Why the Class Action Lawsuit vs. Killzone Will Change the Industry

GamersNexus: "'Tis the season for humiliating Sony, and it just keeps going. First, the company was hacked and embarrassed publicly with its own incompetence. Next, they were besieged by class action lawsuits against them for data breaches. Then, they announced they were pulling the movie that everyone believes is responsible for the hacks. Finally – and this is the only tidbit that I actually find interesting in any way – a previous class action lawsuit about false advertising for one of the PS4 release titles has been allowed to proceed."

[Foehammer]

I hope they set a precedent so manufacturers will advertise honestly.

The funniest part about this is number of ppl that raged about 1080p but couldn't tell that KZ MP wasn't

[DarkOcelet]

This is really stupid, suing them because it wasnt native 1080p! That is the dumbest thing i have seen. Its just a game and did no harm to anyone and if thats the case then i wonder what Ubi will be sued with.

[Cra2yey3]

Some people just want to watch the world burn...

[thereapersson]

Ahh, Foehammer. First in line to comment on something anti-Sony? I'm shocked!

[n4rc]

Its the point of advertising something you won't deliver.. The importance is irrelevant..

They got caught up in the "resolution war" they wanted to push and its backfired huge..

Not really the end of the world or anything.. Probably won't settle anyways.. But one can hope its a lesson learned and everyone in the industry learns from it as well

[TheRedButterfly]

@1.1

It's not about KZ being sub 1080p - it's about false advertising.

[OmegaShen]

@Red

Still dumb to sue over this, Microsoft done the same with 360 games and developers that faslely say there game isn't broken.

[AndrewLB]

Why would Ubisoft get sued? Showing an early build of a game prior to a downgrade or having bugs does not fall under the legal requirements to file suit for false advertisement because Ubisoft did not officially state in either advertising or on the box itself that the E3 2012 graphics were exactly what the final product would look like. If that were grounds to sue for false advertising, then every single multi-platform game that had PC version would be guilty of false advertising since any honest observer can see that the console versions always lack graphical features found in the PC version.

edit/ Now that I think about it, a plaintiff may have legal standing if they were to sue over Microsoft or Sony showing the PC version of a multi-platform game if they were to make the claim of it being the Xbone/PS4 release.

"Types of False Advertising
Today's regulations define three main acts that constitute false advertising: failure to disclose, flawed and insignificant research, and product disparagement. The majority of these regulations are outlined in the Lanham Act of 1946 (15 U.S.C.A. § 1051 et seq), which contains the statutes that govern trademark law in the United States.

Failure to Disclose: It is considered false advertising under the Lanham Act if a representation is "untrue as a result of the failure to disclose a material fact." Therefore, false advertising can come from both misstatements and partially correct statements that are misleading because they do not disclose something the consumer should know. The Trademark Law Revision Act of 1988, which added several amendments to the Lanham Act, left creation of the line between sufficient and insufficient disclosure to the discretion of the courts."
http://legal-dictionary.the...

Sony made clearly misleading statements claiming in advertising as well as on product packaging that KZSF was rendered in 1080p (1920x1080) when in fact the game was rendered in 960x1080 and then upscaled horizontally to create the additional 960 lines of resolution. The only difference between this method and how the Xbone upscales 900p or 720p is Xbone upscales BOTH horizontal and vertical axis while KZSF only upscaled the horizontal.

And when you look at the actual number of rendered pixels, KZSF's 960x1080 resolution is only slightly above actual 720p. Here's proof:

(720p) 1280x720 = 921,600 pixels rendered
(KZSF) 960x1080 = 1,036,800 pixels rendered
(900p) 1600x900 = 1,440,000 pixels rendered
(1080p) 1920x1080 = 2,073,600 pixels rendered

Both Xbone and PS4 utilize hardware upscaling that is done by an additional chip much like you'd find in a home theater receiver. It's a much higher quality of upscaling than last-gen consoles were able to manage since they utilized software upscaling, which requires CPU/GPU resources that could be better spent achieving better frame rates.
The fact that a separate chip does the upscaling for PS4/Xbone is exactly why KZSF was able to achieve the level of graphical fidelity since the GPU only had to render an image with HALF the pixels as a true 1080p image. And this, in fact, brings us to what motivated Sony to lie about the resolution KZSF was rendered at. At this time last year, Sony along with their hoards of rabid fanboys were beating Microsoft to death with claims that the Xbone could hardly run any games at 1080p. As we all know, this campaign was VERY effective because it was true. But had Sony advertised KZSF's resolution as "slightly above 720p"... their message would have fallen flat.

