Squeenix sued for $5 million

[OrangeTippedGun]

http://kotaku.com/5302333/square-enix-sued-for-5-million

FFXI and PSU seem to have a lot in common...
:wacko:
Maybe we should sue Sega.

JUST SAYING 8-)

[Randomness]

Interesting. Keep us updated.

[Zarode]

WHAT!? MONTHLY FEE!? THAT WAS RIGHT ON THE FUCKING BOX (i swear i know it has some form of a warning on it)! TERMINATION IF I DON'T PAY SAID MONTHLY FEES?! YOU JAPANESE SONS OF BITCHES, I'LL SUE!


I'm pretty sure I remember seeing every damn fee available for Square's twinkle in their eye when I played the damn game. Guy should sue Blizzard and Mythic, too.



VVV You know I could've been nastier about it. ;) VVV

[OrangeTippedGun]

I have a feeling this post is gonna make a lot of controversy...

[McLaughlin]

This has to be a joke.

[AC9breaker]

lol, sounds like a bunch of bitter people to me. I mean the game certainly left me jaded but damn.

[Leviathan]

D-d-di-d...you just say SQUEEnix?

:disapprove:

[OrangeTippedGun]

D-d-di-d...you just say SQUEEnix?

:disapprove:

Yesh.

[joefro]

More like Squeiodox.

[OrangeTippedGun]

More like Squeiodox.

lol wut?

[joefro]

Square Enix ate Eidos.

[OrangeTippedGun]

Square Enix ate Eidos.

Oh yeah, I forgot.

Maybe now my dreams about a Final Fanatasy/Tomb Raider game will come true?
:D

[joefro]

Nope. (But why would you want that?)

[Kent]

The case is just bullshit, really.

All of the issues present in the case are present in the EULA and the terms of service.

Licensing of the online games software disguised as a sale? Really?

News flash: This is how all games you buy work. You, as a consumer, are never sold "a game," but rather, a license to use the software. This is how it has always worked. This is how it always will work for the forseeable future. This should surprise no one.

Odds are, this person just clicked "yes" and "Accept" until the game started up, and didn't read anything. If they had read any of it, they wouldn't have the basis for a case.


Oh yeah, I forgot.

Maybe now my dreams about a Final Fanatasy/Tomb Raider game will come true?
:D
I could just imagine Lara Croft with a giant sword and spiky hair.

And using magic.

And dual gunblades.

And it totally won't be as horrible as X-Blades. :/

[Outrider]

I could just imagine Lara Croft with a giant sword and spiky hair.

And using magic.

And dual gunblades.

And it totally won't be as horrible as X-Blades. :/

The funny thing is that I can think of a handful of Square-Enix games that hit most of those points already.

[McLaughlin]

Actually, I think this is due to some weird billing glitch that got almost 5000 people banned from the game, and double charged their credit cards.

[Vanzazikon]

The deceptive advertising, unfair and undisclosed business practices, and concealment concern, among others:

i. Licensing of the online games software disguised as a sale;
ii. Monthly fees ("fees") to play the online games;
iii. Penalties for late payment of the fees;
iv. Interest charges for late payment of the fees;
v. Charges while the online game account is suspended;
vi. Termination of the right to use the online games for late payment of the fees;
vii. User restrictions and conditions related to the online games;
viii. Termination of game data for payment of the fees.lol noobs to online gaems

[Powder Keg]

I always say: if you can sue a company for spilling hot coffee on yourself....

[Zarode]

I always say: if you can sue a company for spilling hot coffee on yourself....

...then you must be an idiot who can't do anything him or herself, and must be put the shame for squeezing money out of things that are YOUR FAULT.



Hate humanity. :disapprove:

[goldbrease]

hey xblades was a good game... other then the boss fights..... and the destroy monster generators while they beat you to death >.> and the fact that mellee damage does almost nothing to bosses..... >.>
I still got the platinum trophy for it however. XD

[Shiro_Ryuu]

...then you must be an idiot who can't do anything him or herself, and must be put the shame for squeezing money out of things that are YOUR FAULT.



Hate humanity. :disapprove:


I give this post a thumbs up and a +1. Man, too much Youtube and Facebook, but yeah, I agree with you on that. Some people can just be total idiots.

:disapprove:

[OrangeTippedGun]

Holy fack was Xblades horrible.

[Elmera]

If you've ever play Final Fantasy 11 then you know how they charged "monthly". They charged a monthly fee of $15 dollars at the beginning of each month and I mean that literally. So say you started playing on January 30th you payed $15 for the month of January. Come 2 days you would be billed again for the month of February. It was deceptive. They deserve to be sued for more. When someone pays you $15 a month you give them a month. That's 30 days of play time. It doesn't matter what day they decided to start playing. MMO scams are becoming a problem. I would have thought a high profile company like Square Enix would have more common sense.

Also technically it is PlayOnline that does the billing for final fantasy 11, I don't know if it makes a difference.

