EA recognizes that there is an issue with their sports title, but they aren’t taking much of a stance on the source of the problem. Microsoft, meanwhile, continues to stomp around like an accused baby daddy on the Maury show. But everyone in the audience knows that that baby in the photo is theirs; same nose, same mouth, same big dumb ears. But with every baby daddy in denial comes his group of (fan)boys that have his back.
The coverage of the story amounted to “it ain’t mine,” for a while. Then the UK’s daily tabloid, The Sun, took to attacking Microsoft in their coverup. Their headlines are loud and they are a tabloid, which could have been the reason why the Computer and Video Games’ writer wrote about it in such a way. I still couldn’t help but feel that the CVG writer dismissed The Sun’s efforts because their print version looks as if at any moment they will release images of the Prime Minister’s alien baby, and more often than not their articles hardly qualify for journalism. While these are valuable reasons to be put off by any piece of writing from such an establishment, at this point game industry outlets have only covered it as a continuation of a “he said, she said” story. That leaves The Sun ahead of the curve (scary thought).
Which leads me to many questions…
Why is it okay that Xbox gamers allow their accounts to get hacked, repeatedly, and demand nothing better from the company? Why make it so easy to recover Xbox Live accounts to another Xbox — well, that was probably set up because of the Red Ring — but why have credit card information carry over so easily? If it’s your account, you would have that card and the ability to verify the information again. But that would be smart on Microsoft’s part. So why is it that when unsuspecting gamers get caught in a reoccurring phishacking, it’s acceptable that Microsoft uses some type of deflection and doesn’t tackle the issue?
Why aren’t more gamers willing to stand up against these injustices? Hell, why aren’t more gaming news outlets?
What should really put the term injustice into perspective is the change to their EULA. The EULA that strips away your rights to a class action lawsuit and rights to a judge and jury. If your dispute cannot be settled on paper, it will be settled on the telephone, with a third party to decide the verdict. Which to me sounds like any part in Inception when you’re getting mindfucked, but totally not in a good way.
Origin and PSN also have the same type of EULA. At least for Sony people already fired off a class action suit, because something major did happen. But despite a security breach involving 77 million people, no one had reported that their information was maliciously used in accordance with the PSN hack. Origin is a ticking timebomb and only time will tell what its nosy self will get you into. EA believes it is not spyware. Germany and other like-minded thinkers believe it is.
The Xbox Live EULA comes with a nice, shiny deflection of a dashboard update. Now, people are complaining about the ads featured on every page. Advertisements: apparently way worse than not having any rights. You can opt out of the EULA, but you must send it via snail mail within 30 days of accepting the new terms. As Jarret had said at the end of his post about Xbox Live’s new EULA, “as long as the bulk of users do nothing, companies will continue to strip your consumer rights away; one EULA at a time.”
Injustice covered with deflection doused in more injustice. Microsoft, get your shit together. Fix at least one problem with your beloved Xbox. At this point, you wouldn’t admit that there are any problems. The change to the EULA may not be directly related to the problems at hand, but may be a bandwagon move by Microsoft. Since it’s an opportune time for the arbitration clause while the majority of gamers allow this behavior. This change should concern gamers for what could possibly happen in the future (like when Xbox Live is officially hacked because of Microsoft security issues).
Given the current change to their EULA, Microsoft may know that something is wrong and it’s their fault, but either way they’re just trying to cover their own ass. When will the FIFA phishacking end? Who knows? But I think more letters than just EULA rejections need to be sent to One Microsoft Way.
Source: Illustrations via Sam Spratt
