The Days the Music Died

As it has turned out, my copy of the Rock Band video game included in it another "game": the "UPS Store Run" game. I've now had to use EA's warranty/exchange service four times, and a fifth is on the horizon.

In the original box I purchased back on release day was a faulty guitar that had the rather well-known "up strum" problem -- that when strumming both up and down at any reasonable speed, half your strums weren't registering. In addition, it had a crappy strap that kept coming off the studs in the middle of a song.

Hearing about fairly widespread problems with these controllers online, I decided to take advantage of EA's good exchange policy. Leave them a credit card number, they'll send you a new controller by 2nd Day Air. Just put the defective one back in the box, send it back to them (pre-paid!), and as long as they receive it within four weeks, you'll never be charged a penny.

Sure enough, my replacement guitar arrived very quickly. But unfortunately, the only problem taken care of was the strap. While I no longer had to deal with the possibility of the strap coming off in the middle of a song, guitar #2 has the exact same upstrum problem as #1.

So I sent off for guitar #3. Came just as quickly. Eureka! Working stummer! Working strap! Things were great!

Then my drum kick pedal cracked in half. Sangediver kindly took the blame for this, but it didn't entirely matter. The thing had broken when it really shouldn't have. I at least had the means to get a free replacement.

This replacement took a bit longer. Bt this time, it was after Christmas, so I figure a whole lot more Rock Bands were suddenly out there, and with them a whole lot of defective hardware that the EA Exchange Department was trying desperately to keep on top of. But after about a week, my pedal arrived, the old pedal went back into the box, and it was time to rock on!

Until literally the next night. I was playing my guitar, using the whammy during a nice long chord in the song Epic, when suddenly: CRACK! The "snap back" tension on the bar was gone, and it now just hung there lifelessly. It was still functional if you wiggled it back and forth... for a day. Then it gave out entirely.

Last night, guitar #4 arrived. I plugged in and starting playing, fearing a return of the "up strum" malfunction. But things were going great. Until it came time to deploy my Overdrive Energy. I lifted the neck, and.... nothing. Dropped it, raised it again... nothing. "Do it, you son of a...." SHAKE, SHAKE, SHAKE! At last it worked. I messed around with it for a while longer to mixed results. Sometimes, it works easy on the first try. Other times, you're forced to twist it into every angle the body can place it before the Overdrive kicks in.

So, fail. Again. I don't know what the hell is going on. Are they just taking back other people's defective controllers and then shipping them out again, hoping no one will notice? Are they really this unable to make functioning hardware? Am I this unlucky? I mean, out of the 10 or so people I know who own a Rock Band, over half have had to exchange one of the pieces -- but I've nearly got them all beat put together. And I'm not doing anything with these controls I didn't do for two years on my Guitar Hero controller.

I want to get someone, somewhere on the phone and just let them have it. But of course, the poor operator in the warranty department at EA isn't responsible. And they haven't hassled me once in any of this. I say "it's broken again," and they just send a new one, no problem.

I suppose I can derive some satisfaction in knowing that it's not likely their company has made any profit off of me by this point in time. This many back-and-forth 2nd Day Air shipments can't be cheap; the profit margin of my copy of Rock Band almost has to have been wiped out by now.

But if there is indeed any satisfaction to be had there, it's cancelled out by learning that instead of focusing on making instruments that actually work, the hardware team at EA has instead been developing a "flashing light and smoke" accessory for you to buy.

This is way past frakkin' ridiculous.