Bioware attempting to waste UK government and taxpayer money with ME3 marketing stunt

[Atmos Duality]

I'm sorry if I have to point out the bloody obvious here, but if it's irrefutably illegal, then FUCKING PROSECUTE THEM!
Let Parliament know about the abuse, and why. Is that not more sensible than whining about it?

 

[ResonanceSD]

I'd say the problem is with the system in place rather than EA. Good on them for exploiting a ridiculous system.

 

[Loop Stricken]

Why do you say my e-petition 'could' be debated in the House of Commons?

If your e-petition reaches the 100,000 signatures, it is eligible for a debate in the House of Commons. However a debate may not be possible:

> if the subject of the e-petition is currently going through legal proceedings, it may be inappropriate for a debate to be held;
> if there has just been, or is about to be, a debate in the House of Commons on the same topic as your e-petition.

100,000 signitures, then it could be eligiable, someone is going to take one look at this and throw it aside, there will be no debate, if, IF it gets to 100,000 because when I signed it 2 hours or so ago there were about 400 signatures. As for setting up an e-petition it takes a net user 5 mins and doesn't have to be checked by anyone in the governement prior to going live.

Now sit there and brood as you think about paying me near £200 over the release weekend to play it.

Protip: UK.gov only set up the e-petition thing so people could piss and moan on a website which is then utterly ignored by everyone.

 

[Erttheking]

And I'm surprised yet again. There are people actually defending this. unbelievable.

God knows if they tried that shit in Canada. You wouldn't be able to drown out the amount of topics I would make protesting this issue.

Bioware marketing team are acting like a bunch of clowns.

Wow people don't agree with everything you think, stop the presses.

 

[Erttheking]

And I'm surprised yet again. There are people actually defending this. unbelievable.

God knows if they tried that shit in Canada. You wouldn't be able to drown out the amount of topics I would make protesting this issue.

Bioware marketing team are acting like a bunch of clowns.

Wow people don't agree with everything you think, stop the presses.

still not critiquing the argument. Atleast you're consistent.

How about this? If it is indeed illegal, then it won't be passed by Parliament. Stupid bills get brought up all the time, but it doesn't matter if it doesn't get passed. I don't think it's going to cost that much money to have some people sit down and talk about something. Basic enough? Also at least you're consistent with insulting people for not agreeing with every last thing that you say, who do they think they are having free will and different opinions?

 

[The Diabolical Biz]

I don't really see in what way this is wasting the government's money. The people have made a petition - free, doesn't cost the government's money, and then if - if - it reaches 100k signatures, then it will be considered.

It is supremely unlikely that it ever will be presented to the house, and I find it unlikely that Bioware thought it would be either. Methinks it's just a lighthearted jest.

 

[putowtin]

If a petition reaches 100,000 signatures, it has to be brought up and discussed in Parliament.

Nope, no longer true, thanks to the riots last year and the 691,000 people that voted for a bill to take benefits away from any rioter caught and prosecuted, any petition that reaches 100,000 views will now be discussed in a sub-committee before being brought before the members of parliament. If the committee decide that the poll has been used for false reasons (such as for a marketing stunt) they have the ability to launch an investigation to prosecute and reclaim any monies used in said investigation.

However seeing as every "UFO" petition in the last five years has been rejected I'm not seeing this go any further.

 

[Total LOLige]

I want to see the governments UFO files. Parliment have probably wasted tax payers money on worse stuff

 

[Thespian]

Wait...Wait...

I've seen some terribly marketing in my time, but this one takes the cake. I am quite angry about this.

... Really? Then no, you haven't seen some terrible marketing. This my friend, is NOTHING compared to what has been done for the promotion of a product. It'snot even the worst in the Games industry.

And also... I understand that it's not all that legal (but it's hardly cut-throat tactics, is it?)

A foreign company is trying to use my governments resources - and through it, taxpayer money - to market their product.

... Seriously? I'll ignore the fairly needless emphasis on it being a foreign company for a second, but can you really claim it's "wasting tax-payer money" with this sort of thing?
Wasting tax-payer money is when you ask for tax-payer money for, say, repairing historical sites or a marine exploration program and then buying yourself a new yacht instead.

It's not 'wasting' money if that's how people want and choose to spend it, is it? If people have voted for this petition to be brought up in Parliament, well that's democracy, isn't it?

