Yeah… so, my girlfriend awesomely decided to buy me a copy of Activision’s “Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock” for Nintendo Wii. As you might have heard, for some strange reason, all copies of the Wii version of the game are essentially defective. The audio only outputs mono sound. And that’s a pretty huge deal in a music-based game.
So, to make a long story short, Activision decided to recall the defective discs and then replace them. This must have been a very hard decision for Activision because it took them about 2 months to make it. But hey, better late than never, right?
On Friday, I was notified via e-mail that Activision was going to begin the replacement process in February. Allow me to describe this ingenious process:
1. Pre-order my replacement by calling an 800 number.
2. Hand over my personal information, including name, address, phone number and e-mail. (fine, they need to be able to contact me, i get it.)
3. Wait to receive a pre-paid packing envelope. (Coming in February, supposedly.)
4. Send my current copy of GHIII to them.
5. Wait for them to receive my copy of GHIII.
6. Wait for them to send my new disc.
7. Finally, after what will likely add up to a 1-month wait, enjoy GHIII in DPL2
Now here’s the kicker. Remember the e-mail they sent me on Friday? Yeah, well it was sent to probably thousands of people across the country. I know this because whoever assembled the e-mail failed to use the “BCC” function, which basically hides the e-mail addresses from being viewed by the recipients. That means everyone on the list now has access to everyone else’s e-mail. Great. As if I didn’t get enough spam already. Technically it’s a violation of their own privacy agreement.
Wow. That is a major, unprofessional oversight on their end. It looks like they are causing even more problems for themselves now. I hope your email isn’t raining spam any time soon.
Oh, the horror indeed. This is a major fubar on their part. They nailed you 3 times. One for crappy sound, two for making you wait so long for the replacement, and 3 for showing your email address. That’s not a good way to keep business. You should bring this to their attention if you haven’t already.
I did… I sent them an email that basically stated that i was not happy with the way the issue was being handled. They replied by saying there was nothing more they could tell me at this time. maybe that means something will eventually be done to compensate us for this shoddy treatment but i’m not going to hold my breath.