[extermin8or]

@AndrewLB: killing doesn't use the on hardware upscaling chip, it's images are gnerated by taking a frame, taking the values for every other pixel (roughly) and using the vector data effectively predicting what those pixels will do and generating the next frame using that prediction and the rest of the pixels it's generated in the standard fashion. Now that's not the same as upscaling... Which means generating a lower resolution image then stretching that image by making pixels into two pixels when the original image only has one to get it to the desired resolution. So while depending on what definition of native 1080p you are using killzone maynot count neither does it fit the description of being upscaled. The seperate components of the frames generated may individually be of a lower resolution than the final image but this is nothing new most games lighting etc taken on its own would be of a lower resolution than the image it's used to create. Also only multiplayer used this and I've not seen any adverts that stated specifically multiplayer or singleplayer in relation to the 1080p claims. And back of boxes/towards and c's on every game ever state "game experience may change" when playing online...

[IGiveHugs2NakedWomen]

Sony's getting sued for false advertising. I don't know if a lawsuit will do any good simply because no one seems to care. I've never even played the multiplayer mode and the campaign wasn't interesting enough to keep me engaged.

[s45gr32]

In all honesty it helps us consumers by having game developers stop false advertising plus more polished games. In the U.S. according to my business law class; an ad or any type of advertising cannot lie what the advertiser says or does. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same if someone were to live outside the U.S.

[Blaze929]

"So while depending on what definition of native 1080p you are using"

@extermin8or

lol, there's only one brah. Native 1080p is Native 1080p. Not "1080p with blah blah due to blah blah so it's blah"

As dumb as a lawsuit this may be, that's the beauty of living in America - you can sue for anything. And in the court of law, fine print and wording is everything. Sony will have to settle for claiming the MP was native. Simple as that. Regardless of how 1080p was ultimately achieved

[Evilremz]

how can you cautions this? Developers false advertising their games to get sales? This is totally unacceptable, and not only in the video games business. Since when would you buy something bases on false affirmations? Is it just for video games? If so, why? Let's say you want to eat cereals which contains at least 10g of fibre, and you take the one that advertise 15g of fibre per portion, but in reality you would only get like 5? Would that be ok with you? The dumbest thing you have ever seen? Let's be serious here...

[n4rc]

Blaze has it right... There is no grey area here..

"1080p" is a specific thing, not open to interpretation.. Its 1920x1080 all rendered at once period..

What killzone used was a modified 1080i for all intents and purposes..

[OrangePowerz]

False advertisement is a bit of a fine line. I haven't seen ads that stated in particular that the MP runs in 1080p. There was a blog post but that's about it.

If that case would end in a judge ruling, every company will be flooded with suits for the smallest little thing. I get it when people sue in a case like Colonial Marines because what they have shown was not what they delivered. In the case of Shadow Fall the videos and screenshots they have shown is what they did deliver.

As for people not knowing that it didn't run in 1080p that was because of a smart way of upscalling it to 1080p.

[FanboyKilla]

if you are commenting that such and such game should have a law suit filed against it, you cant defend kz in the same breath. you admit kz deserves it, but you mad because its against sony.

dont be mad because someone is standing up for themselves and what they believe, while you sit on the internet pointing fingers, doing nothing.

[T2X]

Seriously, who cares? This really isn't going to pave the way for better more polished games. They'll just STFU about this stuff. That's what I'd do anyway. I'd stop talking about it. BTW, the game looked fine anyway and this only really matters to a handful of F-ing dorks anyway. Did you really care about this? I played the game and it looked fantastic. Oh well, people need to complain for something.

[UKmilitia]

killzone on my projector looked amazing in campaign but i could see a huge difference on MP.
At the end of the day it wasnt total 100 native 1080p and im sure that was explained once questions was asked.

but it should of been clearer at start .

i still think that its wrong to sue and i hope no money is given to the people chasing Sony for it because there is no LOSS to the claiments.

Either way i hope its a note to devs to pick up there slack and be upfront.
u hear that ubisoft??

[potedude]

Setting a president? Is it Obama's fault?

