Sony Sued Over Killzone: Shadow Fall Pixel Count

By Daniel George | Aug 7, 2014

Editor’s Note: The original text, based on information provided in the original report sourced below, involved a misleading statement about the nature of the lawsuit. It is a class action lawsuit Mr. Ladore is seeking. The article below has been corrected to reflect this information. GameSided regrets the error.

Frivolous lawsuits, patent trolling and general bad-faith litigation put a toll not just on society, but on the economy. It doesn’t help when you have law firms sue companies for millions over the smallest things, which is what’s happening with Sony right now. Polygon is reporting that the Japanese gaming company has been served a lawsuit that alleges “deceptive marketing” of Killzone: Shadow Fall due to it not running at a true 1080p resolution experience in multiplayer. The law firm representing the case is Edelson PC, and seeks more than $5 million in damages.

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Previously, it was learned that Killzone: Shadow Fall used a neat technique called “temporal reprojection” in the game’s multiplayer mode that effectively combined layers of pixels from lower-resolution frames to project a 1080p output. The game essentially runs at 960x1080p resolution, with the pixel length side doubled to create a native full HD look in a creative, roundabout way with a slight blur around the edges of objects.

As impressive as it sounds to do, Edelson PC were not amused, as the reprojection “is not the ‘native 1080p that Sony promised.” Due to the fact that Sony didn’t update their packaging to make it completely clear about this process, the lawsuit claims negligent misrepresentation, unfair competition, false advertisement and fraud. The suit is under the name of Florida resident Douglas Ladore.

There is no action involved in this Killzone-induced lawsuit that tries to do what’s right for the game’s community of those involved, which should be at the basis for most litigation. There’s no attempt to request a sane amount of money that would logically add up the total of “damages’ done to Mr. Ladore’s estate. It’s a blatant cash grab at a flimsy premise, especially when the game still outputs at 1080p as indicated on the box.

Remember, this is Edelson PC. They have sued video game companies before over the flimsiest of premises, and will likely do so until a system is installed that provides punitive damage for wastes of time that clog up the already-busy courts. It serves as a great lesson to the community, though; anything can be settled by a lawsuit, even if a slight bummer in a game’s true resolution doesn’t seem like $5 million in damages to your life at the time.

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