Update: Class Action Claims Colonial Marines Falsely Advertised

"We think the video game industry is no different than any other that deals with consumers," says the plaintiff's representative, Edelson LLC.

"Sega and Gearbox have been targeted in a class action suit, taken up by legal firm Edelson LLC on behalf of Damion Perrine, alleging that Aliens: Colonial Marines was falsely advertised by showing demos which bore very little relation to the final product. The suit argues that, because of the press embargo that only lifted on the game's February 12th launch, those who bought early or pre-ordered would have had no idea that significant discrepancies between the demo and final game existed."

[FrightfulActions]

Yeah, because these law-suites always work out. Just like Mass Effect 3's, where they flat out lied and mislead the consumer base without as a much as a "may not represent final product" notice.

"Choices will matter, won't be ABC."

Choices don't matter, was ABC.

Nothing came of that. I doubt anything will come of this. The amount of immunity the game industry receives is disturbing sometimes. Sure, when they have a game with guns, violence or heavens forbid implied sex it will be all over the news but when they lie and cheat the consumer "lol meh its just a video game, they're for kids, lets not care or take it seriously, move along."

Good luck to Edelson, though.

[XishikiX]

The choices do matter (but not in the way fans wanted, and in the shallow way the series always dealt with choices). Even the ending is affected by actions because galactic readiness which changes the ending (which is definitely a cop out way of doing it, but not a lie).

You can't save both the quarians, and the geth unless you do certain things in previous both games. You don't deal with wrex if you kill him in the first one, etc. They're shallow. But the decisions change what events occur in 3, and in some cases the fate of certain races.

I don't even think mass effect 3 is a good game. But people saying they lied are wrong. People had dreams of what it was going to be and it didn't end up that way and bioware took the easy route.

[Anon1974]

You know what. I heard I remember when Mulholland Drive came out, the tagline read "A key to a mystery - lies somewhere on Mulholland Drive."

There was no key to the mystery. The mystery was never solved. This was blatant false advertising. The movie was abysmal waste of my time. Were there ever any class action suits that anyone knows of? If so, where can I get in on that?

I also want in on the class action suits after the finales of Lost and Battlestar Galactica failed to live up to the hype. And Red Bull also never gave me wings! These bastards are running rough shod over the consumer! How dare we be expected to take responsibility for our own, misinformed purchasing decisions! Someone had gots ta pay!

[Draugz]

Aliens: CM is a different story. In the demo, the game was shown to be a cinematic experience. In reality, it came out to be a generic run-of-the-mill bad FPS. People didn't know about this until the release date.

[Anon1974]

What, are we all children now? A demo's no different than an advertisement for the game. Of course they're going to stack the demo and make it out to be better then it actually is if they're marketing a turd. It's no different then doctoring up screenshots, or showing CG trailers. It's done all the time because they're designed to sell the game.

I'm sorry, if you can't be bothered to wait for the reviews to come out, that's your own damn fault. Thousands of sub par games come out every year (and here's a shocker, most games that use movie licenses...suck) and the company's are going to try to polish those turds anyway they can, and that includes putting out demos that may try to rope in gamers by promising the moon in their short span.

They've been doing it since the start, and games certainly aren't the only thing that falls victim to this. Haven't you ever seen a movie trailer cut in a way that made the movie seem funnier, or more action packed then the actual finished product? Of course you have. Are there class action lawsuits because "This is 40" ended up being a relative serious look at a couple struggling with relationship issues when the commercials made it out to be some sort of hilarious "Knocked up" sequel?

A fool and his money are soon parted. And judging by the disagrees I see, there's a fair amount of fools hanging about that couldn't be bothered to read a damn review and somehow feel it's the developers fault they bought a mediocre game.

[cleft5]

After Alien's Colonial Marines, I just can't feel sorry for Gearbox. They have this coming to them. People where looking forward to a Gearbox game, not an outsourced crap game.

[tweet75]

demos should not mislead gamers they should not be released unless it is an outtake of the actual game anything else is misleading

[jc48573]

man, they should sue Capcom instead. While you're at it, sue Konami for their false advertisement in Silent Hill HD Collection. They promised they were simply adding more on top of the game, but instead they went in and made some changes. Konami did clean up after their mess in the end though as they let customers switch SH HD with any other game in their library. Capcom's bs on disc locked content is something people should consider suing for.

[Mikeyy]

I kinda feel bad for Sega on this one, From what I read, gearbox stole their money for Aliens, and used it all on Borderlands 2 instead.

Sega gets screwed both ways.