A Fallout 76 lawsuit could be leveled at Bethesda Game Studios for alleged deceptive trade practices. Private law firm Miglaccio & Rathod LLP are currently investigating the studio over the problems consumers are facing with the recently released multiplayer Fallout game.
Miglaccio and Rathod posted “Bethesda Game Studios Deceptive Trade Practices Investigation” earlier today. The post reads:
“Migliaccio & Rathod LLP is currently investigating Bethesda Game Studios for releasing a heavily-glitched game, Fallout 76, and refusing to issue refunds for PC purchasers of the game who found it to be unplayable because of its technical problems. While minor bugs and glitches are expected with the release of most new games, Fallout 76 launched with a 56GB patch that has proven to be but a starting point for the game’s problems. Gamers who have tried to receive a refund because of the game’s myriad glitches have been unable to do so since they downloaded the game, leaving them to deal with an unplayable experience until patches bring it back to a playable state.”
The post continues, with contact information and a call for anybody that has attempted to receive a refund for their Fallout 76 purchase. An update to the Reddit post from the firm said, “we are thrilled with the response to the investigation but our site appears to have crashed, potentially related to the traffic generated.”
Bethesda Game Studios Deceptive Trade Practices Investigation from r/pcgaming
The aforementioned Reddit post, in the r/pcgaming subreddit, gained over 7,000 upvotes and over 1,000 comments since being posted at 1PM Eastern time. One of the top comments said that Bethesda refused their refund because the user had downloaded the game.
A potential class action Fallout 76 lawsuit could be a blow to the developer’s reputation. The state of Fallout 76 at launch has garnered it the worst Metacritic score in franchise history, and it is now one of the worst reviewed Bethesda Softworks titles.
Fallout 76 has faced an array of issues big and small since the game launched into beta in mid October. A bug caused the entire beta to delete itself, and then another bug saw the game refuse to uninstall. The game also had speedhackers exploiting physics, invulnerable players, and weighty patches. Players crashed game servers with nukes, all while sales were down compared to Fallout 4. Bethesda Game Studios has said they plan to stick it out with the game, but have been quiet about the game’s direction since it launched on November 14 .