Star Wars Galaxies fans threaten lawsuit
Star Wars Galaxies fans aren't going to take the game shutdown quietly. In fact, some are proposing legal action.
What do you do when things don't go out of your way? File a lawsuit, of course. VentureBeat reports that "a number of Star Wars Galaxies players" have written the site, saying they want to file a lawsuit against Sony Online Entertainment. The reason? The company is shutting down the diminishing MMO.
Of course, VentureBeat properly notes that there's "zero chance" for this to gain support, because the end-user license agreement for the game affords Sony the ability to shut down the game:
We may also terminate this Agreement if we decide, in our sole discretion, to discontinue offering the Game, in which case we may provide you with a prorated refund of any prepaid amounts.
Sony is following through with that aspect of the agreement, giving users pro-rated refunds for any subscription time after October 15th. The game will operate for free until it closes at year's end. Afterwards, Sony is likely hoping that many players will consider an "All Access" pass, which grants access to SOE's other MMOs for a discounted rate.
The legal route is effectively blocked for Star Wars Galaxies enthusiasts, which means that fans can attempt to take comfort in the next best thing: a petition. The cleverly titled "Do Not Permanently Shut Down Star Wars Galaxies" decree suggests SOE experiment with alternatives to a game shutdown, including transforming the game into a free to play model. As of writing, there have been over 2800 signatures.
Unfortunately, it's likely the petition will fall on deaf ears. "We also recognize the fact that Lucasarts is currently licensing part of it's intellectual property to Bioware and Electronic Arts for use in an upcoming MMO release," the petition states, referencing the impending release of The Old Republic. "We believe that the two licenses can co-exist, and should be allowed to do so." Realistically, though, it seems like much too lofty of a proposition.
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replyAndrew Yoon posted a new article, Star Wars Galaxies fans threaten lawsuit.
Star Wars Galaxies fans aren't going to take the game shutdown quietly. In fact, some are proposing legal action.-
"Of course, VentureBeat properly notes that there's "zero chance" for this to gain support, because the end-user license agreement for the game affords Sony the ability to shut down the game:"
There actually IS such a thing as unenforceable contract provisions. "They EULA says so" is the beginning if a discussion NOT the end of it.-
Yes but I'm pretty sure there's precedents out there. Back when EA put out Ultima Online they got sued by people who didn't realize you had to pay monthly to play the game. As a result they got pretty wordy on their boxes about the right to shut the game down at any time after X date. Even on games where this doesn't make sense, like Battlefield 1942. And this is far from the first MMO to shut down.
You're right, there are unenforceable clauses but I'm pretty sure they're in the clear here. -
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Well those are the kinds of arguments that Sony could use in court, doesn't mean that this is a foregone conclusion. In the end they will probably win but certainly doesn't mean that there is "zero chance" for such a lawsuit to succeed. Certainly not merely because of the presence of such a EULA condition.
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There are Star Wars Galaxies fans?
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Once the game is gone, doesn't that essentially cancel the EULA? Freeshards should pop up, no?
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More than likely they will be shutdown for copyright infringement by LucasArts.
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More companies need to take a page from the iD playbook. I think all end of life mmos should be open sourced, at the least the server software if not the game client too.
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I believe there are already teams working on just that project and they have been for quite some time.
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Isn't there a EULA in games just for this type of lameness?
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Am I the only one who thinks the people suing over this are idiots? I say this because the game is already pretty much dead at this point, but that's because of the complete clusterfuck inducing overhaul that Sony did years ago that completely changed the game, and fucked over long time players? They should have sued over that, because the game would likely still be going strong if Sony hadn't changed the fundamentals of the game back then. But that was years ago, and only now people are threatening to sue?
Just my $0.02.-
To be fair, while the NGE definitely caused a mass exodus of players, I don't think SW:G could ever have been described as 'going strong.' The incredibly disappointing sub numbers (for a Star Wars product no less!) were the impetus for the NGE. While I suspect the #s were sufficient to keep the servers on and paid for, that's clearly not the sort of 'win' that LucasArts was going for.
You might as well say that, if SOE had just made a better game from the beginning, the game would still be going strong.-
That's a fair assessment. To be honest, I never played SWG, though I was quite tempted back when it was more popular and before NGE, in part because I had friends back then who played it, but it also looked quite fun. If not for my distaste for subscription fees for games, I'd have gotten into it without hesitation. True, at this point, it's sour grapes since Bioware is coming out with a game that appears to have great gameplay from the beginning, instead of being displayed in a mixed light, and having to do something to bring in more subscribers despite some of the bad publicity and negative gameplay factors.
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most of them will jump ship to SWTOR anyways
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F2P Lord of the Rings Online is actually pretty good... and it's not capped at level 20. There is some premium content that you can buy if you want... but otherwise you can just play for free!
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I knida feel ad for anyone still playing that game.... I thought it died out like 10 years ago lol
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