[Thalui89]

Just looked up play onlines fees and noticed the way they do the monthly fee. Im nto sure tho, I cant imagine them just robbing you of a month tho. I'll guess ill find out what happenes when my free trial is over for FFXI. Gotta admit i ddint notice that like until you said Elmera! :o (I'm normally good on finding out the fee methods too lol). That said however they do say how their payment processes are done and that would imo make them immune to any payouts.

[Kylie]

Wake me up when the lawsuit is successful; you can sue anyone.

[goldbrease]

Wake me up when the lawsuit is successful; you can sue anyone.

no, when an old lady wins a lawsuit on a guy 3 blocks down the street for mowing his lawn, the mail man for delivering her mail every day at 1:30 p.m., or the couple across the street for letting their kids play in on their own front law is the day you can sue anyone.
the stories about lawsuits an of history teacher told me about out due this. the government literally had to take away her right to file a lawsuit because she was filling them left and right for every little thing people normally did, mowing the lawn, walking their dog, watering the grass, driving by her house, delivering her mail.

[Kent]

If you've ever play Final Fantasy 11 then you know how they charged "monthly". They charged a monthly fee of $15 dollars at the beginning of each month and I mean that literally. So say you started playing on January 30th you payed $15 for the month of January. Come 2 days you would be billed again for the month of February. It was deceptive. They deserve to be sued for more. When someone pays you $15 a month you give them a month. That's 30 days of play time. It doesn't matter what day they decided to start playing. MMO scams are becoming a problem. I would have thought a high profile company like Square Enix would have more common sense.

Also technically it is PlayOnline that does the billing for final fantasy 11, I don't know if it makes a difference.

This is incorrect. For the sake of clarification, the monthly fee is $12.95 per month, with additional fees for things like excess characters and Tetra Master and whatnot.

The actual, real way the billing system works for PlayOnline services, is that they are billed on the first of every month. That is, you pay the monthly fee in advance for a month of service.

Your example of being charged for the entirety of a month's worth of play time is wrong. Here's how it actually works:

Monthly fees are charged on the first of every month. For the purposes of Final Fantasy XI, this won't come close to $15 unless you have two extra characters (and with the amount of time one has to sink into a single character, having more than one is just silly).

For the sake of example, lets assume that you sign up for Final Fantasy XI's service on the 15th of January - roughly in the middle of the month. You have one free month of playtime - so your time is covered until February 15th. However, the time span between February 15th and the next billing date, March 1st, is approximately half of a month. When the billing period begins on March 1st, you are charged for the duration of March as a normal monthly fee - roughly $13. However, you had unpaid, non-free playtime spanning about half of February, and billing isn't handled on other dates.

What happens here, is that you are charged an additional pro rata fee based on your time spent with your account active between the end of the trial period and the next billing date. In this example, the additional fee would be approximately $6.50, bringing the first bill you receive to a total of about $19.50. However, monthly fees thereafter will be of the normal rate, assuming no additional content IDs are purchased.

To wrap all of this up, this information is plainly and clearly available to all PlayOnline members as part of the user agreement and terms of service when signing up for the Final Fantasy XI service. The only reason that the person in this case could not be aware of this, would be if they just blindly and moronically clicked "yes" and "OK" and "accept" every time it came up until they started to play.

All necessary and relevant information regarding the handling of "late fees" is also present here. It clearly states that, yes, they charge interest on late fees. It really pays to understand how these things work; you end up with more accurate ability to place blame when something gets screwed up.

Needless to say though, being a moron is an invalid reason to sue someone else.


no, when an old lady wins a lawsuit on a guy 3 blocks down the street for mowing his lawn, the mail man for delivering her mail every day at 1:30 p.m., or the couple across the street for letting their kids play in on their own front law is the day you can sue anyone.
the stories about lawsuits an of history teacher told me about out due this. the government literally had to take away her right to file a lawsuit because she was filling them left and right for every little thing people normally did, mowing the lawn, walking their dog, watering the grass, driving by her house, delivering her mail.
These are called frivolous (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frivolous_lawsuit) for a reason.

Yes, you can file a lawsuit for almost anything. However, in cases such as your examples, there's no way that any sort of serious legal prosecution could be made for any of such frivolous reasons. On top of this, there are penalties associated with such things, to discourage people from being morons when it comes to law.

[Thalui89]

This is incorrect. For the sake of clarification, the monthly fee is $12.95 per month, with additional fees for things like excess characters and Tetra Master and whatnot.

The actual, real way the billing system works for PlayOnline services, is that they are billed on the first of every month. That is, you pay the monthly fee in advance for a month of service.

Your example of being charged for the entirety of a month's worth of play time is wrong. Here's how it actually works:

Monthly fees are charged on the first of every month. For the purposes of Final Fantasy XI, this won't come close to $15 unless you have two extra characters (and with the amount of time one has to sink into a single character, having more than one is just silly).

For the sake of example, lets assume that you sign up for Final Fantasy XI's service on the 15th of January - roughly in the middle of the month. You have one free month of playtime - so your time is covered until February 15th. However, the time span between February 15th and the next billing date, March 1st, is approximately half of a month. When the billing period begins on March 1st, you are charged for the duration of March as a normal monthly fee - roughly $13. However, you had unpaid, non-free playtime spanning about half of February, and billing isn't handled on other dates.

