There’s another gaming-focused class action lawsuit in the works, this one against Google Stadia over whether or not Stadia can run games at 4K resolution. The suit was originally filed in October, but had a development earlier this month when lawyers for co-defendants id Software filed a notice of removal with federal court.
As noted by PC Gamer, the suit alleges that Google, Bungie, and id Software misrepresented the capabilities of Stadia by saying that games like Destiny 2 and Doom Eternal could hit 4K resolution at 60 frames per second. Turns out, neither game was playable in true 4K. The basis for the suit is that anyone who purchased the Google Stadia Founder’s Edition, the Google Stadia Premier Edition, or a monthly Google Stadia Pro Subscription did so with the intent of playing games at true 4K resolution, rather than playing upscaled versions of said games.
The suit was initially filed with the Supreme Court of New York, but lawyers for id Software filed to move to the Eastern District of New York, a federal court. Most civil suits—class action suits, in particular—take an enormous amount of time, often years, to work their way through the courts. Beyond that, the vast majority of classes settle, either as a class or on an individual basis.
Class action suits are also currently pending in federal courts against Sony, for PlayStation 5 controllers exhibiting “DualSense drift,” and CD Projekt Red, for those who lost money investing in CDPR prior to and following the troubled launch of Cyberpunk 2077.
It’s been a rough month for Google Stadia: On February 1 Stadia shut down all internal development studios, shifting focus instead to offer Stadia tech to video game publishers. Last week, Kotaku reported that Stadia leadership had praised those teams—comprising around 150 developers—just a week before laying them off. And then there’s Terraria: Andrew Spinks, a developer of the popular world-crafting game, canceled its Stadia port after he was reportedly locked out of his Google accounts.
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