Weren’t they named Epoch Points?
Which is not entirely true, it’s circumstantial. Might be the case or might not be, you cannot take it as a given inherently, which makes such cases interesting.
Imagine having the choice between several products, one showing functions being promised which you want to get… but it’s not done yet.
You pick it anyway as that stuff will be delivered later.
Now, you use it obviously for the base functions while waiting to get the functions you really want as a bonus on top. Now those functions aren’t made though.
Do you have a right for a refund - even partially - if that happens?
I mean… you use it. You can’t use what you want but the base function works, still not what you paid for.
And the reasons could be manyfold. For example the company denying a refund even if you want it. You don’t have the money to buy a equivalent product on top of the one you already bought. There is simply no similar product available.
So since the reasonings are plentyfold a overarching resolution has to be created before going into the exceptions to that overarching result.
In the EU the chances are very very high (I don’t say it’s a given it’ll be judged that way) for it to be caled ‘misleading’ though. The wording is repeated regularly in different forms on different mediums after all. Makes for a rather solid case.
Which would only apply if the game was a full-scale live-service game, but it has a offline function. Hence the case for LE specifically would lean further into refunds then upholding the functionality of the development in hopes for betterment.
But yes, that also plays a role, you’re right.
Fair, then to re-iterate it: The chance that this was a lie is very high. EHG provided the information that no time in existence after the release of 1.0 the product was profitable. Hence the only time it was is during 1.0 at best.
Since MTX sales are such a large portion of the revenue expectation the overall trend for it should’ve been visible beforehand as well. If 5000 people don’t provide the proper percentile then why should 50000 people provide a majorly different percentile of revenue? This showcases a visible issue.
So it could also be utter incompetence instead. But it’s either/or sadly. Both cases make it a bad situation.
The kickstarter counts as not only a contract but also as advertisment. If advertisments are not rescinded (or have a end-date) then conditions applying for the advertisment count as a guarantee until new advertisment happens which causes a change in conditions.
That was never done though, currently is the first time any diversion from the promised model has been showcased, and this is also done without warning.
So PoE has no competition for example?
If something has no competition then that means they’re basically a monopoly in their segment… which we can definitely say is not the cause though. Factorio has a boatload of competition, games sharing the exact same space for customers.
Oh come on… knowing how to download a emulator and then executing it isn’t any form of ‘advanced knowledge’ nowadays. People just don’t know that they exist.
Execution though is no issue there.
Not even DOSbox… you need to know how to use DOS then though… but that’s knowledge of how the game itself would be started back then, which has simply fundamentally changed - to the better - since those times.
That is factually wrong.
Time in court is handled by the ECJ (Court of Justice) under the EU Working Time Directive and is mandated to be paid work-time by law.
No, those are actually individually paid. It gets handled the moment you deliver the documents related for it. That aspect is primarily for lodging and travel expenses.
Work-related it depends if you’re a hire (hence hourly rates) which are mandated to be paid by the employer. If you’re self-employed you need to prove reduction in income being directly caused. If you’re a contractor any delay or cancellation of contracts can be forced to be refunded as well. The reputational damage is another topic and that’s not handled.
Unlike for example the US in the EU defending your rights is deemed a fundamental right and is handled in a way to - as best as possible - not cause any risk to the person or institution trying to defend their rights. This is so - unlike many other countries - you can’t simply overpower individuals with the funds your company has, basically pushing until the other side can’t afford it further.
As for the direct costs? The common way is to have a legal protection insurance. Depending on country they do a wide range of law related aspects and are often set with values which allow working through the whole legal system up to the top court of the respective area for a finalized result. Thise insurances are also cheap as heck, much like a household insurance a basic demand in society to have. Unless you don’t have the - very low - amount of money monthly unavailable to you it’s your own fault for not owning such a type of insurance. They tend to cost less then a single meal-order nowadays.
For 2 reasons primarily:
a.) They don’t have any legal insurance, which is mostly to be handled privately and which is there to afford a lawyer. They are only needed for individual disputes and if no official institute is available for your specific case, as well as if they wouldn’t take on that case.
b.) They have no clue how legal issues are even handled and know it primarily from it being long-winded, exhausting and costly. Which was true a good chunk of a while ago still but has been ever further reduced to allow even low income people to defend their rights.
Which is solely the mental exhaustion part. The ‘Again?’ part. Getting people tired of something is the best way to stop making them act.
Why do you think contracts which are free trials and then moving over to a paid one are such a hit? Because people are too lazy to act, often taking a monetary hit every month for a product they don’t use simply because for some reason they can’t be bothered to act.
Misleading would require ill intent, though. And I think that we can all agree that there is no ill intent here. Rather there is naive well-intentioned and good-willed ambition focused on the players, which didn’t pan out.
