Sue Sonic Team So Bad, It Could Get Them Out of Business...

[Reenee]

From play magazine, February 2004:



So, You've spent hours and hours building up a character in EverQuest and stocked yourself with only the rarest of weaponry. At the end of the day, does all that work have any real-world value? According to a ruling in Beijing court, the answer is "yes."
The case starting in February 2003 when 24-year old game Li Hongchen discovered that his account in the popular Chinese MMO game Hongyue (or Red Moon) had been hacked. As a result, his stockpile of weapons used in the game was stolen. Li informed the makers of the game, Beijing Arctic Ice Technology Development Co. Ltd., and asked for his equipment to be returned to his account. When the company declined, Li took his case to court, demanding the return of his virual property as well as 10,000 yuan (roughly $1200 US) in damages...and guess what? He won.
Arctic Ice argued that since the property in question only existed within the confines of the game, the items in question could not be assigned any actual value; no more than data bits stored on their servers. Li contended that since he had spent two years playing the game, investing time and money in the effort, the theft of his virtual items was no differnt than the theft of any real-world item, claiming that Arctic Ice was negligent in the safeguarding of this property and therefore should be held accountable.
In the end, the court sided with Li when it handed down its decision in mid-December blaming security holes in the game's servers for the theft.

If Sonic Team dies, give Sonic to Naughty Dog or Mr. Shigeru Miyamoto. They know what to do.

Obviously ST would be in deep, DEEP shit, tracing things back all the way to PSO ver.1 DC. Regardless that they did attempt to block out GS/AR users, they got around (Barubary is hiding, isn't she?). Endless BSODs, FSODs, even ST themselves can be sued simply for putting up a faulty patch that can go off ANYTIME.

[Soukosa]

In the licence agreement that you agree to everytime you go online, it states that they are not liable for any damages, loss of property, and all that other good stuff. So, I don't see how ST or Sega could be sued if you loose anything while playing the game, since you agreed that they are not liable for that.

[KaFKa]

yep, too bad for us US players all we can sue is STA, and they're worth what? a dollar?

[Reenee]

Once again, I am oblivious to things about law and business...it's not my fault that I don't know anything about it...

I just want to be VERY sure we can't sue 'em. I mean, we can't sue over bad service and quality? Oh sure, "Nobody's making you play." I'm not, and I haven't since October-November 2K3...

[Deathscythealpha]

Oh god, dont even joke about giving Sonic to Naughty Dog, that would be just wrong. After Crash 2 they went totally down hill.

And i dont think its worth sueing Sonic Team over anything thats happened in PSO, it just seems to be a lazy way out. It isnt Sonic Team who are the jerks who go around stealing peoples weapons, spamming the lobbies and PKing you, its just other jerks on the internet.

[_Sinue_]

give Sonic to Naughty Dog or Mr. Shigeru Miyamoto

Oh god... please tell me you're joking.

[Hrith]

give Sonic to Naughty Dog or Mr. Shigeru Miyamoto
*dies*

[KodiaX987]

On 2004-02-03 21:36, Sounomi wrote:
In the licence agreement that you agree to everytime you go online, it states that they are not liable for any damages, loss of property, and all that other good stuff. So, I don't see how ST or Sega could be sued if you loose anything while playing the game, since you agreed that they are not liable for that.


That's just an ass-cover to say "if your computer screws up, don't come and whine at us." The notion of virtual items is nevertheless their responsibility, as they, like any other online service, attempt to keep a gameplay free of cheating - unless they specifically say "we don't mod the channels."

The case is quite understandable. If I got hacked into and had my stuff stolen, I'd ask for a fix too...

[Anubis_]

Hey.. lets all sue ST for getting corrupted and make um bankrupt.. rofl.. thats too funny.. Id settle for 10 bucks everytime I corrupted.. I might not even be made then... http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif

[KodiaX987]

You'd still make millions! http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_lol.gif

[Robo47]

If ST went ka-put, who would get the Phantasy Star series?

[Hrith]

On 2004-02-04 13:21, Robo47 wrote:
If ST went ka-put, who would get the Phantasy Star series?


FKL ? http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_wacko.gif

But please, don't http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_nono.gif

[_Sinue_]

It'd probly go back to OverWorks.

*Looks at PSO Ep III* *Looks at PSO Ep I & II* *Looks at Skies of Arcadia* *Looks at Phantasy Star IV*

Hmm.. that might actually be a good idea to put Reiko Kodama back in charge of Phantasy Star...

[Robo47]

Nah, let it come to me! I could actually do better than ST if I had to.

[Reenee]

On 2004-02-04 11:21, Anubis_ wrote:
Hey.. lets all sue ST for getting corrupted and make um bankrupt.. rofl.. thats too funny.. Id settle for 10 bucks everytime I corrupted.. I might not even be made then... http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif



I'd like to re-state that the dude in China won because he wasted TIME AND MONEY over the game, like it happens to any big annoyance to us, and that's just happened repeatedly.

Edit: How about Sonic and...Hideo Kojima?



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Reenee on 2004-02-04 18:31 ]</font>

[badbitz]

On 2004-02-04 01:07, Deathscythealpha wrote:
Oh god, dont even joke about giving Sonic to Naughty Dog, that would be just wrong. After Crash 2 they went totally down hill.

And i dont think its worth sueing Sonic Team over anything thats happened in PSO, it just seems to be a lazy way out. It isnt Sonic Team who are the jerks who go around stealing peoples weapons, spamming the lobbies and PKing you, its just other jerks on the internet.



naughty dog isnt doin so bad. lemme remind you: the new Crash games are made by Travelers Tales, not Naughty Dog. Jak and Daxter is fun...

[Arislan]

I haven't been fond of Naughty Dog since the beginning, and while I have respect for Miyamoto's forward looking vision, given the track record with Miyamoto produced games lately, we'd end up with a wide scoped adventure style game, which simply is not what Sonic is. He's never made an RPG, and his first attempt likely wouldn't like up to the PS name. Kojima would be no better, for mostly the same reasons.

In any case, the ToS mean exactly zero in that area. The problem with legally binding agreements is that they need to be specific if they are to be effective. Simply saying they are not liable for any loss of data doesn't help. They have to say they aren't liable for loss of data due to a network error that results in a file being saved partially twice, corrupting data, or that due to a disc error, data is transferred from it's presumed location and not returned to the original position, due to code being unrouted through the CPU, causing a loss of current data.

Until they specify exactly what they aren't responsible for, it's still very possible that a good lawyer with the right judge will win a case or a Class Action for it's plaintiffs. With an unspecific ToS or binding agreement, there is simply too much room to move for such a lawyer to work.

[Deathscythealpha]

On 2004-02-04 21:31, badbitz wrote:
naughty dog isnt doin so bad. lemme remind you: the new Crash games are made by Travelers Tales, not Naughty Dog. Jak and Daxter is fun...



Ah, Travellers Tales. That explains alot...(Sonic 3D *shudders*)

I still dont feel that Naughty Dog would ever do Sonic justice though, their style of platform games is very different.