SOME JURISDICTIONS PROVIDE FOR CERTAIN WARRANTIES, LIKE THE IMPLIED WARRANTY
> OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.
> TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, WE EXCLUDE ALL WARRANTIES.

<http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/terms/>

Or Twitter's:

> THE TWITTER ENTITIES DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS, WHETHER EXPRESS
> OR IMPLIED, OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR NON-
> INFRINGEMENT.

<https://twitter.com/tos>

Or the iTunes store:

> APPLE, ISSUER, AND THEIR LICENSEES, AFFILIATES, AND LICENSORS MAKE NO
> WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, WITH RESPECT TO GIFT CERTIFICATES, ITUNES
> CARDS, CONTENT CODES, ALLOWANCES, OR THE ITUNES STORE, APP STORE, MAC APP
> STORE, OR IBOOKSTORE, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED
> WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE

<http://www.apple.com/legal/itunes/us/terms.html#SALE>

~~~
polymatter
A company can stick whatever it likes in its EULA (or any contract), but that
doesn't make it legally enforceable. Company lawyers are paid lots of money to
be extremely defensive. It costs them nothing to disclaim all warranties, the
only purpose of which seems to be to dissuade some people from taking them to
court because of this.

I am more familiar with UK law, but I am certain that under US law if there is
a constradiction between what is stated in an otherwise valid contract and US
law, then US law takes precedence and the legal contract is modified to comply
with US law. It must be that way otherwise you could sign people into slavery
by just saying "look its here in the contract". Or "no I am legally allowed to
beat my wife, see she signed this contract saying I could".

------
sangupta
A very bad practice - either don't issue a statement or honour it. Am sure as
the story creates some noise, the user may get a refund, but not all of them.
Sad.

~~~
rplnt
There was no statement by the company. Some employee said it on forums. They
honor their ToS - no refunds.

~~~
sangupta
But aren't the employees speaking on behalf of the company? If not, then the
company should add a disclaimer to their statement.

------
Tloewald
It's like Seinfeld at the car rental place. "Sure, you can request a
refund..."

------
degenerate
Hilaroius (and sad) timelapse video someone made of them "playing" the game...
mostly server error messages. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m62ppOUwFhk>

------
catchoftheyear
I'm the odd one out I know. EA refunded my money for BF3 after I complained
about silly requirement for a browser plugin to play single player.

Steam/Valve on the other hand actually did the opposite. They did not refund
my money for games that had invasive DRM and were not marked but pointed me to
their EULA that said they would disable my whole account if I made a charge
back.

[https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=5406-WFZ...](https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=5406-WFZC-5519)

I despise online only DRM, but please lets not only bash EA here. Valve is
just as bad.

------
dman
Wonder if users can use credit card chargebacks for cases like this.

~~~
redthrowaway
Easily. You claim the company didn't deliver the product as ordered and is
refusing to refund your money. That's what chargebacks are _for_.

That said, chargebacks aren't a blanket get out of jail free card. Some CC
plans offer consumer protection insurance, which goes above and beyond simple
chargebacks.

~~~
mrgoldenbrown
Be careful - if you have bought any other games on Origin, you will lose those
too if you do a chargeback and they ban your account. You are not just losing
SimCity, you are losing anything you have bought on the same account.

~~~
daenz
Can they get a chargeback on those games as well? Or how is that not some form
of theft? He bought the previous games, and the company forcefully removed
them from him and keeps his money.

~~~
smsm42
Many credit companies would not let you to contest transactions beyond certain
limits (90 days? don't remember) so with old games that probably won't work.
Not sure if any of them provide warranties for digital goods... Worst case one
may try one's luck in small claims court, though what would be the result is
anyone's guess - there's certainly language in EULA saying you're not getting
any money back but that may or may not be legally true.

------
k3n
Suspiciously, the chat log doesn't include the agents greeting, and seems to
pick up mid-convo. Why would someone include part of a transcript and not the
entire thing? Makes me think there's something embarrassing to the OP that was
omitted.

Either way, this is like seeing a fight but not seeing who threw the first
punch: the OP could've been a massive d-bag in the beginning of the convo. If
so, I'd completely understand (as a former tech support agent) why the
customer may have been denied remedy.

~~~
jlgreco
If OP felt ripped of to the tune of $60, I think it is quite understandable if
he was a bit of a douchebag. I can hardly see that as a reasonable
justification for denying a refund.

