In reality class action lawsuits are a scam ran by lawyers. Preventing class action lawsuits do not prevent individuals from suing them so in the long run if they do something really stupid it could end up cost them more with this "protection". And at least in the US you cannot sign away your right as an individal so they cannot legally protect against individal suits.
Class action suits were created to protect companies and reduce the load on the justice system, so you can say any company "protecting" themselves from that are in reality signed away their rights to protection. And if their is a mass of suits brought against the company the chance the justice system may also fine them because as said they are made to reduce the stress of that system of government.
What a class action lawsuit is a group of lawyer decide to pick up a suit that potentially has a lot of money involved. Usually initiated by a single person, but then they sue them as a group. The overall payout looks big but in the end the "clients" of the lawyers really get nothing and forfeit their right to sue the company over this issue again. Usually reward @ $20 per person spread out over a few thousand people and represents only about 45% of settlement amount the rest go to the lawyers.
As said by protecting themselves against class action law suits they are technically dropping their pants to individual lawsuits. Though the amount of effort needed to go through on usually turn people off they can cost the company more, because damages for each person can rack up into thousands of dollars per suit. So in the end it could go badly this way.
ON TOPIC: I have to say digital distribution is a way of the software industry as a whole to remove the rights of the end users in the ownership of the title itself. It really isn't buying to license also. If you lose the game after they fold. (Hard drive failure etc) You lose all right to titles. That is what happen to me and it wasn't a small company either, they still are doing business but because they are owned by another company and doing a slightly different type of business they don't have to honor my purchase with them when they where owned by another company.