It would only be misleading if they intended for players to believe that this would be the case while already knowing that they would later change this. And as much as I dislike the notion that the expansion will be paid after those statements, I think we can all agree that there was no ill intent behind them or any intention to fool players.
No. A lie is a deliberate deturpation of the truth. There is no indication that this was the case. In fact, all indications point that, at the time the statements were made, they were truthful and they intended to follow up on them. Then reality happened and they had to change their stance.
This is not a lie. This is a judgement error due to them being inexperienced in running a studio. They are not the same things.
You don’t need a different percentile. In the second case, they profit 10x more than in the first. That’s how percentiles work. If either the base number of the percentile change, the total profit changes. But you only need one to change for it to have an effect.
Obviously they were expecting a higher stable playercount for their first seasons, probably more in line with the launch numbers, as that would bring in a lot more revenue.
This is sadly likely true. They didn’t know how to manage their studio/finances properly or establish the proper priorities for the economic growth of the game.
A new advertisement did happen. And that would be the steam page. On which this doesn’t show up at any time.
The steam page serves the same purpose for advertisement as the kickstarter page does. And if that is not enough, there is also the launch trailer that points to that page.
So we can honestly say that the kickstarter has effectively been replaced as an advertisement tool.
It has PoE2, which is effectively competing (more successfully, one should say) with it. And there’s also D4.
Not necessarily. Although that is often true. And that means they can get away with things as long as they remain without competition.
That is why FIFA got away with all the P2W it implemented. Because there was no competition (PES was dead on board by that time) so players had no choice other than to play FIFA if they wanted a good football game.
And there are also plenty of other similar examples, although it’s a tightrope. If you push too much, players will jump out and instead play something else, even if inferior. Or you open the door to some other game coming in and taking your spot.
It isn’t for those that are more tech-oriented. Not for the casual player.
Most people don’t even know how to install an adblocker. Or change DNS.
Most PC users just know the basics and will struggle with anything more complicated like connecting to a plex server, running a torrent software or even installing mods if the game doesn’t have a mod manager in-game.
Hell, most PC users won’t even know how to update their drivers if their computer doesn’t do them automatically for them.
So no, most players won’t know how to run an emulator, especially one for older tech that usually requires fiddling with the setting to get working properly.
I don’t think that is even a thing here in Portugal. I’ve seen many advertisements for many different type of insurances over the years and I’ve never seen any about that.
I think that is also part of your utopia.
So, they can’t afford the expenses they’ll incur before the case is over? Because they also can’t afford to pay legal insurance (where that is available) for several years?
Yes, but good lawyers can drag court cases for years. Very good lawyers can even drag it for so long that it expires (not sure what the legal term is in english). And I’ve seen that happen recently with lots of high profile cases.
No, you can be misleading even in good faith.
If a judge finds you acting in good faith, they will be much more lenient. The moment a judge finds that you had ill intent (aka you knew you would never be able to run your operation on MTX alone and always planned to change course later, internal communication gets leaked to prove that), then you’re pretty much screwed.
Then we head into the territory of fraud as a criminal charge, rather than civil and administrative law.
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Misleading literally means “causing someone to believe something that is not true, or tending to confuse or deceive”. At the time those statements were made, the statements were true, were not confusing or deceitful.
It’s like saying that Earth is the 3rd planet from the sun. Does the fact that a few billion years from now the sun will expand and eat up the inner planets make that statement misleading?
Yes, but you can mislead someone by not being precise in your language. You don’t need intent to mislead.
The statuary law states:
a trader can be liable for misleading consumers even if they did not intend to deceive anyone.
Contrary to a lie, which is, by definition, making a false statement while knowing it is false.
Yes, I concede that point. But mine that their statement wasn’t misleading because it was true at that time still holds, though.
No, intent doesn’t matter for misleading actually.
You can mislead through carelessness as well, it’s solely dependant on the likely perception of the customer in that case.
And we can agree there is no ill intent in there, 100%
As for the naivety part: The path to hell is paved with good intentions.
Fair, ‘misstatement’ then to be precise. I concede to your point there fully.
That would mean they created their business model on the assumption to have a massive playerbase at all times without fail.
That’s a inherent failing business strategy, neglicence at best, pure incompetence at worst.
Especially when believing that player-count would stay reliably high related to release numbers.
Heck… it’s already absolutely nonsensical to even work with 50% of those numbers given the player-count before release, only after reliable long-term visible data is it viable to act according to the new status, with the barest measures to ensure ongoing smooth service to be the primary importance to adhere to before even thinking once about expanding business.
Rescinded (directly or indirectly), not omitted.
And Last Epoch, and Torchlight: Infinite.
They take up the exact same space on the market with miniscule different playerbases being directly catered to.
Yeah, and many don’t know how to even use a PC nowadays still… or how to first-setup a console.
We’re a bit far out of ‘reasonable’ territory nonetheless.
