As you may already know, a lawsuit alleging false advertising was filed earlier this week for Aliens: Colonial Marines, an FPS released in February that was developed by Gearbox Software and published by SEGA. Soon after the launch, Aliens: Colonial Marines was regarded in negative reviews as the “biggest train wreck” in gaming history due to poor AI, unbalanced gameplay and low-quality graphics in the single-player campaign.
Aside from all those nuisance details, the main concern most gamers had was that sequences from the pre-release demonstrations was significantly different in terms of quality than the ones presented in the shipped product. Therefore, Edelson LLC filed the suit, and Gearbox recently called it “beyond meritless” in a statement. “Attempting to wring a class-action lawsuit out of a demonstration is beyond meritless. We continue to support the game, and will defend the rights of entertainers to share their works-in-progress without fear of frivolous litigation.”
Additionally, SEGA also commented on the matter with the following statement:
“Sega cannot comment on specifics of ongoing litigation, but we are confident that the lawsuit is without merit and we will defend it vigorously,” said a Sega spokesperson to Kotaku.
Lastly, a number of employees at TimeGate Studios are out of a job since March; TimeGate helped develop Aliens: Colonial Marines and recently filed for bankruptcy protection.
