Pokemon Go disaster, results in class action lawsuit

[NumLock21]

Not to long ago, there was a Pokemon Go even held in Chicago, where there were about 20,000 attendees. All of them were not able to sign on to the Pokemon Go servers in order to play the game, so all they did was went there for nothing. Now one dude has filed a class action lawsuit in California, for unspecified amount of damages.

 

Quote

 

Due to the delayed entry into the Fest, lack of connectivity to cell towers, technical problems with Defendant's game software, and the malfunction of Defendant's Game server(s), attendees at the fest were unable to play the Game as Defendant's advertising had led them to anticipate. For example, Fest-goers were unable to, inter alia, complete timed in-Game challenges to collect special rewards, collect previously unavailable or "rare" Pokemon, and compete against other 'Trainers' within the Game.

Had those people who purchased tickets (and paid money for travel expenses) to attend the fest... known that they would not be able to play the Game as advertised, they would not have purchased tickets or paid money to travel to and attend the Fest.

 

 

PDF

https://arstechnica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Pokemon-Go-Complaint.pdf

 

Article

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/07/pokemon-go-fests-blunders-result-in-class-action-lawsuit/

[Kobathor]

have companies been class actioned after a DDoS before? This would set a scary precedent. "Wanna get a company sued to high hell? Just shut down their servers for a few hours!"

- dont quote me i know im wrong thanx -

[Jito463]

1 minute ago, Kobathor said:

have companies been class actioned after a DDOS before? This would set a scary precedent. "Wanna get a company sued to high hell? Just shut down their servers for a few hours!"

Except this wasn't a DDoS attack, it was poor planning on their part.  They should have ensured that the necessary steps were taken beforehand, so that everyone (or most everyone, at least) could connect.  I'm not sure a class action is justified, but I can see the legitimacy of the claim.

[Zando_]

2 minutes ago, Kobathor said:

have companies been class actioned after a DDOS before? This would set a scary precedent. "Wanna get a company sued to high hell? Just shut down their servers for a few hours!"

This ^^^ Also, why are they grumpy about not being able to catch and imaginary Pokemon?

[PCGuy_5960]

He filed a lawsuit because he couldn't catch a virtual Pokemon. Lol

[Haaselh0ff]

Interesting. Not sure what to think. On one hand, niantic has had server problems before and this COULD 100% have been their fault but on the other hand is the fact that this could set a bad  precedent.  i think the larger problem was that they went to an invite, paid a hefty travel fee to attend, and werent even able to play wasting time AND money.

 

Also, I'd like to note that (if i remember reading correctly)  niantic didn't even have WiFi at the event, or if they did it was ass and died immediately.

[Bananasplit_00]

well its partially Niantic's foult for not haveing beefy enough servers(they have never been any good tbh. constant problems during the time i played) but i still think its a bit silly seeing as they were all compensated with ingame stuff and got tickets refunded.

[Zando_]

1 minute ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

He filed a lawsuit because he couldn't catch a virtual Pokemon. Lol

Did de poor little bubby miss his Pokemon? Did de poor little bubby not realize 20,000 people in one spot can shut down the entire cell network, let alone servers? I was in Chicago for some big thing (I forget what it was, but there were thousands of people, you could hardly walk in most streets), and had 5 bars of Verizon LTE, and diddly squat nothing data wise. Couldn't call or text either. 

[The Benjamins]

4 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

This ^^^ Also, why are they grumpy about not being able to catch and imaginary Pokemon?

its the same thing if you bought tickets to a concert and drove a few hours to go their then no one played on stage.

 

I would be willing to bet that some people came from far away to do it but got nothing out of their trip.

[Zando_]

3 minutes ago, Haaselh0ff said:

Interesting. Not sure what to think. On one hand, niantic has had server problems before and this COULD 100% have been their fault but on the other hand is the fact that this could set a bad  precedent.  i think the larger problem was that they went to an invite, paid a hefty travel fee to attend, and werent even able to play wasting time AND money.

Wasn't Pokemon Go already a waste of time and money?

[Zando_]

Just now, The Benjamins said:

its the same thing if you bought tickets to a concert and drove a few hours to go their then no one played on stage.

 

I would be willing to bet that some people came from far away to do it but got nothing out of their trip.

Except like @Bananasplit_00 said, they got refunded and repaid for their time. Also, going to a massive center for Pokemon catching just sounds a little ludicrous...

[NinJake]

There is no such thing as wasting time and/or money if you enjoy doing whatever you are using your time and money for.

 

That being said, I hate Pokemon GO with a passion. *Raises pitchfork*

[mynameisjuan]

I hope Niantic wins. One example of how wireless congestion works and how servers handle uncompleted request will show an instant win. 

 

This whole thing is bullshit. 

[Kobathor]

3 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

Except this wasn't a DDoS attack, it was poor planning on their part.  They should have ensured that the necessary steps were taken beforehand, so that everyone (or most everyone, at least) could connect.  I'm not sure a class action is justified, but I can see the legitimacy of the claim.

Crap, you're right. I'm remembering the DDoS attacks from last year on Pokemon Go. Oops

 

I read a couple articles and I understand the class action now. If people flew to Chicago, stayed in hotels, paid for taxis, etc, then their expenses were way more than just the ticket to the event and a few Pokemon. Wasted lots of time and money, all because of poor planning on Niantic's part (apparently it's common for cell service to completely die when there's conventions in Chicago, or some other big event.) What were they thinking??