I’ll easily accept the reasoning of ‘it’s not known’… but difficulty based? No chance.
They are.
They’re just not advertised as they’re not really profitable for a insurance company, commonly - as in my country - sold in sets with others. Life insurance for example is the most profitable insurance type, non-life insurance comparatively is extremely unprofitable throughout the bank. The reason why for example car insurance is often seen in ads is because car insurance is mandatory in many areas and makes up in sheer quantity for it as while household inurance or legal insurance are not mandatory in most countries.
As for legal insurances you got a public liability insurance, a professional indemnits insurance (which is mandatory in portugal). Legal aid in Portugal is free of charge because it’s at large swaths included in the Social Security system, though that is based on financial need and only upholds as long that need is present.
A private legal protection insurance though is available, absolutely so. There’s also premium packages which include car insurance, home insurance and business insurance as a singular thing.
The coverage limits are atrocious though, but you can get them from ARAG, DAS, Fidelidade Legal Care and some others as much as I see at first glance, and you got a waiting period after signing the contract, for example if someone from Portugal would want to go to court for this situation potentially coming to bear it would need a 3 months waiting period before it can be done.
Oh come on… legal insurance for laywers is below 200€ per year, less then a full ordered meal even… that’s nigh universally true.
If you skip a meal a month it’s paid for. Much like home insurance it’s a fundamental insurance aspect to be done. If you don’t do it - and as mentioned, unless your finances are so bad you cannot even allow that bit - then there is no excuse for it. And especially in Portugal you got a Social system which allows to afford one in that case.
The expiration of cases is commonly handled by the date it is brought forward, and all relevant aspects to that case hence also void any expiration date until completion.
I depends on country a bit though, and you’re right that some are nonsensical beyond end.
No, those aren’t competition. As can be clearly seen from the fact that twice in a row they didn’t care about LE’s release date.
PoE is LE’s competitor, which causes LE to switch dates or plan them around what their competition does. LE isn’t PoE’s competitor, for now anyway. It was briefly after launch, but later settled into a contender instead of a competitor.
For LE to be competition to PoE, it would have to be able to effectively steal a significant amount of players from them. And launch numbers, even when they’re actively very close, say that isn’t happening.
I’d love for LE to be a competitor, but it currently isn’t. I love it, but the numbers don’t lie. It might get there, but isn’t there yet.
They don’t. They occupy a much smaller space in the market.
What you are saying is the equivalent of saying that your local shop is a competitor to Amazon when it simply isn’t.
I know you’re privileged and live in utopia land, but 200€ is a lot for a low class worker over here.
It’s about 1/4 of the minimum wage over here and families struggle with that amount, especially with the constant increasing rent values.
That’s not a measurement of something being competition.
For example ‘Zotter’ (a amazing chocolate making company) is in direct competition with Milka. Milka is so huge they can absolutely ignore Zotter… but still it stands in competition for the market shares.
Size is only to a degree of matter. To be specific the market share needs to be a total of 50%+ to be counted as such. A ‘pure’ monopoly is counted as 90%+ instead.
It also relies about market power in comparison to competitors.
Heck… to be entirely fair even ‘Chronicon’ is in direct competition with LE, their shares and market power are just utterly ignorable as it doesn’t even have 1% of the total one.
If we take a look at peaks engagement (hence release times) then we get the following shares:
PoE 1: 26,4%
PoE 2: 52,9%
LE: 11,8%
TLI: 1,7%
D4: 7,2%
We can clearly see that the Franchise of Path of Exile is close to being a ‘pure monopoly’ which means they have essentially all the say in the market area.
LE is following directly behind, they’re the second most successful game on the market currently and despite that failing (that’s kinda a major issue I would argue, so much mismanagement is baffling)
D4 is really struggling for total shares.
And now the nail in the coffin for EHG: TLI has only 1,7% of the total market share… and is going strong without any issues being even remotely visible.
All of them stand in direct competition to each other. They all share the same space.
Don’t misconstrue the difference between having a monopoly and hence not needing to care as you have all the market power with competition being there.
If the competition is relevant is of no… well… relevance 
Lemme rephrase: They stand in the same room, PoE is just a really fat person compared to all the others, taking up more space. But the room is the same.
Per year?
We’re talking about less then 20€ per month in costs, for insurance against something that can cost you more then 15 years of insurance cost at the first instance of court.
Don’t pay for Netflix, Spotify or Amazon Prime for example… and don’t order food once a month.
If you’re below the range where you really couldn’t afford such an insurance as mentioned: It’s included in the Social Safety Net then.
And 200€ is not a quarter of the yearly total minimum wage If you only earn 800€ a year then you have kinda a huge issue… not a single country in the EU has even anywhere remotely to those standards.
To be exact the minimum wage in Portugal for a full-time job currently is 870€ 14 times a year.