Well that's just awkward ... Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP, a major US law firm, has filed a class action suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California against Electronic Arts, on behalf of that company's shareholders. "The complaint", as revealed on Business Wire, "charges Electronic Arts and certain of its officers and directors with violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934".

Effectively, the allegation is that Electronic Arts "issued materially false and misleading statements" regarding the quality of Battlefield 4, leading to strong financial guidance which in turn meant the company's share prices rose.

The complaint further alleges that Electronic Arts executives sold shares at the inflated prices, before the stock abruptly fell once the game was available and the many problems players have been having with the title first became apparent.

Bugs itemized as part of the filing include "downloadable content that allowed players access to more levels of the game, a myriad of connectivity issues, server limitations, lost data and repeated sudden crashes, among other things."

The statement concludes by suggesting " the performance of the Electronic Arts unit publishing Battlefield 4 was so deficient that all other projects that unit was involved in had to be put on hold to permit it to focus its efforts on fixing Battlefield 4; and as a result, Electronic Arts was not on track to achieve the financial results it had told the market it was on track to achieve."

Shareholders sue over Battlefield 4 glitches