Sega, Gearbox sued for false game play vids. This could open some floodgates....

A lawsuit filed this week in the Northern District of California court claims that Sega and Gearbox Software knowingly lied to consumers by releasing trade show demos for space shooter Aliens: Colonial Marines that were unrepresentative of the final product.

Colonial Marines was released in February to negative reviews, with both players and the media noting that the game bore little resemblance to the demos that had been shown previously.

Now law firm Edelson has filed a suit against the game's publisher and developer on behalf of an individual called Damion Perrine, who alleges that the "actual gameplay" demos provided were not accurate representations of the final product, thus tricking consumers into preordering for an experience which they were not provided with.

Additionally, Perrine notes that review code was sent out to review outlets with an embargo that lifted on the game's day of release, meaning that those people who preordered the game were not made aware of discrepancies between the demos and the final game until they'd already paid for it.

"Each of the 'actual gameplay' demonstrations purported to show consumers exactly what they would be buying: a cutting edge video game with very specific features and qualities," reads the claim, as obtained by Polygon.

"Unfortunately for their fans, Defendants never told anyone - consumers, industry critics, reviewers, or reporters - that their 'actual gameplay' demonstration advertising campaign bore little resemblance to the retail product that would eventually be sold to a large community of unwitting purchasers."


After reading this I checked something out because frankly most games change a huge amount from earlier game play vids. I ended up walking away wondering wtf happened to Bioshock Infinite, he'll it's a brilliant game but check out the vid below...



Now you see where I'm coming from that video especially the last few minutes are gobsmackingly amazing yet none of that made it into the final game....

Surely the difference here is that late in the day the game engine was seemingly dumbed down considerably and then it can be viewed to have been convered up with the review embargo.

I can accept and think that it is reasonable that trailers (especially early ones) may not always showcase features that make the final game as things are likely to change in development but this does feel more like a deliberate attempt to deceive in this case

What is noticeable though with the Infinite trailer is that the visual fidelity remained true on launch even if all the features didnt quite make it - tbf, looking back some of those combat clips looked incredibly lofty and ambitious though!

I do agree mate I was more pointing out just how much some games do change, Gearbox mistake was dishonesty, had they been open from the outset I daresay the game wouldn't have been so critically panned. At least Irrational had the grace to admit defeat and postpone the game for 12 months, still I can't help but feel a little disappointed at a few aspects of Infinite now. Those tears from Elizabeth for instance just look amazing compared to how they ended up and the handyman using objects like the horse was top notch. Agree on the combat though, it seems that video was more like target footage shot in the game engine.

Problem that I can see with the combat in that Infinite vid would be for it to have remained like that, the combat would have had to have been a lot more scripted.

At least with Irrational their ambition slightly outweighed what they were able to deliver. All Gearbox had to do was issue a gun that had you shooting fuck out of Aliens in an enjoyable manner.....

Will be paying keen interest to how this law suit gets on.