[The Benjamins]

Just now, Zando Bob said:

Except like @Bananasplit_00 said, they got refunded and repaid for their time. Also, going to a massive center for Pokemon catching just sounds a little ludicrous...

ya, it is nice they got a refund, but just explaining why some one would be mad.

 

also "going to a massive center for Pokemon catching just sounds a little ludicrous..." is the same thing to watch other people play a game (be it sport or esport) or listen to music. If the going to a Pokemon event is ludicrous you must also think other event as i states is also ludicrous. because they are all the same.

[Zando_]

Just now, The Benjamins said:

ya, it is nice they got a refund, but just explaining why some one would be mad.

 

also "going to a massive center for Pokemon catching just sounds a little ludicrous..." is the same thing to watch other people play a game (be it sport or esport) or listen to music. If the going to a Pokemon event is ludicrous you must also think other event as i states is also ludicrous. because they are all the same.

I know, but they shouldn't be suing the company that apologized and did their best to make it right. 

 

And IMO, the whole virtual Pokemon thing is silly. A concert or sports (even esports) event is actually watching real people do something cool, rather than trying to collect an imaginary pet. What do you actually do with the Pokemon after you catch them? 

[Sauron]

14 minutes ago, Kobathor said:

have companies been class actioned after a DDoS before? This would set a scary precedent. "Wanna get a company sued to high hell? Just shut down their servers for a few hours!"

- dont quote me i know im wrong thanx -

If your service *guarantees* connectivity at all times, then yes, you can sue them. Most companies don't guarantee it though. Those that do generally have an agreement of what the consequences should be within the contract, for example a refund and/or extended technical support to get back up and running with whatever the service was used for.

 

I doubt any of this applies to niantic though, the suit probably has no ground to stand on. They'd have to prove it's got nothing to do with cellular service in the area (bear in mind the cells are being DDoSed as well if 20000 people try to connect from the same area) and also pull out some marketing material that promises something like 24/7 connectivity, which is unlikely.

[Sauron]

4 minutes ago, The Benjamins said:

also "going to a massive center for Pokemon catching just sounds a little ludicrous..." is the same thing to watch other people play a game (be it sport or esport) or listen to music. If the going to a Pokemon event is ludicrous you must also think other event as i states is also ludicrous. because they are all the same.

Well, not quite - first of all when you attend an esports event the public isn't there to play. This would be more similar to a lan party, but professionally organized lan parties (which one with 20k participants would have to be) have lots of infrastructure in place to make sure things like this don't happen, and they usually have agreements with both the ISP and the game servers' host company. This "event" seems to have been nothing more than 20k dudes deciding to meet at place X and play pokemon go. Niantic's servers clearly aren't set up to handle a massive surge of connections from a single area without notice - maybe if they had been warned they may have been able to do something about it. Same goes for the ISPs, if they had set up some heavy duty wifi hotspots on location for the audience and a solid wired connection on the back this may have been avoided. It just seems to me the organizers didn't realize the implications of such a meetup and didn't take the proper precautions. Or maybe they thought they could pull it off without spending any money. In both cases i's their fault.

 

I might also add that pokemon go is probably the least suited for a lan-party-like event out of all pokemon titles.

[Princess Luna]

Well all I can say is that we're probably not seeing Digimon GO any time soon lol

[Haaselh0ff]

25 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

Wasn't Pokemon Go already a waste of time and money?

You right though. Stopped playing after like 2 weeks. Got old real fast.

[DrMacintosh]

I do not think they are legally obligated to keep their servers accessible 24/7. Its the people's mistake, I don't see how Niantic has any blame here. 

 

I don't see their case. 

[TacoSenpai]

You've got to be kidding me...

 

I mean even if the service does claim to be up 24/7 and it isn't for this event because of the obvious tech limitations of cell technology bad preparation etc... what goes through the mind of someone to say "yeah I'm going to go through the effort to bring em to court for not being able to catch a virtual pokemon on my freemium mobile game"?

 

I get that the guy got tickets, traveled, and spent money to go to an event (which by the looks of it wasn't even a Niantic sponsored thing so they couldn't have known ahead of time) and that sucks. However, I also have to ask who the hell pays for airplane tickets to go halfway across the country to just catch a virtual pokemon in a freemium mobile game? Seems like this guy has alot of time to do that and then go through the trouble of a lawsuit...   

 

And now that I think of it even if the event turned out to be a dud are you telling me the guy still couldn't have spoken to people with common interests who attended, maybe make some friends, and grab a Chicago pizza and have a good time since he traveled out there?  I guess that's what irks me the most is where the priorities are on all of this...

[The Benjamins]

43 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

I know, but they shouldn't be suing the company that apologized and did their best to make it right. 

 

And IMO, the whole virtual Pokemon thing is silly. A concert or sports (even esports) event is actually watching real people do something cool, rather than trying to collect an imaginary pet. What do you actually do with the Pokemon after you catch them? 

Ya, I am not too sure how much weight this lawsuit has and I also think Pokemon go is silly.

[dexT]

Contract was rock solid. They had a Ball Pit so the minimum for this type of gathering was fulfilled.

[Yoinkerman]

Lol a hobby is a hobby