And if the Illegality of it is so severe, then it will simply never be brought to Parliament and no tax-payer dollars will be spent how the vox populi has requested ahem, "wasted".

Sorry, but if you are outraged by marketing scams, you should turn your attention elsewhere.
This is certainly cheesy and not the best way to spend a governments time, but dear lord you act as if Bioware shipped game boxes filled with the Ebola virus instead of ME3 disks. And then resurrected Hitler. Using Tax Payer dollars.

I'm so tired of this Bioware-sucks bandwagon. It's going to become the gaming version of Bieber or Twilight.

 

[boag]

Alright, so here's the deal.

Bioware have started an official campaign for UK citizens to petition our government to release documents about UFOs and such. ([link]http://petition.masseffect.com/[/link])

If you're a UK resident, this leads to another link, this one to our government's e-petitions website. ([link]http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/7812[/link]). If a petition reaches 100,000 signatures, it has to be brought up and discussed in Parliament. This is a shameful attempt to use our government's time and money (and through that, our money) for a bloody marketing stunt, which I'm pretty sure is actually illegal.

Misuse of government resources aside, the terms and conditions of the e-petitions website says that you may not use the site for "Commercial endorsements including the promotion of any product, service or publication" or "joke petitions". Besides, it's also completely unnecessary. The UK government releases such articles periodically, and you can view them here. ([link]http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ufos/existing-files.htm[/link]).

Here's a conversation on the Bioware forums between a user posting about the issue, and the moderator Stanley Woo. ([link]http://i.imgur.com/dMukm.jpg[/link]. I've heard that this user was shortly banned after that conversation, but I cannot confirm that.

I've seen some terribly marketing in my time, but this one takes the cake. I am quite angry about this.

Edit: Cleaned up the post a bit, added some info.

That is taking it too far, when I first heard of it, I thought it was just a joke, but actually pushing this forward in a serious way is a douche bag move from the Marketing team.

Much like the shit the Dantes Inferno dipshits pulled with the sin to win campaign.

 

[Suicidejim]

I would kind of love for everyone to oppose this, only for it to turn out that the government really had suppressed information about UFOs and extraterrestrial encounters, and by the time we all realize it the Earth is invaded and we all get killed.

Wait, no, I wouldn't love that at all. That sounds awful. Where do I sign!?

 

[AD-Stu]

*facepalm*

First thing's first: IANAL, but I'm pretty sure there's a difference between "illegal" and violating the terms and conditions of using a website (if such a crime has even been committed - we'll get to that in a moment). For those saying this petition is illegal, please, tell us exactly what crime has been committed and what law has been broken. Full references would be nice.

Second, the <a href=http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/terms-and-conditions>e-petition terms and conditions state that petitions not meeting the guidelines cannot be accepted. It's possible I'm reading that wrong, but I take that to mean that all petitions are vetted by a responsible authority before they're made public, and those deemed not to be in compliance will be rejected. Since this petition is now public, I'm assuming someone in authority has reviewed it and decided it's fine. They obviously didn't think it was "illegal".

Third, the petition makes absolutely no mention of Bioware, Electronic Arts or Mass Effect. If it is ever debated by Parliament, there's no reason for those companies and trademarks to ever be mentioned and I don't see any way they will directly profit from it. It would be months or even years after the game was released if it even made it that far, and it would be a debate of such astounding inconsequentiality that it would get little if any media coverage.

The only way any resources or taxpayer money gets "wasted" as a result of this petition is in the unlikely event that the Parliament eventually looks at it and decides it is worth spending money on.

Seriously people, go outside and take a deep breath or something, then come back and look at this rationally.

 

[Valanthe]

Just wanna say called it!

I knew that petition smelled like an EA marketting stunt, oh well, at least they aren't trying to coerce people into sexually harrassing booth workers, Or trying to imply that their M rated game should be sold to minors because "Their moms will hate it."

*edit* And eh, I might as well add my two bits, If it's illegal, report it, coming onto a gaming website to whine about it won't solve the problem. Because if you expected EA to put enough thought into a publicity stunt to consider the legality of it, you really haven't been paying attention to any of EA's newsworthy bungles, this is petty compared to their big ones.

And in closing, The guy you linked, if he did get banned, I don't feel sorry for him, frankly I'm amazed at the level of profesionalism displayed by the mod conversing with that foul mouthed idiot, I'd have snapped and IP banned him by the third post. Heh, guess that's why I'm nobody's moderator.