EA Hit With ‘Battlefield 4’ Class Action Lawsuit
Investors filed a class action lawsuit against EA over Battlefield 4, claiming that the company “issued materially false and misleading statements highlighting the purported strength of the Company’s rollout of version 4 of its all-important ‘Battlefield’ video game series.”
Securities law firm Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd filed the lawsuit on behalf of a Ryan Kelly and anyone else who purchased EA stock between July 24 and December 4 of this year. EA, Chief Operating Officer Peter Moore, Chief Executive Officer Andrew Wilson, Executive Vice President of EA Studios Patrick Söderlund, Executive Vice President of EA Mobile Frank Gibeau, and Chief Financial Officer Blake Jorgensen are named as defendants.
The lawsuit alleges that EA violated the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and knowingly or recklessly made false or misleading public statements about the quality of Battlefield 4 to drive up sales. The suit also alleges that senior EA executives knew the game was buggy and incomplete.
The complaint quotes example of allegedly misleading or reckless statements about the quality of EA products. Three months before Battlefield4 was released, Moore told investors, “We couldn’t be happier with the quality of the games our teams are producing or the early reception those games are getting from critics and consumers.”
But after the game’s release, players and critics complained of game-breaking bugs, including the inability to find and stay connected to a multiplayer match. The game’s servers were hit by a DDoS attack in November and, in December, DICE published a public bug tracker. Battlefield 4‘s “China Rising” DLC also caused balance problems with the SUAV (small unmanned air vehicle) and UCAV (unmanned combat air vehicle), allowing them to make one-hit kills while being virtually impossible to shoot down.
The lawsuit also claims that EA announced in July that Battlefield 4 had drawn “spectacular praise” and that it was “resonating with critics and consumers.” The suit alleges that, based on the “purported strength of the Battlefield 4 rollout, EA issued strong fiscal guidance for 2014, raising the company’s stock price to $28.13 per share by August 23.
“We believe these claims are meritless,” EA’s senior director of corporate of corporate communications John Reseburg told GamaSutra. “We intend to aggressively defend ourselves, and we’re confident the court will dismiss the complaint in due course.”
The lawsuit hopes to award the plaintiffs compensatory damages, costs and expenses incurred during a trial by jury, and “such other and further relief as the Court may deem just and proper.”
