Battlefield 4 bugs spark investor lawsuit

Electronic Arts has been levelled with a class-action lawsuit from some of its investors who claim they were misled over the quality of Battlefield 4 and EA's Playstation 4 library.

The publisher is accused of violating the Securities Exchange Act 1934 by making 'materially false and misleading statements highlighting the purported strength' of its products.

EA's stock price rose due to comments made by the publisher during a particularly strong quarter which led to it raising its 2014 financial outlook. Following DICE's announcement that it would be halting work on further Battlefield 4 expansions until the core game was fixed, EA's stock price tumbled back down again.

The lawsuit specifically mentions that EA failed to mention that Battlefield 4 was going to have a rocky launch due to it being 'riddled with bugs and multiple other problems'. It also mentions several performance issues with games in EA's Playstation 4 portfolio that would mean the publisher was much less likely to meet its financial forecasts.

Talking to Polygon, EA stood up for itself and declared the claims as 'meritless'. The company intends to defend itself aggressively and has confidence that the courts will dismiss the complaint.

Earlier this month DICE announced that it was halting not just development on extra Battlefield 4 content, but on all of its other projects as well until it could adequately resolve the series of connectivity issues and bugs that are currently affecting the title.