Back in December, Electronic Arts faced a potential class-action lawsuit over the release of Battlefield 4. Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP suggested that Electronic Arts had violated the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 by allegedly making "materially false and misleading statements" about Battlefield 4 prior to release, which caused EA's share value to rise – which in turn allowed EA senior executive to sell their shares at a higher value. The suit claims that was a scheme on part of the publisher and that they knew that the game would be shipped with issues, causing backlash.
The suit also pursued damages for those that purchased Battlefield 4 when it released as a sub-par product. Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP listed their suit against EA in four specific claims:
"(a) Battlefield 4 was riddled with bugs and multiple other problems, including downloadable content that allowed players access to more levels of the game, a myriad of connectivity issues, server limitations, lost data and repeated sudden crashes, among other things; (b) as a result, Electronic Arts would not achieve a successful holiday season 2013 rollout of Battlefield 4; (c) the performance of the Electronic Arts unit publishing Battlefield 4 was so deficient that all other projects that unit was involved in had to be put on hold to permit it to focus its efforts on fixing Battlefield 4; and (d) as a result, Electronic Arts was not on track to achieve the financial results it had told the market it was on track to achieve during the Class Period."
By way of Gamespot, we're learning that the lawsuit against Electronic Arts did not reach official class-action status as it seems as the case has vanished from Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP's website. Gamespot states that they have tried to reach Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd a half-dozen times for comment, but have received none from the lawyers involved with the case.
Battlefield 4 Patched for Xbox 360
For the case to have actually gone class-action, a lead plaintiff had to have come forward by February 15, 2014. Evidently, this did not occur and the law-firm has simply gone quiet about the matter.
When the suit first came to the public's attention, EA called it “meritless”. Perhaps they were right.
Either way, it is still pretty crappy that Battlefield 4 released the way it did. I almost bought it, too, but I can't say that I'm too interested, anymore.
