Xbox Live Class Action Lawsuit Worth Pennies, Not Millions

Gaming Steve writes: "When you join Xbox Live, you agree to a contractual Terms of Use that you must agree to in order to join. Those terms include downtimes as necessary and paragraph 16, where you accept limited liability and no warranty.

Xbox Live users are subject to downtimes, regardless of reasons or causes. Basically, if Microsoft provides the service that you pay for, you have no other say in the matter.

And even if Microsoft is liable for the downtime, the actual refund amount may shock you."

[ktchong]

companies always put all sorts of unreasonable craps into product contracts to protect their own interests.

MOST of them are actually not enforceable in the court of law.

[zafeiriou]

Tru Dat...

"Should you fail to register any of the evaluation software available through our web pages and continue to use it, be advised
that a leather-winged demon of the night will tear itself, shrieking blood and fury, from the endless caverns of the nether world, hurl itself into the darkness with a thirst for blood on its slavering fangs and search the very threads of time for the throbbing of your heartbeat. Just thought you'd want to know that.

Alchemy Mindworks accepts no responsibility for any loss, damage or expense caused by leather-winged demons of the night, either."

Alchemy Mindworks Terms of Service. http://www.mindworkshop.com...

[Ru]

Get Lives People MS dont owe anyone Nothing for the wee bit of downtown MOVE ON!

[Sayai jin]

I agree. People that had excessive downtime can be cpensated with extra XBL time to make it balance out. When our cable goes out, you do not get extra cable time or the cable does not give you money.

[HuntTheWumpus]

A couple weeks out of 5 years and people act like it's the end of the world.

I hope the lawyer fee's bury these people and teach them a lesson to sue for ridiculous things.

[GodsHand]

$0.82 or a free game?

Tough decision.

[NEO_X]

A company makes you sign a contract saying that the service you pay for may not even work for whatever amount of time and you still are not liable for a refund. Microsoft should really be doing more for there customers I think they should give everyone at least 10$ worth of ms points. it wouldn't even make a dent in there pockets and if anything would encourage people who haven't used the service for live games to start.

"HuntTheWumpus"
I do agree that 5 million is a little much but what i was saying is they could do a little more to offer a appology like maybe this month is free and here is some (more than 5 dollars worth) MS points.
p.s. Im 21 not a kid and old enough to remember hunt the wumpus (which was awesome major props to ya even if you disagree with me :)
I just get annoyed because although I do not have a 360 ( i have ps3) a lot of my close friends do and when they have to pay for a service which screws them over I get mad

sorry for the rant

[HuntTheWumpus]

Maybe you haven't learned yet that thing's aren't guaranteed in life. The reason MS has this type of wording is for exactly the reason this article discusses. They are out for 2 weeks and sue for 5million dollars. Do you see the problem there?

This wasn't even a system wide problem and it's not like you can't play offline or even do something else with your time. I worry for people that this is their major focus in life.

[The Killer]

wat do u think 360 owners do in their life??
all they do play non-stop halo 3 and mass effect etc online!
xbox live users isnt the normal gamers! they r the die hard core gamers who spend all their time on getting higher score in xbox live and when it goes down in holiday season for 2 weeks what do u expect them to do??

EDIT

besides if they pay $0.82 for around 10M users that will cost then around $8M which is cheaper for them to just give a $5 game to all users, MS is very greedy! at least they should make it $10 game if they cared for their customers who pay them yearly $50!

[Jo0j]

...the typical Sony Fanboy.

''all they do play non-stop halo 3 and mass effect etc online! ''
-last I checked Mass Effect was a single player only game.

''besides if they pay $0.82 for around 10M users that will cost then around $8M which is cheaper for them to just give a $5 game to all users, MS is very greedy! at least they should make it $10 game if they cared for their customers who pay them yearly $50!''

-so let me get this straight, according to you, if MS paid the actual amount for the downtime it would cost them $8.2million. Instead, they will be giving out a free game costing them $50million. How does that make them greedy? But wait, that's not enough for you (as such a concerned, devoted 360 owner, right?), you want them to pay $100million. You can't be serious...calling THEM greedy. GTFO.

