So you've seen companies engage in blatantly illegal activity and you said and did nothing?
Let me kick that high horse you're on for a little bit.
I'm not talking about practices that would endanger health or life of anybody, more of the kind of bending/breaking tax laws and such.. "academic" stuff for lack of better words (like many of us do themselves when they fudge their tax reports a little bit or those who illegally download stuff through filesharing).
If you would always get up in arms and confront the company you work for be prepared to change your employer quite frequently. This is the hypocrisy of the internet and life thrown together where it's easy to critcize someone you don't know but when push comes to shove and your very economical existence is threatened many people tend to shut up and continue. I've lost count of all the "When i quit the company i'll take a dump on my boss!" statements and in reality people just left without getting some dumb revenge.
Yes, it's nothing but a hopeless arms race in which we'll never be able to trust anything or anyone. What a world!
I don't trust any company in the world because all they want is my money and they'll do nearly anything to get it. Good service and customer satisfaction is nice to have but a company then expects you to return to them to do business. If they think (or are proven) that they can cut out having customer satisfaction (thus cutting costs in marketing and other areas) and you still return to do business they will do so.. case in point oil companies.
You want to drive a car (and sometimes you don't have a choice if public transportation sucks) you will return to the gas station and pay the price of the day.. you can grumble your entire life and it won't change a thing because you are at the mercy of the company and they damn well know it.
Your jaded attitude isn't insightful or useful, it's more of the typical complacent cynicism that infects discourse on a plethora of topics. Like the people who say "all politicians are crooked" and "it doesn't matter who you vote for." It justifies inaction and complacency. I know we're just talking about video games here, but I'm so tired of seeing the attitude that everything's screwed up and only destined to become more screwed up and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Absolute bullshit. No one's obligated to put up with low standards or accept "that's just the way it is."
I never said it would be useful, just realistic. But you forget one thing.. i can still vote with my wallet in the case of consumer/luxury goods and i do. Microsoft will not earn any of my money this console cycle, i.e. i won't buy an X One because i find their actions and attitude towards the customer deplorable and they did a really shitty job disguising it.
For once consumers really made a change by raising all hell in the lead up which made MS blink and change some of their controversial things like the only online "mandatory" feature (which turns out was not that mandatory after all) and this is the only language companies understand.. the bottom line.
Sony got hit hard in the last years when they tried to hassle their customers too with restrictive methods to press even more money out of their customer so apparently they have learned their lesson and didn't make the same mistakes with the PS4 and it shows when the PS4 routinely beats out the XO in every poll and sales number i see (and i don't expect that to change anytime soon).
Buying off critics is not okay. Those who are bought need to be exposed publicly so everyone knows they have no credibility.
No argument there.
So because it's an obvious thing to do to, there's no reason to bat an eyelid when they get caught breaking the law to protect an investment? Forgive me but I really hope you're never assigned jury duty.
Uhm.. am i a state attorney or the FTC? Did i say they didn't need to be punished or at least investigated? If so please point it out.
I said it didn't surprise me that MS would do such a thing and they should suffer the consequences both commercially if customers decide not to buy their product and legally if it turns out to be illegal.
If it's illegal the hammer should be brought down on them to the full extent as a warning to them and all the others that this doesn't fly.
So when did you file your legal complaint against MS?
I'm well aware that companies hire shills all the time and engage in various kinds of marketing campaigns. Asking people who review their products to give them good reviews in exchange for a financial kickback, however, is unethical at best and illegal at worst.
