SEGA and Gearbox sued for false advertising over Aliens: Colonial Marines

The great Aliens: Colonial Marines debacle is not over it seems. Polygon has reported that both SEGA and Gearbox Software have been sued for ‘falsely advertising’ Aliens: Colonial Marines.

Hopefully you will all know how the SEGA-published and Gearbox-developed (sort of – they actually palmed it off to another company) Aliens: Colonial Marines finally released last year, after about six years in development, only to be one of the worst developed titles to be released this generation. The backlash was so bad the Wii-U version was cancelled (despite some reports indicating it was the best version).

There are tons of videos and screenshots out there showing just how bad the visuals, gameplay and enemy AI are. And part of the reason so many people were annoyed by this was because when Gearbox/SEGA showed gameplay demos of the game back in 2012, the game was looking pretty damn spiffy.

Anyway, one Damion Perrine was so outraged by the final product that he has filed a class action lawsuit against the two companies. The suit, filed yesterday in the Northern District of California court, by law firm Edelson LL, claims that Gearbox and SEGA ‘falsely advertised’ Aliens: Colonial Marines by showcasing demonstrations at PAX and E3, which weren’t ‘accurate representations’ of the final release.

Both Chris (our main Editor) and myself got to see a live ‘hands on’ demonstration delivered by one of the Gearbox team at PAX East 2012. While we didn’t get play the single player, we both went away thinking “That looked pretty damn sweet.” The visuals were solid, the lighting was fantastic and the aliens’ movements all looked great.

Then it released and well… take a look at this video from VideoGamerTV, they sum it up best with a direct comparison of the 2012 demo and the 2013 release:

Now you’ll have to think about the ramifications to what this could mean if SEGA and Gearbox fail. On the plus side, it could mean that publishers will think twice about releasing crap games to the market.

But it could also mean that some publishers will be willing to take fewer risks on games. I mean, what if a company showed off an idea for a game, then found they just couldn’t make it work at the end of the day and while the game turns out to be playable, it’s not quite what gamers thought it might be. Should the publisher or developer be sued then?

What do you think? Should SEGA and Gearbox be sued for this?