[Rocko]

is when I can't play COD 4 on my PS3 for days. Yesterday I was lucky to get into a lobby and even if I did it froze at the countdown. Today I couldn't get past the main menu b/c I had to stare at "downloading game settings" for over an hour before I gave up and popped in the 360 version. But my point here is that all the crybabies need to shut the f**k up. Its just a little downtime. This is the first time I've ever had an issue and it was minor. I couldn't sign into xbl for a few hours, so I played some Bioshock.

*note: I have both version b/c I have friends on xbl and psn*

[CNIVEK]

And I said the same thing, almost verbatim, in previous posts concerning this issue....go check them yourself.

http://www.n4g.com/NewsCom-...
http://www.n4g.com/NewsCom-...
http://www.n4g.com/NewsCom-...

EDIT: LOL, as usual, some spineless, moronic Sony fangirl disagrees with 100% pure fact...truly pathetic.

[Carbon]

RuJoshin
I'm not sure what you were trying to say but it sounds like you enjoy taking it in the ass. You must have more money than me because I'm refuse to pay for a service only to have it work sometimes and not say something about it.

[Carbon]

Hunt your missing the whole point. I paid for LIVE not for OFFLIVE! Get a clue.

[v1c1ous]

i need to buy gum

[Silvia007]

I want my $0.82 so I can run to my local zoo and drop it into the yellow round thing that makes my coins go round and round and round into the black hole.

[stonedog]

needs to refund 5 or 6 million 83cents; this is no longer small change for them.

[Carbon]

Sayai jin WRONG... One time my cable was not working I called them to find out what the problem was and without asking and they told me they were going to credit my account. Any good company that cares about the wellbeing of their customers would do the same... That's why I have an issue with this.

[stonedog]

Class action law suits often deal with matters such as this where small amounts are involved but affect a broad number of people. Otherwise big companies would get away with failing to provide services or products to people b/c the damages to the to the individual are not economical to collect on. However, with a class proceeding even a small individual claims can mount up. Essentially it about is consumer protection. Damages for the individual might be 83 cents, but times that by a few million and you have a claim that is worthwhile taking forward by a lawyer and damages that any company even M$ can not ignore. And if you think that M$ has so much cash they will not care try asking them to give you $1 million b/c it all goes to the bottom line. Accordingly such suits have behaviour correcting effect.

There is concept in law of "contra proferentum" which deals with interpretation of contract and imbalance of bargaining power; and according to this concept the terms will be construed against the party who drafted them and is seeking to rely on them. As the article notes M$ sets the terms and will not negotiate with the contracting party. So it is fair to say that just pointing to the terms of the contract and saying tough luck buddy does not necessarily resolve the matter.

Yes the person who graduates last in his class at law school is still a lawyer; but in the practical world of lawyering the guy who graduates first in his class is not the necessarily the best lawyer.

I guess everyone hates lawyers till they have a problem; want to sue someone or get themselves out of trouble.

[mboojigga]

Some of you have no fuc*ing clue what you are talking about. Especially the kid who claims he is upset cause his friends have a 360 and are having downtimes on live.

[Carbon]

I broke this down.

$50.00 = 12 month live membership
$.137 = Per day
17 Days = Xbox has been experiencing issues since 4 days before Christmas. 12-21-07 – 01-08-08
$2.33 = Paid by each subscriber of XBOX Live in the last 17 days.
10,000,000 = the amount of subscribers as on the latest press release
23,300,000 = How much money Microsoft has raked in while it’s user base has been experiencing online issues.

And what has Microsoft done about it… Gave out a free outdated game to whoever wanted it… As a XBOX/XBOX360/ 5YEAR XBOX Live customer this makes me sick.

[gta_cb]

wots your gamertag?

[Jo0j]

I think you're a little off.
''$2.33 = Paid by each subscriber of XBOX Live in the last 17 days.''
-$2.33 = Paid by each "Gold" subscriber of XBOX Live in the last 17 days. -fixed

''10,000,000 = the amount of subscribers as on the latest press release
23,300,000 = How much money Microsoft has raked in while it’s user base has been experiencing online issues. ''
-Sure, they have 10m ''subscribers'', but until MS releases the ratio of ''Gold'' vs. ''Silver'', any number you throw out isn't worth the keyboard it was typed on.