[randomass171]

I'm sure there is someone out there who is blaming him for this. :p

[Zenith4k]

Iv got a ps4 and I'm shocked how many people have good comments about what they have done, don't get me wrong I love this game, but to let them get away with it and even excuse them is shocking in itself. I no longer buy day one usually 2 months after the game has come out just because people who defend them are also letting them away with it. It may not be the best reason to sue ubi soft and ea would be just right but things need to stop.

[xer0]

The Single player experience in 1080P was amazing :)

[CYCLEGAMER]

@foehammer
Totally agree with ur statement. IMO Sony and Killzone has exposed this industry and proved that the average person cannot tell the difference. This whole "resolution war" was a diversion and a tactic that Sony used to win gamers over. They sold you on the brand, resolution, and indies, and people are it up.

It's not about games anymore, it's about who has the better marketing scheme.

[Strikepackage Bravo]

So true...

[shadowT]

Does not make sense for me. Killzone: Shadow Fall gameplay is crap, but the graphics is brillant for a launch game.

[thereapersson]

You've never played it.

[gorebago]

my grandmother died cos the fps counter had it at 59 and her life support depended on the fps being 60

[HammadTheBeast]

Killzone Shadowfall changed my life. I was in a car accident and fell into a medically induced coma for 4 weeks. One day, a childhood friend of mine brought in the PS4 since he knew I'd like it and we used to play the PS1, 2, and 3 together. He played all sorts of games at 1080p native beside my bed as I lay there. Then, he put on a video of the Killzone Shadowfall multiplayer, and it wasn't in 1080p native.

Miraculously, I got up and changed the channel.

[DarkOcelet]

Lol that was funny hahaha +bub

[BABY-JEDI]

R U that guy in the Saw movies?

[Double_O_Revan]

Speed 3: FPS Control ??

[Octo1]

Funny that THIS lawsuit exists but no one has sued for developers releasing broken games

[DarkOcelet]

If there was then Ubi and EA would have lost all their money by now.

[Neixus]

Fun Fact:

Ubisoft's EULA and Terms in their games requires you to agree on that you can -not- sue them if the game is not working (bugs, glitches etc)

[Dark_Overlord]

@Neixus

Over here in Europe, an EULA cannot over ride any law, including consumer protection laws :)

Not sure about in other countries, but as I said, that won't stand in Europe.

[Neixus]

@Dark_Overlord

I know, i live in Norway.

[s45gr32]

That is so true aaaaarghhhh!!!

[Ducky]

There have been lawsuits over broken games.
Battlefield 4 is a recent example.

Not sure where you guys are getting this 'no-one sues for broken games' argument from.

[UKmilitia]

BF4 needed a lawsuit.

i just got fed up and got a full refund on the game and chose to not buy the next installment unless its right at launch.

[Gazondaily]

Like the chap above says, there have been lawsuits for broken games. BF4 is the most recent example.

[OB1Biker]

lol totally agree.. so much BS here that people completely lost it in the comments too.

[Knightofelemia]

Whats next suing a car manufacturer because your car doesn't get the MPG that's on the window sticker.

[torchic]

suing because your local grocer had the label "Red Apples" on top of a basket but instead the basket had green apples

[OB1Biker]

suing because your local grocer had the label "Red Apples " on top of a basket but instead the basket had 'Red apples'

[EximiusNebula]

It happened in 2012 and she won.

http://business.time.com/20...

[Knightofelemia]

I totally forgot bout the Kia/Hyundai experience lol.

[KingPin]

dumbest lawsuit ever.
MPG depends on how you drive the car.
top gear season 11 episode 1 proved this point pitting a BMW M3 vs toyota prius.
prius at full speed and all the M3 had to do was keep up. turns out the M3 used less MPG than the prius.

driving like a maniac will obviously go against what the manufacturers advertised based on them driving normally.

just another reason to lose faith in the justice system...if there werent many already.

[pompous]

That's actually beeen done and I'm getting a check from Hyundai due to them having the wrong miles per gallon on the window sticker of the car

[CYCLEGAMER]

As much as a lot of people on this site like to cry about having 1080p, I find it funny that you guys are to to justify Sony's lies. This is the ultimate form of corporate slavery. I don't care if a game is unlikely 1080p or not, as long as it looks good, but don't lie to me about it.

[BillytheBarbarian]

Why aren't people mad about broken games sold in stores that need patches from an internet connection to work?

jokes on xbone ps4 users that don't have or want to be connected.

