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Harmonix, EA, MTV and Viacom sued: Drum Pedals to blame

Posted Nov 21, 2008 at 8:31AM EST by QJ Staff

Listed in: Wii, PS3, Xbox 360 Tags: Electronic Arts, Harmonix, MTV, Viacom

I'm sure many of you folks who own Rock Band (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii) have found the drum pedals that come with the kit aren't all that durable. Some might even say they're defective. I'd like to use a stronger word to describe them but good taste forbids.

Don't believe me? Search the net a little bit and note the numerous Rock Band drum pedal repair and reinforcement businesses that have sprung up. They're not there because people don't need them.

Anyway, someone else has apparently noticed the weakness of the pedal's design and has taken his observation one step further: Monte Morgan from Kansas claims that Harmonix and co. know about the defect in their pedals and are actively trying to profit off of it.

Morgan hired a team of lawyers to put his grievances into writing and slapped Harmonix, EA, MTV and Viacom with a class action lawsuit for an unspecified amount and an injunction order, presumably on the sale of more any more "defective" drum pedals.

The suit comes heavy with circumstantial evidence (remember, civil suits generally only need a preponderance of evidence and not evidence beyond a reasonable doubt). Among other things it pointed out was the suspicious timing of the expiration of Rock Band's extended warranty to coincide with Rock Band 2's release and the fact that improvements to kick pedal in Rock Band 2 figure so prominently in the game's marketing campaign.

Ordinarily, I'd give my blessing to anyone brave enough to take on corporate giants for releasing a dodgy product, but given that his suit seems to be targeting the extended warranty *and* the new metal plate added to the drum kick pedals.... I don't know if I want to see him win this one.

If a company treats its customers well in the hopes of keeping them as customers in the future, do we really want to punish them for it?

You got served: Konami sues Viacom and Harmonix over Rock Band

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Yeah, Harmonix already knew that their pedal wasn't that great, but how did they try to profit off of it? If that were the case, they wouldn't have made iet KICKASS for Rock Band 2. This is just some whiny idiot who wants money becasae he wears steel-toe boots while playing and prefers to river dance on the pedal rather than step on it.

# Less likely to win — extra2000 2008-11-22 07:34

If you are filling a class action lawsuit against multiple major companies and one of your requests is a T.R.O./injunction, chances are the court is gonna review the balance of harms and get some precedent cases as a basis for this cases.

So yeah, plaintiff's less likely to be ruled in favor of, unless, he or his counsel can prove otherwise.

# harmonix should lose — pnkr0cker 2008-11-23 07:42

They are profiting from the rockband pedal "defect" because since the warranty is done people have to buy a whole new set instead of it getting replaced. And I think huge companies like EA wouldn't have a problem keeping the warranty or just fixing the rb1 pedal instead of only doing it for the rb2 one. it's probably easy if you can go around buying studios and games no prob during an economic depression.

# What?! — Daistaar 2008-11-25 11:02

No one said that they were no longer supporting he RB1 hardware including the pedal. They just said they werent doing it for free anymore. They profitted none in the whole ordeal. They footed the bill on new pedals and shipping. Not until the end of October did they change the approach, and notified everyone since the summer. Harmonix, EA, MTV and Viacom didn't make penny off of this thing and learnerd by reinforcing the pedal in future iterations. This is like people complaining about their 1080i TVs that they bought 5 years ago and wonder why they can't play in progressive scan.

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Harmonix, EA, MTV and Viacom sued: Drum Pedals to blame

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