Judge Rules Killzone: Shadow Fall Class Action Lawsuit Can Proceed

In the ’90s, a bad video game wouldn’t be a life-crushing event. The game would be played and the realization that it was terrible would soon follow, tears would be shed, and we would move on to the next likely bad game (after all, this was during a time where many games would be bought and sold on their box art alone). Nowadays, however, a bad game or even a good game having problems is followed by days, weeks or even years of mud slinging, from forum posts to editorials to angry e-mails sent to the publisher. Now, however, it’s going from complaining on the internet to complaining in court, as a judge today ruled that a class action lawsuit concerning Killzone: Shadow Fall can proceed.
Lead plaintiff Douglas Ladore filed the lawsuit in August claiming that the company lied about the graphics quality of PS4’s Killzone: Shadow Fall in marketing, PR and public statements and claims “Killzone’s multiplayer graphics were blurry and did not appear to be rendering at a native 1080p resolution.” and that it “has an odd motion blur effect that makes the game look overly blurry.”

Judge Edward Chen denied SCE’s arguments, stating “The substantial majority of Sony’s arguments are premised on an unduly narrow reading of the Plaintiff’s complaint, and suffer an additional fatal flaw – to grant Sony’s motion, the Court would need to draw all reasonable inferences in favor of Sony. Indeed, only one of Sony’s arguments has merit: Plaintiff’s negligent misrepresentation claim, as currently pleaded, is barred by the economic loss rule. Thus, Sony’s motion is denied in significant part.”
Chen went on to state “Sony may ultimately be correct that Killzone outputs video in 1080p even in multiplayer mode. But Ladore does not allege that Sony misrepresented the final output resolution of Killzone. Rather, the heart of Ladore’s complaint is that Killzone’s multiplayer graphics were not originally created or rendered in 1080p – the output resolution was represented to be native 1080p when in fact it was not.”
Although it may be an odd thing to go to court over, Ladore does have a point and it could set a precedent thanks to Judge Chen taking the matter seriously.