[DigitalRaptor]

In my opinion, what this all comes down to is the question:

"Does Temporal Reprojection provide a native 1080p image?" - I personally would answer yes to that, because there's no upscaling involved and the image is still 1080p, without upscaling. It's an alternative technique to output a 1080p image.

I'm surprised Sony's lawyers couldn't provide a compelling enough explanation for this. But as usual I'm unsurprised that they are the "example" pushed under the wheels for this, when there are plenty of other genuinely guilty parties who haven't been targeted.

Microsoft falsely advertised Forza 5, which was hugely downgraded from its pre-release footage, and nobody wouldn't known about that until they bought it. Same goes for the Master Chief Collection. How come most media outlets scored that utterly broken game an 8/10, 9/10 and 10/10? How is that possible without something being exchanged under the table? How has this not happened to Microsoft for preventing their golden goose from bad reviews that they KNEW it deserved? For deceiving the consumer?

Ubisoft and other publishers have been dirty culprits of genuinely false advertising, and no-one jumped at them in any big way.

[jollygoodchap8]

So Peter Molyneux games, Colonial Marines and Watchdogs didn't show false footage?

If anything that deserved some suing I imagine it was those games...But I guess something like no 1080p is the worst!!

[rainslacker]

Aliens does have a lawsuit against it.

AFAIK noone has ever sued companies for that stuff, although I'm sure they exist, and an individual or group of individuals has to file a complaint before the court will bother to consider if it's worth hearing. Even then, they'll only look at how such matter pertain to matters of law, and not whether those games were bad or not.

[llxKonanxll]

There should have been a lawsuit against AC:Unity instead.

[Octo1]

You got 2 disagrees?? LOL

[Gazondaily]

Well you got 30 agrees for saying no one gets sued for releasing broken games and you're wrong so...

[MelvinTheGreat]

Gurentee if MS was in sonys position, half these people would be happy qbout the lawsuit and would subsequently call MS theives

[OrangePowerz]

MS should be in this position for Forza 5 that was extremely downgraded compared to the E3 demo they showed 5 months prior to the release.

[Imalwaysright]

Pretty much every dev/publisher in this industry is guilty of false advertisement. That's how widespread that underhanded business practice is in the videogame industry.

I hope that this lawsuit sets a precedent for this crap to finally stop and I also hope that gamers start suing devs/publishers for releasing broken and unfinished games. That'll be the only way for this industry to stop being the anti consumer joke that it has become over these past 10 years.

Edit:

Broken and unfinished games have become a norm in the past 10 or so years. I don't know about you, but I don't remember a game from last gen that didn't need a day one patch and several subsequent patches.

[OrangePowerz]

The past 10 years? EA was releasing bullshots for more than 10 years and never got any problems.

I agree on the broken games part. Not so much on the unfinished because you can't determine what is finished and what isn't. There are people who consider a game unfinished because it has DLC a few months after release.

[OmegaShen]

Who writes this trash? We all know who hacked Sony.

An suing Sony because a game wasn't native 1080p is dumb, how many games weren't native 1080p on last gen and said they were? Alot and no one sued.

If anyone needs to get sued is the developers that sale unfinish games.

[OrangePowerz]

Or said to be 720p and ended up sub HD. EA should have been suid into oblivion for BF4 given how broken that thing was for the first 6 months.

[ZombieGamerMan]

you know reading the paragraph placed on this page of the article or blog or whatever really shows why this should not be read since it comes off as very biased against the company.

[Kavorklestein]

"Tis the for humiliating Sony"

"Tis the season of Sony humiliating themselves"

There, I fixed it.
any problems Sony is facing are likely due to problems that Sony is responsible for... whether it's the shoddy security, the low blows to casts, crews, and various other personnel affiliated with their film divisions, or WHATEVER it is that is afflicting them, it's 95% their fault, and 5% of it is people actually DOING ANYTHING TO MAKE THEM LOOK WORSE.

Sure, whoever hacked Sony are a bunch of jerks, but the contents of emails and files that are Sony property and what they contain is NOT anyone's fault but Sony's.

Let's be honest here: if Microsoft was getting the heavy hammer on their head, none of you guys would be taking it easy on them, and would be throwing all your "See? Ms is evil" crapppppp all over the place so stop getting all high and mighty when even the best corporations have a bad side to them.

