Law firm kicks off investigation into EA and Battlefield 4

Law firm kicks off investigation into EA and Battlefield 4
By Alexa Ray Corriea on Dec 11, 2013 at 8:44a @AlexaRayC
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Publisher Electronic Arts is currently under investigation by law firm Holzer Holzer and Fistel, LLC for possibly misleading investors and analysts regarding the quality of Battlefield 4, which has been plagued with problems across all platforms since it launched in late October.

Holzer Holzer and Fistel is focusing its investigation on statements made between July 24, 2013 and December 4, 2013 regarding Battlefield 4's development, sales, and impact on EA's revenue and future projects. The Atlanta-based law firm is looking into whether EA violated federal securities laws during this time by make false statements about the game's status.

The firm encourages those who purchased EA common stock between July 24 and Dec. 4 or who suffered investment losses during this year contact Holzer Holzer and Fistel attorney Marshall P. Dees regarding legal rights in this case.

Holzer Holzer and Fistel is a law firm focused on representation of shareholders and investors and investigation of SEC violations. The company currently has a number of outstanding cases, including investigations into clothing retailer Urban Oufitters, Ventrus Biosciences and Lumber Liquidators Holdings.

On Nov. 18, Battlefield's servers suffered DDOS attack, which was followed by two weeks of fixes and patches issued across all platforms to address various bugs and crashes. Last week, EA announced that it would cease work on future Battlefield 4 expansions until issues with the current state of the game have been rectified. As a result, on Dec. 6, EA;s stock dropped 7.3 percent. Yesterday, DICE created a tracker page on the Battlelog forums for the top problems within the game and status updates on incoming fixes.
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There are 13 Comments.
ZeBaguetteGamer ZeBaguetteGamer

I love how this is about misleading investors and there’s not a single word about misleading consumers.

Of course the rich minority is much more protected than the comparatively poor majority of people being mislead. And we’re talking about people that can afford a gaming system, if not a gaming PC, so usually far from actually being poor.

What the fuck is wrong with this world.

Dec 11, 2013 | 8:50 AM Reply
Station_Agent

EA stock price is on at $22 a share right now. Any consumer who paid $60 for the game can have EA stock easily. I don’t see your argument here. You can easily set up a Change.org petition to take EA to task for misleading consumers and I am sure Polygon or another news outlet would cover it.

Dec 11, 2013 | 9:13 AM Reply
ZeBaguetteGamer ZeBaguetteGamer

I would if people actually found it’s unacceptable. But here’s the problem: shareholders do not accept less margin, but consumers in their immense majority are completely complacent. Sure, they’ll complain about it, grumble about it, but it’s not their job to go around chasing companies that mislead them so they’ll lose track fairly rapidly.

On the other hand, these lawfirms have swathes of lawyers payed specifically to defend shareholders financial (short-term) interests. So between that and a Change.org petition, I know which we’ll win.

What people need is consumer protection organisations that dedicate their time to protect consumers. But they usually get bought by lobbies after a few years, so…

Dec 11, 2013 | 9:19 AM Reply
sollared

Those would be completely different cases. If a consumer wants to hire a law firm to investigate EA for misleading them and selling an unusable product they have every right to. This situation right here is just specifically about them lying to investors, which is a federal crime. Think of it like a ponzi scheme. EA telling investors to keep giving them money when they know they have nothing to make the investment worthwhile.

Dec 11, 2013 | 9:17 AM Reply
ZeBaguetteGamer ZeBaguetteGamer

Yes but these lawyers have far more chances to succeed in demonstrating EA’s fault than any lawyer I could afford. It’s their job to fetch every single detail and make sure their client wasn’t lied to.

I doubt any lawyer I can afford could show such dedication to my case, so I’d probably end up losing (along with wasting a lot of money), yet both the investors and I were wronged. The difference is between the amounts of money that they and I can sink in paying lawers.

