Microsoft loses Brazilian court case after telling hacked Xbox user to re-purchase games
A Brazilian gamer who lost his Microsoft account and all his digital games has won a court order forcing the company to hand it all back, after support staff told him to simply repurchase his library. The user, who posts as Ordo_Liberal on Reddit, shared a screenshot of a small-claims ruling in the Xbox subreddit that gives Microsoft 15 days to restore access or face fines and roughly $400 (R$2,000) in damages. He said the account had two-factor authentication enabled when it was flagged and permanently suspended, and that none of Microsoft's recovery options allowed him to regain access before he filed his lawsuit.
https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/xbox/brazilian-court-orders-microsoft-to-restore-a-gamers-account-and-digital-library-after-it-told-him-to-rebuy-his-gamesOpen linkView original on discuss.online
15 replies
They would have lost nothing fixing his account in the first place.
🤓 You see, according to economics that's actually not true. Microsoft would have lost the potential gains from the person repurchasing all of their lost games + new ones. Any good business should base their strategy on potential gains. Losing potential gains is technically a loss, and so the gamer should cover them. Microsoft is not a charity and cannot give away games just because someone shared their password. /s
I see you have an MBA. I’m impressed by your business sense and wish to follow you on LinkedIn.
Here’s what depriving consumers of their legally purchased digital goods has taught me about B2B sales
I know you added the /s and it's obvious satire, but this exact sentence was probably said by some exec when the support asked for direction on how to handle this.
I am pretty sure most business financial experts would say this unironically.
Obviously they also know they are ethically wrong to do this since in this case it isnt the customer's fault. Also $400 USD is such a tiny expense to a business like Microsoft, I dont see how they couldn't just comp it. He already paid for them before, so effectively moving the 1s and 0s to a new account will cost them next to nothing, way less than $400.
No need for the /s
I have been torn apart for cheeky comments even with an /s.
To his credit, I seriously never thought console holders would be THAT hostile about purchases. Up until now, the “Sony might delete your digital games” line was always a phantom theoretical.
This suggests they’re capitalizing on the financial benefits of having low account security. Not a good look for their profit motives.
There's a brazilian congresswoman also fighting against Sony's and Nintendo's anti consumerist policies
https://rollingstone.com.br/guia-game/deputada-erika-hilton-aciona-senacon-contra-a-sony-apos-anuncio-do-fim-dos-jogos-fisicos-no-playstation/
Awesome win for that user.
Oh boy restore account access or face probably drop in the bucket fines and $400 ( R$2000 ) in damages. I think I know which way macrohard is gonna go.
Hopefully the $400 (R$2000) is an overestimation if they go that route. But while I don’t doubt that they’d happily pay a bit of money once to keep being scum bags, if this happens repeatedly, with many users’ accounts around the world then they’ll be forced to actually give the accounts back or it’ll add up fast. Hopefully, this was just a one-off of them being assholes (it won’t be but we can dream)
Long term, this is good for all the media companies trying to go all digital as well whether they'll admit it or not
A Brazilian court cases sounds like a lot.