[Bombomb]

What every one is forgetting, if your cable goes out, your cable company don't offer you a free PPV movie do they?

Another thing not all Live users were on live during the down times, so basically those people would be getting something for free, when t hey never did sign on XBL during those periods. Do you actually think 9 million people were signed on there all at once?

Those to get compensated would be those that actually tried to sign on live.

I wonder what would fanboys do if there were in charge of running such infrustructure?

[FormidableOne]

Now I'm not going to pretend to be a legal expert, but I found an article in the Terms of Service, which pertains to recovering 'damages' from Microsoft due to outages and what not. It specifically states 'services' so it will be interesting to see how this pans out in court.

"17. LIABILITY LIMITATION; YOUR EXCLUSIVE REMEDY
You can recover from the Microsoft Parties only direct damages up to an amount equal to your Service fee for one month. You cannot recover any other damages, including consequential, lost profits, special, indirect or incidental damages.
This limitation applies to:
-any matter related to the Service,
-any matter related to content (including code) on third party Internet sites, third party programs or third party conduct,
-any matter related to viruses or other disabling features that affect your access to or use of the Service,
-any matter related to incompatibility between the Service and other services, software and hardware,
-any matter related to delays or failures you may have in initiating, conducting or completing any transmissions or transactions in connection with the Service in an accurate or timely manner, and
-claims for breach of contract, breach of warranty, guarantee or condition, strict liability, negligence, or other tort to the extent permitted by applicable law.
It also applies even if:
-this remedy does not fully compensate you for any losses, or fails of its essential purpose; or
-Microsoft knew or should have known about the possibility of damages.
Some states do not allow the exclusion or limitation of incidental or consequential damages, so the above limitation or exclusion may not apply to you. They also may not apply to you because your province or country may not allow the exclusion or limitation of incidental, consequential or other damages."

In my opinion though, I think taking the free Live Arcade game is what's best. I can't believe they actually did file a class-action lawsuit though. I will be watching this case actively, I can't wait to see the result.

[Carbon]

Bombshell excuse me while I rip you in pieces.

First off, especially if your cable, cell phone or any other service had intermittent issues such as LIVE especially for 17 days, and you made your provider aware of this your account would in fact be credited. My cable company has credited me in the past. Meaning my next monthly bill was less the credited amount.

Secondly, XBOX LIVE subscribers get charged regardless weather you play or not. So how could those people not signed in get anything for free when they paid for it...

3rd Every LIVE subscriber received points whether they played during the 17 days or not.

I'm sorry to say that you and several others have no credibility what so ever. Maybe there is an age factor, maybe you don't pay for cable, or phone lines. Maybe you didn’t even pay for your LIVE account; by the sounds of it I don't think you do.

My gamertag is Carbon C6

[mboojigga]

The fact that you spend your free time trying to break which comes out to .87 cents a day is pretty da*n sad indeed. This has gone beyond bit*hing to just plain ignorant the way you and some act about this whole ordeal. Get a life. Better yet get your life back now that Live has been down.

Go to the fuc*ing gym.

[WilliamRLBaker]

sounds like you dont have an xbox live account at all, and you know you dont, ur geting paid back with a free xbox live game. so dont whine.

[JosefTor]

Yeah... contracts don't mean much. If a company wants to keep its customers they will do what the customer demands. It seems Microsoft is so used to getting sued that they forgot that giving consumers what they want first will prevent that.

Other then Microsoft... I have no doubt any service company won't give me a refund or credit of some sort. I'm sure if I call Microsoft I will get some foreign person on the phone who I can barely understand and who is reading from a script and I won't get a refund. Oh yeah... I get a crappy XBLA game. Oh wait... I don't get one yet... I need to wait until it is convenient from Microsoft to give me it. Do they take business ethics at Microsoft?

Another thing is... I wrote about products before on sites and those companies have personally contacted me (they include Epson and Kodak) and the thing is... I'm positive Microsoft won't contact me or any of us about this problem. I told about about their excessive ink problem and they asked me to join their ink usage team and I contacted Kodak and they told me to work for them.