What happens here, is that you are charged an additional pro rata fee based on your time spent with your account active between the end of the trial period and the next billing date. In this example, the additional fee would be approximately $6.50, bringing the first bill you receive to a total of about $19.50. However, monthly fees thereafter will be of the normal rate, assuming no additional content IDs are purchased.

To wrap all of this up, this information is plainly and clearly available to all PlayOnline members as part of the user agreement and terms of service when signing up for the Final Fantasy XI service. The only reason that the person in this case could not be aware of this, would be if they just blindly and moronically clicked "yes" and "OK" and "accept" every time it came up until they started to play.

All necessary and relevant information regarding the handling of "late fees" is also present here. It clearly states that, yes, they charge interest on late fees. It really pays to understand how these things work; you end up with more accurate ability to place blame when something gets screwed up.

Needless to say though, being a moron is an invalid reason to sue someone else.


These are called frivolous (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frivolous_lawsuit) for a reason.

Yes, you can file a lawsuit for almost anything. However, in cases such as your examples, there's no way that any sort of serious legal prosecution could be made for any of such frivolous reasons. On top of this, there are penalties associated with such things, to discourage people from being morons when it comes to law.

That actually seems to make alot more sense. Anyways whichever example is correct the person suing stll imo has no right to sue since its made clear that they charge on the 1st of every month in either case. Even if they did manage to sue square it'd hardly dent their funds XP. I'll be keeping me eye on this!

[McLaughlin]

I believe this stems from a billing glitch where the character in question was banned because of an issue with their credit card.

It happened to a friend of mine on the game. Her card was stolen or something, it got overdrawn, they banned her. She called them, they changed her information and unbanned her, but also charged her for the week she'd been banned. Then a week later the next billing cycle rolled around and they banned her again for some unpaid charges, being interest on the the week she was banned. She called them again and had to pay the weird unpaid balance before they unbanned her. Just a weird situation, but I think nearly 5000 people had a similar issue last month.

However, five million dollars is absurd.

[Elmera]

T
Needless to say though, being a moron is an invalid reason to sue someone else.




Oh sorry for giving false information it was a really long time ago I played and I got used to just paying $15USD as a standard, so I just said whatever I thought happened when I played. I was just trying to give play online a bad name because I had a bad experience.

Because I remember (and yes I am one of those people who doesn't read EULA, TOS, what have you) That I couldn't pay for a while and back then I guess if you couldn't pay after 3 months of inactivity they would "delete your character". This was not known to me and I was very disappointed when they deleted my character on phoenix who had level 50 in at least 3 jobs.

The thing was eventually down the road they had announced (when they were losing their North American customer base to World of Wacraft) that they really didn't delete anything and "veterans" could come back and pick up where they left off. It was just really frustrating.

I mean I liked the game, but honestly at the time you can imagine how mad I was. It probably take all of 5 kb to store a char on a server. They couldn't even give me that.

And I just quoted something funny you said it's no relevant to my point.

[Kent]

You might be surprised at how much space it takes to store a character in an online game - there's a reason that Square Enix has additional charges for extra characters.

For example, your current main job and support job, current equipment, and macro sets are all saved (the latter of which being an optional one). Every job level is saved, as well as all of your skill levels (with each one being four digits) and whether or not you've learned every single spell in the game (which, at last count, Blue Magic alone has something like 120 spells, but then there's the White, Black, Red Magics, Ninjutsu, Songs, and Dice), as well as everything relating to your Mog House (layout, storage, mog safe, plant status, etc.) and your inventory (size, contents).

And, of course, then we have quest and mission status and key items. Being that there are literally thousands of quests in the game, and your character's progress in all three nation's missions, and the missions relevant to all of the expansions, and things like Campaign and Dynamis, etc... And there's still more.

It's a lot of data, and they keep quite a few backups maintained.

[Zarode]

Or they can just learn how to program and keep the file size of characters way low, by calling on events and coding from the client.

But we gotta justify this so GLORIOUS NIPPON~~~

[Kent]

Or they can just learn how to program and keep the file size of characters way low, by calling on events and coding from the client.
This is assumed to be what they're already doing - it's still a massive array of data, though.

[Zarode]

No, it isn't. If they code it properly, which I'm sure 90% of Japanese programs CANNOT DO, it wouldn't even be a MB at most, and that, good sir, is a lot of fucking data.


But you are probably right. Each character is probably half a gig in size because the Japanese are notoriously known for their sloppy coding.

[Kent]

No, it isn't. If they code it properly, which I'm sure 90% of Japanese programs CANNOT DO, it wouldn't even be a MB at most, and that, good sir, is a lot of fucking data.


But you are probably right. Each character is probably half a gig in size because the Japanese are notoriously known for their sloppy coding.
So when did this happen?

It's worth noting that not all Japanese programmers are from the new Sonic Team.

[OrangeTippedGun]

So when did this happen?

It's worth noting that not all Japanese programmers are from the new Sonic Team.

BADUUUM!