Sue EA while the Suing is good?

[DukeLeto]

Nowadays if you pick up any EA thing you will see: "EA reserves the right to terminate the online features of this product after giving 90 days notice" or for NHL 2003 "EA reserves the right to terminate the online features of this product after giving 90 days notice or 30 days after the end of the 2003 NHL season"

Some may wonder *why* EA puts these things on their packaging now. The answer is simple. EA knows they will abandon everything with their logo on it a very short time after the product goes Retail. But abandoning is not enough! No, to make even more money, EA now also will disable all online features of their games. They know they will, so they put these legal disclaimers on their boxes so as they don't get sued.

But since Emperor has no such disclaimers and EA is *not* living up to what they advertised, then it stands to reason that EA is in a vulnerable position to be sued at the moment.

You're an idiot. Those disclaimers are in the EULA, indeed they are in the EULA of all companies' games; Blizzard, Microsoft, LucasArts, etc. ::) Thus, your stupid "lawsuit" has no grounds. ::)

[Navaros]

Nowadays if you pick up any EA thing you will see: "EA reserves the right to terminate the online features of this product after giving 90 days notice" or for NHL 2003 "EA reserves the right to terminate the online features of this product after giving 90 days notice or 30 days after the end of the 2003 NHL season"

Some may wonder *why* EA puts these things on their packaging now. The answer is simple. EA knows they will abandon everything with their logo on it a very short time after the product goes Retail. But abandoning is not enough! No, to make even more money, EA now also will disable all online features of their games. They know they will, so they put these legal disclaimers on their boxes so as they don't get sued.

But since Emperor has no such disclaimers and EA is *not* living up to what they advertised, then it stands to reason that EA is in a vulnerable position to be sued at the moment.

You're an idiot. Those disclaimers are in the EULA, indeed they are in the EULA of all companies' games; Blizzard, Microsoft, LucasArts, etc. ::) Thus, your stupid "lawsuit" has no grounds. ::)

i don't know if they are in the EULA of Emperor or not but even if they ARE --- that is no way diminishes the fact that EA would not be putting these disclaimers in big bold letters on their boxes nowadays unless they knew they'd be vulnerable to lawsuits if they did not. those on-box disclaimers are bad for business: you can be 100% sure that many people who would have otherwise bought Generals etc. but picked up the box and saw the disclaimer will now NOT buy Generals. those disclaimers make EA: SELL LESS!!!!!!! never will the disclaimers ever cause anyone to BUY one of their games.

therefore whether or not it's in the EULA is irrelevant. EA is still vulnerable to lawsuits or those disclaimers would NOT be on the box. End of story. why don't you get some common sense before you call other ppl idiots ::)

[mechadragon]

Even still, when put to the test, many of these EULAs don't hold up despite thier lawyers best efforts. Fair is fair, and judges are not always fooled or bullied by the studio big wigs.

Several years ago, there was a US court ruling that a software company must provide support and fixes for thier software for a period of years (I belive it was 5) afterward. However, the ruling did not obligate them to actuallly do anything during that time other than actually cliam to still support it. It does establish a precedent that gives buyers a right to sue if the software was buggy and the company refused to help.

Nowadays, you don't own the software you buy so the ruling probably no longer exactly applies. All of the software you buy (and some hardware as well, think XBox and PS2), is really "leased" and ownership is still retained by the company. (Go ahead, read the those EULAs for yourselves) This changes things and opens doors for companies to terminate leases. It also means that they never "sold" you the software to begin with.

There are a couple of cases out there now that are challenging this practice. Chiefly, one based on the fact that this EULA is not disclosed to the consumer until after he has made the purchase, opened the box, and begun the installation proceedure... To late to return it to the software store since they wont take back opened software. The other case is tied to the ongoing DeCSS ordeal in which the judge declared that purchase implies owbership and gives the buyer the right to do anything he wants whith the product, including duplicate and even resell it. The condition though, that he cannot sell a duplicate, and he renounces his ownership when he sells his copy, including the rights to use his own duplicates.

This has a lot of big companies scared that similar rulings could be made in the US.

Simply put, EULAs mean jack shit. If you think you have a legitimate reason, say your computer shot sparks and died in a puff of smoke, despite the fact that in the EULA it obsolves the company of any liablility, you can still sue if you can prove thier software was responsible. Despite the fact that alot of stuff in the EULA will still hold up, quite a bit of it is wishful thinking on the software company's part.

With that, I will say two hard reasons why EULAs are not binding :

1. The contract is never signed. Without a hand writtten signature on the terms, the judge will throw it out. This applies to any contract. Verbal contracts are ridiculously hard to prove, check boxes and radio buttons are the same.

2. Most of you out there are under the age of 18. In the US, a minor is not old enough to enter a binding contract on his own until the age of 18. Anything enterned into before that age (actually, before 16) will most likely get thrown out as well.

One of the funniest things I ever saw was my nephew tried to backup a game. The license entitled him to make one backup for personal use. When he tried to run up the backup, a security feature in the software kept asking him to insert the disc. Only the original disc would work, thus negating usage of the backup.