It sucks that Watch Dogs has issues affecting many users, really it does. But some of those issues aren't entirely Ubisoft's fault as it is also at least somewhat the fault of those who saw the warning lights, and decided to ignore them.
How is an average consumer supposed to just "know" they will encounter bugs? Furthermore, why should that be acceptable? It's worth noting that this is your attitude on the matter and I doubt Ubisoft would openly admit a "sorry for you!" approach to customer relations.
If the average consumer lives in the real world he should know that there are bugs in almost every piece of software that exists. Assuming that this isn't his very first game purchase ever he has probably encountered bugs in games before. Windows has bugs, Office has bugs, Skype has bugs, Chrome has bugs, Internet explorer (LOL) has bugs...
Consumers aren't at fault for buying a launch product but they purposefully put themselves at risk by doing so? I can't wrap my head around this nonsense.
The average consumer who has bought something in the past would have experienced bugs as per above. There are at least four things he could do then, he could be happy and live with it, or he could be unhappy. If he is unhappy he can investigate, then he can decide to not do the same again in the future and never buy games again, or he can decide to wait until the game has been patched to his satisfaction, or he could decide that it must have been a fluke and do it again. And again, and again, and again...
Do you think for one moment that if the company was honest and marketed the game with the caveat "Game may have bugs and performance problems at launch. Purchasing at launch means you are helping us test the stability of the game and may or may not receive patches at a later date" the average consumer would follow through with their purchase? Of course not! They have clearly been deceived and your only argument against this is that they somehow should have known better?
Yes actually I think that almost all software should contain almost those exact words. Have you demanded a refund from MS because of bugs in Windows? How successful do you think you'd be if you demanded a refund on the very first bug you encountered in any game at a court or an organisation like the NCC or the German version thereof? Their reply would be that it is not uncommon for software titles to have issues, and unless those issues are extremely severe you wont' be able to get a refund.
Please, I hope you have the intellectual integrity the next time you purchase a defective non-gaming product to simply accept your loss and not return it, consoling yourself by saying "I should have known better and done more research ahead of my purchase".
I've actually spent a lot of time over the last week or two diagnosing a heat issue on my PC. I bought two chassis fans and they ended up being completely useless. Did I take them back and demand a refund? No, I didn't. I bought those fans knowing that they might not work as I require as I didn't bother to try and check whether they would perform sufficiently. I bought those fans not knowing whether they would do exactly what I expected of them, without them guaranteeing specs (except for saying big air flow (lie)) and without me doing proper research on the fans. It ended up being a waste of money and I was finally able to find proper fans with specs and reviews from a trusted party which I then put in my PC and they have resolved my heat issue. I got what I paid for with both sets of fans. I acknowledge that I am also to blame for the first fans and the money that I wasted on them.
The bottom line is that regardless of how much absurd apologetic gymnastics you want to perform, it is not acceptable for a company to ship as final product a gimped, buggy, glitchy, poorly tested, and otherwise borked offering. Do you or don't you agree with this? Because if you don't, you can't ever rightly complain about any product that gives you problems in future.
I find it very funny that you haven't once replied on any of my posts where I queried whether MyGaming encourages active debate, or would rather be a site where only the majority opinion gets any attention and anybody who disagrees should rather keep quiet. But reading a paragraph like this, I can't help but wonder if that is because you are actively leading that assault on the minority opinion.
I will agree with you: if you limit it to software, and that there were warning lights which I didn't bother to look for or ignored, and also add that the software will never be fixed.
Curious is that we seem to have differing standards when it comes to digital products. You pay for a physical product, it doesn't work you take it back. Sure it is far more complex in the digital world ie creating a game compared to making a widget, but surely the principles should be the same?
A software product can be patched and fixed on the consumer side, with hardware it's not that simple. A software product can theoretically be copied and returned to the store for a refund, again not really possible with hardware.
Also you can't buy a car, and take it back a week after and say, hey I don't like how it drives, give me my money back. They offer test drives for that. Even if there is something majorly wrong with your car they will first attempt to repair it. If you really want to get your money back you will probably have to take them to court which will end up costing you a lot of money anyway.
You hear a car advertisement on the radio describing how awesome it would be to drive said car and that it would be like vacation on a tropical island... You go and buy that car and feel that it's still driving a car, you don't feel like you are on vacation. Do you ask for a refund? What do you think your chances are? You can't believe every word that you hear on an advertisement. You should be cautious and verify the facts.
Again as stated above when there is something majorly wrong with the way the game was advertised and sold ie Simcity thousands of consumers all over the world stood up and took EA to task over it. They demanded refunds from EA, and some succeeded. Some didn't and those who didn't then took it to Visa/mastercard and they were obliged to help. If you are truly unhappy with your purchase you can look at the terms and conditions of your credit card company and you might be able to get a refund through them. Assuming you bought the item with your credit card.
In South Africa we also have the CPA (theoretically) so you could try that route.
German consumer protection laws are right up to scratch and unhappy customers would be well within their rights to demand a refund for dis-satisfactory software products.
Do you know if anybody has gone that route, and where they successful?
I have said everything that I wanted to say on this topic, so I won't post here again unless something is directed at me.
I get a ton of emails on a weekly basis from kickstarters and I just skim through most of them because I simply don't have the time to follow each one of them in depth... but that's something that I would not have had access to in the traditional AAA model, so I'm not complaining about it. When I'm really passionate about one of the games I will follow it in more detail, or I will do a quick re-cap close to the actual release date.
