Brazilian gamer successfully sues Microsoft over closed account instead of buying games again

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Tl;dr: A Brazilian gamer going by the Reddit name of Ordo_Liberal got his Xbox account banned by Microsoft. A Microsoft support agent told them that their account had been hacked (despite two factor authentication) and suggested buying the already paid-for games again. Unfortunately for Microsoft, this is not where the story ends. The gamer sued the company in order to get their library of games back. Ultimately, the court ruled in Ordo_Liberals favor and ordered Microsoft to restore the account and pay $400 in damages to the plaintiff.

Source:
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Micro...box-account-with-digital-games.1339855.0.html

Moral of the story: This might give us a clue of where we're headed in an all-digital future. In this particular case a gamer was able to stand up to the giant corporation. Brazilian law is usually more pro-consumer, so it is unclear whether or not the same outcome would have been reached in a different country.
 
Wow! A nearly $4 trillion company was ordered to pay $400 in small claims court to this guy. That is MAJOR news and a lesson MSFT won't soon forget!
Obviously, this is not really about MS getting owned, because as you successfully managed to figure out the "punishment" for invalidating digital purchases is worth a side note at best. This is about the state of the gaming industry, especially in the light of recent announcements. In the US you'd probably just have to kiss your games (aka the money you spent on them) goodbye. I guess most people visiting this site already expect that and act accordingly, but I guess it doesn't hurt to remind everyone every once in a while that the $2.86 trillion company (as of the time of writing of this comment) is not your friend. Neither is the $122 billion one that just announced that physical discs got too inconvenient for them to produce.
 
Wow! A nearly $4 trillion company was ordered to pay $400 in small claims court to this guy. That is MAJOR news and a lesson MSFT won't soon forget!
Paraphrasing:

"Hey! you ran napster, right? didn't the music industry win?" "yeah *chuckles* in court!"

Same from the other end: paying loose change is not the threat to Microsoft; it's the legality behind it.

If Nintendo sued an emulation developer, made them pay lots of money to defend it in court, then then they can laugh knowing that they widened that monetary gap and...oh wait a minute; that's a mistake: emulation was legalized formally on U.S. soil that way...shoot Nintendo. Perhaps Microsoft does not want their hands tied either...wow, they all don't! who would have ever guessed...proof that even Microsoft will comply with orders by a gamer....hm?

I'm sure not being completely invincible _is_ a lesson they won't soon forget, as they strive to achieve it. Glad you agree with the poster; I'd hate to think this was a lousy attempt at sarcasm from you, after all.
 
Last edited by MPRTwice,
Wow! A nearly $4 trillion company was ordered to pay $400 in small claims court to this guy. That is MAJOR news and a lesson MSFT won't soon forget!
If every person who got banned could sue to get their games back that would be a not insignificant amount of money that people don't have to give to M$ a second time. This would probably work in EU too, as it has good consumer protection laws. People just don't realize the rights that the law grants them and when things like this happen they just roll over and take it in the ass. I'm glad that at least 1 person knows their rights and maybe this will help inform others so that they know they have options when things like this happen to them.
 

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