I don't wish these kinds of problems on anybody or any company, but let's not pretend Sony is being "victimized" aside from being hacked....

[extermin8or]

Shoddy security isn't really a fair claim to angle until an independent organisation has investigated fully plus the fact they were according to the Whitehouse attacked by a foreign states government.It's not like that was some lone hacker group etc also the attack completely anihilated their internal systems and security. So while certain files should have been encrypted it's really a null point if the security infront of that means those files shouldn't have ever been obtainable via any normal level of cyber attack companies face. The Ms is evil crap simply comes from a history of them being... Somewhat anti competition in thet they want to monopolise anyway they can. Not even anything todo with xbox. And Sony are getting alot of hate again but mainly because "it's cool to have the most successful and popular stuff" (such a stupid mentality alot of the time...)

[Kavorklestein]

Okay.. so shoddy or not, maybe thinking before they shoot a movie and decide to pick on a nation's favorite person?
Common sense?
The problem runs deeper than I originally thought if common sense isn't even being used.

[DOMination-]

Sony are not Apple. Other than PS4 they have no products currently that are cool, succesful or popular.

[Spotie]

You're so transparent.

[rainslacker]

So the author thinks the biggest change that will come from this is more companies will force digital download? Wow...OK then I guess if they want to lose lots of potential customers instead of just being honest in their advertising then so be it.

It's ironic that in the same article that this whole thing could actually give real tangible consumer rights to purchased software, since that is the impetus for the case going through. I guess all those arguments about not owning anything even if you buy retail can finally die...that's a change I can get behind.

Anyhow, if any change comes from it immediately, it'll likely be that publishers aren't as shady in their marketing practices...something I can also get behind because we do see a lot of crappy arguments based off misinterpretation. But that probably won't happen either, because these kinds of things rarely go to court. The Aliens game was a clear case of false advertising on many fronts, Sony just did some shady terminology, which is probably why they'll win the case in the end.

Even in the end, the games MP actually does render in 1080, it just doesn't do so in the traditional way, it's just rendered in an interlaced format instead of a progressive format.

[shaenoide]

when will come the lawsuit against Ubisoft?

[masterfox]

hey you steal my avatar pic!!!, but I forgive you cause is so awesome!! :D

[Ps4andxb1]

Don't lie and you won't get sued.

A win here will be a great win for gamers.

Bullshots and resolution lies will hopefully dissappear.

Ubisoft next please.

[BABY-JEDI]

Well, I'm sure all the wannabe lawyers out there will love this suing thread. In this instance lawyers are the only real winners. People debate about false advertising. Advertising within its sheer nature is false. Switch on your TVs & watch some adverts & try to see the truth. Best of luck LoL

[sovkhan]

Sony did not lie, since technically the output is indeed 1080p...No upscaling here.

This guy is an idiot and the judge here is also a moron!!!

But hey!!! this Murica right!?!

I'm not expecting Sony to loose the case, and no drastic changes to the whole industry...

[Morpheuzpr]

Because it's BS?

[ScaryMonkey]

This will be thrown out of court completely as soon as its discovered he's a lying xbox fanboy and never even owned the game in the first place. And if he does somehow actually win I have about three dozen lawsuits I'm filling against Microsoft who have been lying to people for years now.

[Rhezin]

people sue for ANYTHING these days, Bunch of pathetic little clowns don't want to work for their money.

[DougLord]

The problem with this is that a lot of games are guilty of something like this. While we all want it to stop do we really want to bankrupt a bunch of devs to make a bunch of lawyers rich? We aren't going to get anything out of it.

[TomRL]

It won't change the industry because Geurrilla will win.

[GameLover56]

Sad thing is the thanks to that awesome Sony fanbase wow great community.........not

[Ryan741]

Why does Sony think this behaviour is OK? Very troubling to think what actually goes on at that company. Next year will be interesting that's for sure.

[thexmanone]

Sorry to hear. But that what's happens when you Lie to your fans. Sony will fold.

[pop-voxuli]

Aw, a bunch of self entitled candy asses got together for a lawsuit.

[IWentBrokeForGaming]

AMEN! Spineless softies!

[IWentBrokeForGaming]

The amount of entitlement from people who get everything from crying foul nonstop is extremely sickening & pathetic anymore... Society has become boldly ignorant

[Majin-vegeta]

So does this mean people can file a lawsuit against MS for falsely advertising the X1 power?

http://www.develop-online.n...