------
offdrey
Apparently, a petition has been started on change.org to refund SimCity
customers : [http://www.change.org/petitions/electronic-arts-refund-
simci...](http://www.change.org/petitions/electronic-arts-refund-simcity-
customers-2)

There is another hn thread about it :
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5343715>

------
cpeterso
What are the biggest challenges that open-source game developers face? Can
open-source games ever approach "AAA quality" game designs or art?

~~~
eropple
I wouldn't worry about game _design_ \--if you've looked at an AAA game
recently you can probably whiteboard out something more interesting and refine
it with iteration once it's playable.

What I would worry about is labor costs. People got-ta get paid. An AAA-
quality game isn't something you're going to do nights-and-weekends for free
when you could be leveraging those skills to get paid. You might get the help
of wannabes who don't have the skills to get paid, but do you want to rely on
that to push a game that by your own definition is going to require some
fairly serious chops to ship?

Sure, open source blah blah blah--but most open source projects that get
significant, large-scale contributions have knock-on effects like being able
to be easily hired for consulting gigs, that sort of thing. Game development,
not so much. And artist types are not inculcated into the open-source world to
nearly the extent of programmers, so I find it unlikely that you'll be able to
really source all the media you need.

There's usually a ton of overly naive hand-flapping about how you have Wesnoth
and Nexuiz and the rest, but if you _look at the games_ , they're not what a
reasonable person would call an AAA title on the level of a Starcraft 2 or a
Halo (and Nexuiz in particular is based on a closed-source game engine opened
up years after its licensing viability was over).

I'm sure you can make good, fun games in an open-source way (because it has
been done) but I strongly doubt you'll make anything that's competitive in the
AAA market space without accepting that you're lighting a few million dollars
on fire (because let's get real, effectively nobody's going to pay you a dime
for it).

.

(This is also why I laughed at the guy upthread who said "oh, _the market_
should solve this, someone should start a Kickstarter for a city sim game!".
That's not how Kickstarter works and it's not how somebody who can do math
approaches a game. To get attention for a high-ask Kickstarter you need a
decent chunk of work _already done_ , and by the time you get there the
shitbomb of SimCity will probably have departed and taken its stink elsewhere.
To build a game on the scale of SimCity in a length of time that won't have
your backers screaming for your head, you're going to need a couple million
dollars. With extremely rare, you're-not-it exceptions, Kickstarter backers
laugh at such requests. It's the "zeitgeist projects" that manage to hit their
targets and then a high multiple thereof--and the worst thing that can happen
to you if you're hoping to be one of those projects is that you _make your
goal_ and no more.

Economies of scale suck for the ambitious, because no matter how cool your
idea, people gotta get paid.)

------
smsm42
I remember when I was playing these games you could just buy it, run it and
enjoy. Now you have DRM, overloaded servers, all kinds of trouble - I actually
feel good I'm not that interested in this anymore, and if I want to play for
old times' sake I'd just fish out old copy of Starcraft, C&C or Civilization
and play it as much as I want without having to rely on anybody for
permission. What happened to that?

OTOH, there are normal publishers, like Steam, from which I bought a couple of
games and never had any trouble. So it's possible to do it right. EA just
doesn't want to do it.

------
technifreak
I wasn't aware the game didn't release for Mac until later this Spring. I
bought it, tried to install it and contacted EA after realizing my mistake.
After waiting for 45 minutes for a person to answer the LiveChat, then 5
minutes after that, and I had my refund. I've rethought my purchase and
probably won't buy it when it comes out for Mac. (Unless they make major
changes to the Mac version because of the backlash. _nudge nudge EA_ )

------
zaptheimpaler
I think the big problem here is that EA enjoys a near monopoly in some sense
(say for PC games, certain genres). Most of their PC games in the past few
years have been a giant shit show of bugs and server failures, but no one else
in the industry has the money to be able to compete with them. Result: The
monopoly exploits its customers, and the customers come back anyways, because
there is no choice.

------
mariuolo
It's sad to watch another company I loved as a kid to go in the shitter.

------
Kiro
You clearly have no idea how big a problem chargebacks are for companies. I
have no sympathy for anyone who threatens with it.

~~~
jekub
You clearly have no idea how big a problem DRM are for customers. I have no
sympathy for anyone who use it.

Especially in this case where the DRM have totally screwed up the game, where
EA have explicitly said people to ask for a refund, and denied it in the end.

~~~
Kiro
No, I don't. What exactly is the problem and would it still be one if the
servers were running smoothly?

------
dreamdu5t
People should be looking at this as an opportunity. Start a game company that
has a sane distribution model.

------
norswap
I'm watching this, sipping a cocktail and waiting for the crack to come out.

------
BigBalli
doubt they can get away with it for much longer. Even amazon is reporting the
issues directly on the product page: <http://amzn.to/16cCByx>

------
camus
i smell a class action lawsuit ...

~~~
zalzane
There's probably a dozen clauses in the game's EULA that prevent a class
action lawsuit.

~~~
kefka
That may be true. But 5000 small claims suits would be devastating to their
bottom line. Unless they no-show, they have to have a lawyer representing them
at each one.

Death by a thousand cuts, indeed.

~~~
gertef
Petitioners' lawyers are forbidden from entering small claims court. They have
to send a representative, or no-show.

no-show -> default judgement -> refund, worst case.

