No response came as GV asked what Acti were doing to ‘recompense’ PC and PS3 Call of Duty: Black Ops players. Now the Office of Fair Trading is involved?
The consumer group say they have been ”inundated with emails from people concerning the bugs and errors in the PC and PS3 versions of Call of Duty Black Ops,” and so they posted an open letter for Activision to respond.
”The complaints range from freezing when a new map is being loaded, locking up of PS3’s and PC’s while running the game, inability to log into multiplayer matches and connection drops mid game,” reads the letter from Gamer’s Voice.
”It is quite obvious that you have focussed a majority of your QA on the Xbox 360 version with the assumption that the majority of people who play the game will do so on that system. Despite this, you have chosen to release it on multiple formats to maximise the revenue from sales of the game.”
”It is now that your valuable customer base is bearing the brunt of this short sighted act of crass profiteering on your part, for that is exactly what this is,” they added.
”We therefore request that you offer by way of explanation to us why this has occurred and, more importantly, what are you going to do to recompense your customer base? You have one calendar month to respond to this letter. If no response is received or your retort fails to treat this issue with the gravity it deserves, we will be forced to take matters further.”
Activision gave no reply to the open letter and so now Gamer’s Voice have passed along the grievances to the Office of Fair Trading, the governing body that ”enforces consumer protection law and competition law” in the UK among other things.
”As a result of their inaction we will test the might of government agencies against Activision. We can only hope this brings about some litigious action. These agencies do exist to protect our rights as consumers, let us see if they can fulfil their remit on this pressing issue,” said Head of Industry Relations at Gamer’s Voice, Chris O’Regan.
“GV wish to set an example with Activision to ensure games are not released in an unfinished state. If litigation is initiated, then a precedent would be set. In other words, publishers will have to reconsider releasing unfinished code in the future, in the UK at least.”
”For the government agencies, months if they do start a formal investigation. For Activision, they may re-act a might quicker, although it will likely be a rebuttal and nothing more.” Have you been having trouble with Call of Duty: Black Ops, videogamer?
