Creative Labs

[Diello]

So, in one of the worst pieces of customer relations in recent memory, Creative Labs tell a user who created packages to make CL cards work properly in Vista, to stop. Cue a huge user backlash, increasing media interest, and talk of class action lawsuits.

Corporate Greed: Creative Presents Cease-and-Desist Note to Developer Hero

When will corporate PR departments think before they act? And how much of an impact can the user-base really have?

Discuss.

[PEO]

how pathetic are they!! enough said

[MK-2]

As GrumbleDook isn't here to play devils advocate, may I?

While I understand the principle of the backlash, the point Creative are making is that he is asking for money (donations still count) for code that is licenced to someone else.

We took action to remove your thread because, like you, Creative and its technology partners think it is only fair to be compensated for goods and services. The difference in this case is that we own the rights to the materials that you are distributing

Surely that would be akin to you editing the code for Windows XP so that it added a new function, then asking for payment for the Windows XP disc you have put it on. (bad example, but I'm sure you get the idea)

And please remember, I played my devils advocate card. I do still think personally its a very stupid way to go about things and it could have probably been resolved a lot better than this.

[Diello]

Their forums are quite something at the moment - O to be a fly on the wall in their PR department right now!

Most people do accept that as a fair point, even the guy concerned. It's just a very daft move when he was actually making something work for their customers, they could not. He did ask for donations, but not payment (still daft though).

[DMcCoy]

I've avoided creative for years, then made a bad call and bought an X-Fi.

It it still in it's box. The x64 drivers did not work with 4GB+ ram. After many months creative decided to fix this problem. All hardware acceleration was disabled with 4GB+ ram.

[bizzel]

Nobody likes bad drivers, least of all us. The last time I used a Creative card was back on Windows 98, a SoundBlaster AWE32 and it was great. My friend has an Audigy 2 and that has had some nasty driver issues causing hard lockups.

What made me raise an eyebrow was a (supposed) response from one of the driver developers:

Ok, I see a lot of negativity here. Please lets cut the bad talk. We try our best to get working drivers and sure we might not be the best coders but god knows you're really only paying for the low end cards anyway, if people want the professional stuff they would be getting the true pro stuff, its a get what you pay for thing, so don't complain so much, we'll get the drivers working eventually.

[Domino]

....cue a developer firing

[Diello]

Daniel_K, Who Fixed Creative's Broken Vista Drivers, Speaks Out | Gadget Lab from Wired.com

O'Shaughnessy also wrote that whether or not it cripples its Vista drivers is a "business decision that only we have the right to make."

...that's a classic!