I found this at the madden boards, and I found it very eloquently written and addressed... Not to mention that this individual is a professor at one of the State of Texas Universities.
http://forums.ea.com/mboards/thread....27958&tstart=0
Here's a letter I've e-mailed to my Congressman, Chet Edwards. I've put asterisks where my name and university were named in the original I believe people in legal authority should know what is happening with Madden 09, which might constitute a kind of ethical or legal fraud.
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Hello Congressman Edwards,
My name is **** and I teach in the **** Department of **** University, which is in your district in Texas. You gave a fine commencement address here last May.
The following matter is not an urgent situation and I want you to know up front this might be something you have some staffer check out or perhaps it won't meet the standards of action at all. However, it does involve a matter of no small importance to many people, even hundreds of thousands, nationwide.
The matter concerns a potential case of fraud or mismanagement or misinformation coming from the company EA Sports. I'm not a lawyer, I'm a teacher, so I don't know what legally constitutes fraud, but I'm a consumer and I know that when a product is defective the company has a moral and legal obligation to repair or replace the item. Further, I believe that a company should never knowingly sell a defective item that will cause grief to the consumer. I believe this has happened with the EA Sports game entitled Madden 09.
Like hundreds of thousands of other people, I bought this console game (for the Playstation 3, in my case) and almost immediately began to have problems playing it in one of the "modes" called Franchise. The game would "freeze" (just no longer load correctly) upon occasion, meaning certain game play was "lost" or certain features could not be accessed. I had a similar situation happen with a previous game from the same company (Madden 08), so I went to the official EA sports website and began to read the forums there, where people can write in for suggestions, for help, etc.
I was not surprised to find that, while there are hundreds of forum "threads," many dealt with the freezing issue or other technological issues that rendered parts of the game almost unplayable. I can send examples, if you like, and give more details, but the game has major errors in a wide variety of play modes, including Franchise and Online play. If you, or a staffer, were to visit the EA Madden 09 forum, and browse the posts, you will discover very soon that the problems are rampant and the consumers are, for the most part, really distressed and do not believe their complaints are being addressed in a timely manner.
The official EA response has been to promise a "patch" for the game, which means that consumers who have a fast reliable Internet connection can download the patch which should then fix these errors. The official patch, called Patch #2, will fix some 18 known problems with the game. I know this because the EA site has a message from Ian Cummings, Lead Designer of the Madden 2010 game, discussing what will be contained in the patch and when consumers can expect it to be ready to download.
I have these concerns to bring to your attention:
1) This game was only recently released--mid-August, I believe. For the game to have so many flaws in it that require such a large patch indicates the game-testing mechanism at EA is flawed at best, and perhaps fraudulent. If EA knew of these game glitches, and released the game anyway, surely this constitutes an ethical, if not a legal, problem. Further, if EA did not know about these glitches, they have failed to exercise quality control at their company, as they should have known about these problems before the game was released to an unsuspecting public.
2) The patch, when it becomes available, will be downloadable--but what about people who have no Internet connection, or a very slow or unreliable connection? I know myself that at my home I only recently got access to a DSL line, and many areas of rural Texas in your district will not have connectivity that would allow a patch to be downloaded. Anyone, then, who purchased Madden 09 and cannot download the patch will be stuck with a defective game.
I would note as a side point that outlet stores typically will not allow a return on an electronic game after one week. I believe EA has been making some effort to see that returns can function after that date, but I don't think they've made much effort at all to explain this return procedure to consumers.
In sum, I believe the EA Sports' title Madden 09 has such serious problems that it might constitute a kind of fraud perpetrated on the consumer. The game, out of the shrink-wrap, is almost unplayable in several of its modes. The promised, but not yet delivered patch, may not fix these problems and certainly won't be available to all consumers. EA Sports, a multimillion dollar company, must be held accountable to ethical and legal standards. True, it's just a game, but consumers deserve a product that works, even in the gaming world.
Please write if you have any questions or want follow-up information. I'll be happy to tell you more details.
Thanks,
***
Constituent in your district
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That was the letter I've sent.
To EA forum monitors, please stop telling people here to stop whining about the game and if they didn't like it they shouldn't have purchased it. Consumers have rights, people, and we no longer live in a Buyer Beware market where companies can rip us off without consequence. Anyone who says we should stop "whining" and we "didn't have to buy the game" may be perpetuating and participating in the potential fraud EA may be conducting.
09-06-2008, 11:58 AM
