We finally have an update on the long-running Aliens Colonial Marines class action lawsuit which was originally filed in April 2013 by two gamers because of the game’s misleading marketing. We last heard in August 2014 that Sega had agreed to pay out $1.25M in the settlement to gamers who either preordered the game or bought it on day one. Sega later blamed developer Gearbox for its marketing but Gearbox denied any wrong doing and filed a motion to dismiss itself from the lawsuit. Polygon is now reporting that a judge has now ruled that this is no longer a class action lawsuit because it’s impossible to tell who was mislead and who wasn’t by Aliens Colonial Marines‘ dodgy marketing.
The judge also denied Gearbox’s motion to dismiss the case against it, however, the two gamers who originally sued over the false marketing voluntarily dropped Gearbox from the lawsuit. The reasons are unknown but it’s probably because Gearbox were playing hard ball and they lost their class action status. So what does it all mean? Basically, gamers who preordered Colonial Marines or bought it on day one aren’t going to get any refunds now. The two plaintiffs will get a few $$$ if they settle with Sega but Gearbox is now free from any lawsuits over the game.
I wonder how many other people had similar occurrences...
The only thing I can be happy about money-wise with this is that, thanks to Amazon.co.uk screwing up, I got the Collector's Edition for just £30. The little Power Loader statue that came with it is leagues better than anything else in the game.
f**k Shitbox.
$60 standard edition
$100 collectors edition
$30 season pass
$15 bug hunt pack (w/o season pass)
$10 reconissance pack (w/o season pass)
$10 movie pack (w/o season pass)
$10 stasis interrupted pack (w/o season pass)
$5 collectors edition DLC bonuses
$5 pre-order DLC bonuses
$1 for monster energy drink customization
$1 sawed off shotgun
$1 (some other weapon I can't recall, SHARP sticks, maybe??)
Ripley:Hes being cocooned just like all the people who paid 90 bucks for ACM with Season Pass. True fuccery at its finest
Pretty sure they've done the remake of Homeworld or something like that.
f**k Gearbox.
My lesson learned here is to start paying more attention to the developer and publisher for a game, and put less stock in the initial trailers.
The employees at Gearbox are actually as much a victim as we are, many of the people who worked on the game at "shitbox" were fired or laid off because of the company's work strategy and that's why Gearbox had to bring in 3rd party game developers to fix the title; many of these ex-employees are the ones who helped reveal the truth about this conspiracy to the public. Ultimately, it's the heads of the company who are at fault and Randy Pitchford is at the top of that food chain.
Homeworld Remastered is really worth a buy though. Its amazingly well done.
Because Gearbox didn't do anything technically wrong, aside from some shady practices and being slimy/deceptive. I'm not defending them, I think it's really crappy, but some people I know who complained about this same practice went right ahead and bought boarderlands the pre-sequel. They also went on to pre-order some useless content for mediocre games that they could've waited til were on sale.
If gamers want things to change, then they should stop pre-ordering shit and paying for DLC. Period. The Law is not there to save you from being hoodwinked about the quality of a game. Only you can do that as a consumer. You have no justification for complaining if you buy into the pre-order culture in general. Yeah, dropping that bomb.
A true true shame.......
gbx and pitchfork should be dragged through the mud for what they did to ACM. F-ing scumbags. I still never plan on buying a gbx game ever.