Dec 11, 2013 | 9:23 AM Reply
Stewbagel Stewbagel

I know that since this is a gaming site almost none of the members here will understand this scenario accurately and probably have lots of irrational and uneducated rage directed at either Holzer or EA.

I do not pretend to understand the scope of the situation, but I wont appear stupid by decrying either party without any education in this field. If you have a family member or friend in a lawfirm, I’d hope you’d present this scenario to them before raging your pants off.

I would always recommend doing a basic Google search, but this is naturally complicated and I wouldn’t expect the motivation behind Holzer or the likely outcome to be apparant.

Dec 11, 2013 | 8:55 AM Reply
Kirielson

If only people had a more rational temperance (I think that’s the word) here, it would be amazing.

Dec 11, 2013 | 9:09 AM Reply
His Master's Voice His Master's Voice

The motivation is money. The outcome is what some very expensive lawyers will decide upon.

Yeah, that just about covers it.

Dec 11, 2013 | 9:09 AM Reply
sollared

If someone tricked you into giving them money for a great new idea you had, only for you to find out they had nothing and you didn’t get your money back, I think you’d be a little mad too.

Dec 11, 2013 | 9:22 AM Reply
sollared

Also, lawyers don’t decide cases. Jusdges do.

Dec 11, 2013 | 9:23 AM Reply
eabarth eabarth

Pretty much what I was going to say. Plenty of people were about to whip out their Harvard Law School degrees, I’m sure.

Dec 11, 2013 | 9:22 AM Reply
quidnunc

nothing will come of this. these are mostly showstopper bugs that they would expect to be fixed by release. they didn’t intentionally release the game knowing it would crash repeatedly

Dec 11, 2013 | 9:10 AM Reply
MattBrooks

Can I just say, its a bit shitty that Polygon are still carrying ad’s for Battlefield 4? At the end of the day, the game is still fundamentally broken for a lot of people, and I understand sales and editorial should stay separate, but its still quite anti consumer.

Dec 11, 2013 | 9:18 AM

Battlefield 4: EA refunding BF4 Premium on Xbox One — Report
Authored by Matt Hadden
LINK  

It looks like some users on the Xbox One are managing to get refunds for their Battlefield 4 purchases after experiencing many different issues after installing the add-on. There are various reports on the Battlelog forums of users saying that they had installed the add-on and just got constant disconnect issues, and that after a chat with Microsoft, they had their license revoked and their money refunded.

Judging by some replies to the thread people are getting refunded and still keeping access to the premium license as well, which doesn’t seem right. It could be that you know, the internet is being the internet, but something to keep in mind.

It is good to see that Microsoft are at least giving players the option to get a refund but if it’s not removing their access to the game then it doesn’t seem that fair for people sticking with the problems that Battlefield 4 is facing at the minute.

I honestly think that people are just jumping the gun too quick. EA forced the game out early and now DICE are working as hard as they can to make sure they get things fixed as quickly as possible. I should think that come February/March next year we might have a game which works as intended after DICE have managed to fix what EA caused.
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   3 comments

   bubs999
   • 11 minutes ago

   Yey fixed by Feb/March 2014 and I can finally use my Premium content that gave me......wait for it.........Early access to DLC!
   utter rubbish. I've been a Battlefield supporter for years, but this has to be the worst ever release.
   •


   TI_21
   • 20 minutes ago

   Don't want to take EAs side here, but it's DICE that fucked up.
   EA is giving them free rein with pretty much anything they do. They are in a position to set their launch day themselves and it was their decision not to push it back.

   Heck, they are even able to stop most work on their other projects. That's not something EA would allow them to do if they didn't give them that much independence.
   •


   Xantos
   • 2 hours ago
       −

   Actually this happened on PSN a couple years back with the ACR DLC Packs and the AC3 Season Pass. People were given refunds for the DLCs because they were not working and they were refunded and they kept the content. HOWEVER if its deleted they can not redownload it. So I assume if you delete the licence for Premium you can no longer redownload it