France threatens Blizzard with legal action

Published on 06-13-2012 07:11 PM

We previously heard about some Internet Cafe owners in Korea threatening Blizzard with Class Action Lawsuits, but it's no longer just limited to Korea. The UFC Que Choisir, a "very serious organization" in France, is now also putting legal pressure on Blizzard. Blizzard is required to have a "permanent solution within 15 days, and to communicate completely and transparently about problems encountered in due time." It sounds like people are starting to get very serious about the path that Blizzard is taking with the RMAH, and Diablo III, and who knows, there could potentially be lawsuits filed in the United States in time. The below quote is a brief version of the article translated in English. Only time will tell what will happen, but Blizzard might be in hot water soon if they don't fix up Diablo III.

In France, the very serious “UFC Que Choisir” organization (focused on protecting consumers of all kinds of products) has received over 1500 complaints in 4 days from gamers about connect-ability issues and has asked Blizzard to have a permanent solution within 15 days and to communicate completely and transparently about problems encountered in due time.

They are also requesting that affected gamers be given damages for troubles they may have had, and, in a much broader but more official manner, are asking the DGCCRF to have a close look at online-only DRMed games and how they work, including economically. They basically feel that it’s wrong to assume that an entire nation (well, at least France) has equal internet quality and reception across its entire territory and hence, online-only seems are harmful for some (many?) consumers (which is who they’re trying to protect).

For our French users, here's a link to the full article in French:
http://www.quechoisir.org/telecom-mu...d-les-manettes

_{This article was originally published in forum thread:
France threatens Blizzard with legal action
started by
phantom325} _{View original post}

6 Comments

vallismall - 06-14-2012
- Reply
Sorry I haven't been following, what did Blizzard do wrong with D3?

phantom325 - 06-15-2012
- Reply
Well, it's purely based on opinion, of course. However, some of the main points are the auction house, no switching between acts, no lobby, and legendaries being mostly bad, to name a few.

Ahiro - 06-15-2012
- Reply
I've just red the french article. (Yes i'm french, sorry guys )
The UFC Que Choisir is crying because a lot of french people cried on the access to the D3 servers (which didn't work in May).
Now, they are complaining because Blizzard ask for a complete access to Internet to play D3. For them, they can't ask for it because players would be able to play the game offline. They are saying that some players dont have unlimited access to Internet (LOL).

nightelfs - 06-16-2012
- Reply
I think what Blizz did wrong was releasing the game. They mashed together what was left in a hurry to send out the game, it was long from finished and thus these problems occured.

stoneharry - 06-18-2012
- Reply
I agree with the French. My internet connection is quite unstable and can time out for a few seconds every 10 minutes. While this doesn't sound bad, it causes me to completely disconnect from the game and thus lose my current game and progress. It can be VERY frustrating.