Opinion: EA Facing Lawsuit & Blames Sony, Is It Time For Publishers To Change Their Ways?

I’m sure by now you may have heard about the many bugs that have riddled EA’s Battlefield 4 since its release, well other then the customers, there seems to be some very angry and upset investors that are planning to sue EA for lying about their product to raise stock prices.  The investors that are filling the lawsuit firmly believe that EA knew that the game was broken and that it would miss the sale targets that they had promised at a sales pitch.  It is believed that the suit has been filled on behalf of anyone that purchased stock between the dates of July 24^th and December 4^th.

EA however have been fighting there corner (as most people would), but it seems that they have gone to extreme lengths to pass the blame elsewhere by actually blaming the PS4 firmware update.  This seems to be an incredible accusation and one that has obviously not gone down well with Sony, and rightly so.  EA released a statement pinning the blame onto Sony via their EA support site, the statement was then quickly pulled down by EA.  But with how quickly news spreads over the internet, the statement had already made many rounds on various websites.

You can read the statement below, which actually states:

Yesterday EA released a patch for Battlefield 4 , the list of issues is still huge and the problems don’t seem to be dissipating any time quickly.  You can check out that list by clicking HERE.

Now let’s put ourselves into the shoes of EA and humour them for a moment.  Let’s pretend that the troubles that Battlefield 4 has been enduring on the PS4 are because of that evil firmware update.  If that was in fact true, how would EA explain the many bugs and server issues that have also plagued the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game?  Will they blame Steam and Microsoft?  Truth is that EA should put their hands up and at least admit it was them in the wrong and not Sony, but I’m assuming that is wishful thinking.

In my personal opinion, it’s not the developers that are to blame (not even Sony as EA seem to believe), but I bet many developers are getting much of the stick as a result of overly strict release date deadlines set by the publishers.  We all understand that the video game industry is a very competitive market, but should that really be a reason to lessen the quality of any title, let alone one that is AAA.

No one really wants a game that they have been looking forward to playing to be delayed, but neither do we want an unfinished product, and I bet the vast majority of gamers would prefer a delay than an unfinished game.  Back in October Ubisoft made the decision to delay Watch_Dogs and The Crew, which was shortly followed by South Park: The Stick of Truth because none of the games were up to their high standards.  I salute Ubisoft for that decision, because they could have easily released any of these games on their set release date and cashed in on the festive period.

It was also announced today that the Dead Rising 3 DLC ‘Operation Eagle’ has been delayed by Capcom until January 2014, and their reasons were to “spend a few more weeks polishing and playtesting.” Which is the right attitude to have if you think your product will not meet expectations.

Perhaps other publishers should take note of Ubisoft’s delay, instead of pressuring developers into overly strict deadlines, perhaps they should allow the developers to fully test their product, so that they can release a complete and quality game.  If this was to happen maybe, just maybe we might not only get greater quality games, but perhaps we won’t see so many development studios being closed down which results in a loss of jobs, such as Terminal Velocity.

It might be okay for the big publishers to think that they can say this game WILL release on this release date, but in truth it’s not them that will suffer.  The people that will suffer are not only the customers that buy these buggy games, but also the developers that get faced up against the firing squad as a consequence of pushy deadlines and incomplete products.

Maybe if these investors are successful with this lawsuit, and I for one hope that they are, maybe EA and other publishers will get the kick up the backside that they deserve, but again that might just be wishful thinking.  Here’s to a favourable outcome.

What do you make of the EA lawsuit and the publishers attitude towards meeting deadlines at the expensive of unfinished video games?  Do you think that the developer and the customer deserve more respect and consideration? Perhaps you’ve experienced various issues with a particular game or maybe none at all?  Either way, we’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences, so be sure to let us know in the comments section below.

Thank you to Gameindustry.biz for the information regarding EA and the lawsuit.