The Player's Bill of Rights

Gamasutra has a Designer's Notebook column up this week offering up a Player's Bill of Rights. Written by Ernest Adams, the article decries the many indignities that we as players should never be forced to suffer. From the article: "The Right to Feedback: The player has a right to know how she's doing, and in particular, to some means of determining if she's in danger of losing the game. If the player doesn't get feedback, she can't adjust her strategy, and the outcome will feel random. Players need to know whether their approach is working or not."

Comments

The Right Not To Be Insulted

[wbren]

I disagree with that "right"--I still can't believe I'm replying to a post about a Player's Bill of Rights, only on slashdot. In some games, insulting and being insulted by NPCs is an important part of the game. Take Neverwinter Nights as an example. Depending on whether or not an NPC insults you or is ill-tempered, you might make different choices, ultimately causing a different outcome. Likewise, if you insult an NPC they may not be very helpful, which could change the outcome as well. Overall it was a good list of what should(n't) be done in a game. I especially liked the Right to Control Cut-Scenes, that's a must-have.

Re:This bill is too long

[wbren]

I think that all of the points in all of these bills will be addressed if we only get the right to
(0) Return a game for a full refund if we do not like it.

I had an opportunity to view the rough drafts of the bill. Your suggestion nearly made it into the final version. Here's a history:

First Draft (0) The Right to Have Hell Freeze Over...

The author felt the wording was a little loose and vague, so he modified it slightly:

Second Draft (0) The Right to Pirate the Latest Games Through Legitimate Retail Channels...

The wording was still a little bit off, so he re-worded it yet again:

Third Draft (0) The Right to Return a Game for a Full Refund if We Don't Like It...

Then he came down from his acid trip and decided to remove that right altogether because it didn't make any sense to someone not on an acid trip. The literary process is really quite interesting. But seriously, that suggestion makes no sense to a retailer. Software generally has a return policy of a) no returns if it's opened or b) exchange for the exact same title (to protect against defective media). That won't change as long as publishers care about preventing piracy.

Re:she?

[FidelCatsro]

What i never understood is why they need to use a gender specific.

"to some means of determining if she's in danger of losing the game."

could easily be "to some means of determining if the player is in danger of losing the game."
or even better "to some means of determining if they're in danger of losing the game."

Games that might have inspired the bill...

[dbhankins]

1. Right to Play
   Final Fantasy X
   
   
2. Right to Win
   Not sure on this one, unless he means arcade-style games that don't have an end. Perhaps he's referring to games which have a bug that prevents finishing, none of which I've had the misfortune to encounter yet.
   
   
3. Right to instructions
   Mortal Kombat, Tekken, and other fighting games that make you figure out the combos by trial and error.
   
   
4. Right to Feedback
   Bushido Blade
   
   
5. Right to Motivation
   Sim City, Populous
   
   
6. Right to Make Decisions
   Not sure, unless he means rhythm games like Parappa the Rapper or Space Channel Five
   
   
7. The Right to a Swift Death
   Sierra's Quest games (especially Space Quest) and any number of old adventure games.
   
   
8. The Right to Control Cut-Scenes
   Final Fantasy X
   
   
9. The Right to Quit, Pause, Save and Resume the Game
   Final Fantasy games, Tomb Raider games, and lots of other console titles. Not to mention a horde of games based entirely on checkpoints. These are why at least one PS1 emulator comes with a "save state" function.
   
   
10. The Right to Choose Not to Save the Game
    Checkpoint-only games like Killzone
    
    
11. The Right to Reconfigure the Input Device
    Lots and lots of console games. Final Fantasy Tactics comes to mind. Non-console, X-Wing comes to mind.
    
    
12. The Right Not To Be Insulted
    Never encountered this, myself.
    
    

Re:One

[jcenters]

Alternation is awkward. He or she used repeatedly is sexist and exclusive. You can't use they or them because that be bad English.

So here's my solution: Combine "he" and "she." Of course, that pretty much just leaves "she," and it's not really inclusive, because it leaves out objects, like artificial intelligences and robots.

So She + He + It = Shit, our new, all inclusive pronoun.

Take for instance, this sentence that appeared in TFA:

"If the player doesn't get feedback, shit can't adjust shit's strategy, and the outcome will feel random. Players need to know whether their approach is working or not."

See, MUCH better!

Bullshit

[Moraelin]

You seem to define "deffective" as in "the CD was physically unreadable", which is just about the only thing that would be solved by giving someone another copy. What if the software itself is broken and deffective? Because that's the actual product I bought there, and the CD was just the medium it comes on.

E.g., the german version of Victoria threw a script _syntax_ error right at the start of a new campaign. Yes, you've read that right. Not a crash to desktop, not some graphics glitch, _nothing_ even remotely blamable on my hardware or drivers. A script _syntax_ error. That game couldn't work as released on _any_ hardware.

E.g., a german version again, Everquest 2 was released with a completely broken translation, which actually did impact gameplay. NPCs and items would be named completely differently in the quest text and in the actual game, making it literally impossible to do what you were told. The NPC you were told to kill simply didn't even exist in the game. (And generally, you know it's bad when even the few fans tell you to try translating it word-for-word back into English, to figure out some texts.)

E.g., Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst doesn't seem to be able to connect at all on my XP machine, although it works flawlessly on my Windows 2000 machine. (So, no, it's not a case of ports being blocked by the router or ISP.) Mind you, I needed to dig through tech support faqs even just to get it to the point it would try to connect: first it didn't even let me input my name and password. No, literally, typing anything in those input boxes was a futile exercise. The only key they accepted was basically escape to cancel it.

E.g., to take an older game, take The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall. The collision detection was so bad, that you'd fall into the void even when running on flat groud, or when teleporting back to town. I'm picking on it, instead of newer ones, because it's a clear-cut case of deffective software, and can't be blamed on drivers or hardware. It took many _months_ for Bethesda to try to fix it, and eventually they gave up and made a cheat code to teleport you back to the beginning of the map if you fell into the void.

E.g., Morrowind was shipped with a pretty nasty race condition that resulted in a crash to desktop when zoning. But as is usually the case with race conditions, on different PCs it produced wildly different results. On some you had a crash every couple of hours, but some people couldn't even leave the starting ship at all, because the game would crash when they went through the hatch. I'm not even going into the aspect that a game that crashes at all _is_ deffective, but the fact remains that some people just couldn't play it as shipped.

Etc.

So giving them a replacement CD is gonna solve... what? No, seriously.

Yeah, they were sooo trying to rip you off, by not accepting a game they couldn't run at all. Not. Geesh.