|
|
|
Wednesday Nov 28, 2007
Write buggy code -- Get sued!
I am sure you have all experienced software glitches, from the notorious blue screen of death to mundane rebooting of your wireless router because suddenly it froze. Now if I was running a nuclear reactor, or some mission critical medical machine my tolerance for rebooting would be zero, but for most of us this has become a way of life. I do consider this when purchasing a product, but I can't say this is one of my top purchasing criteria. So what you might say! Well here is the story that caught my eye -- "Microsoft Sued Over Halo 3's 'Consistent' Crashes" Wow, what is the world coming to when games are so important to us that we will sue if they crash? I for one will have to monitor this case to see where it goes, but isn't it strange that suing a software maker for a crash has never entered into my mind? Change software vendors, write them a letter, demand a refund... but sue them? Not sure what this will do to software quality, but I am sure some legal eagles will get some money out of this... Oh well, back to my day job... -Mark
Posted at
01:42PM Nov 28, 2007
by Mark Herring in General |
Comments[2]
|
|
|
|||
I guess you reap what you sow. Microsoft is known for legal issues (to them or from them), so I guess customers just treat Microsoft like it treats its customers and/or business partners.
The BSOD's made me move away from Windows, and now the cumbersome synchronisation of a PocketPC to Linux is making me want to buy a non-MicrosoftOS-powered PDA (or a smartphone not running Windows Mobile). I guess if you want to play Halo3 only to find it crashing consistenly, and know that there is no alternative, then you sue Microsoft....
Frankly, I'm not surprised. It does surprise me that customers did not sue Microsoft before.
Posted by SwitchBL8 on November 28, 2007 at 02:15 PM PST #
Hi Mark,
I suspect a large contributing reason that MS are getting sued in this case is due to poor 'expectation management'.
Increasingly PC based games are competing head-to-head with console based ones, and although there are 'buggy' console games - this is more the exception and not the norm. Unlike the PC game market - where traditionally after the event 'patches' are the norm.
This behaviour won't be able to continue in the epidemic fashion that it does now, because competition with consoles is now so strong.
MS's problem here is the brand awareness and strength Halo (and it's sequels) has garnered - plenty of PC games have been very 'buggy' but the PC gaming community is usually patient enough to wait for the patch required (a big issue with PC gaming has been where patches aren't released, usually for a very weak game developer versus game distributor issue around support).
Frankly I hope this leads to games which are more ready to be played (with all the promised, or rather leaked, 'in game' functionality) - without driving down the innovation that is apparent in the PC market (not necessarily driven by MS, but more by the gaming ISV's like Peter Molyneux's Lionhead Studio).
Cheers,
Wayne
Posted by Wayne Horkan on November 28, 2007 at 03:49 PM PST #