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The Gamer's Bill of Rights

Posted by Soulskill on from the not-as-catchy-as-a-gamer's-magna-carta dept.

Edge Magazine is running a piece by Brad Wardell, CEO of game developer Stardock, in which he presents a "Gamer's Bill of Rights." Stardock teamed up with Gas Powered Games to develop a list of ideals they think all game publishers should follow. Some are rather basic operational guidelines (not requiring a disc to play, minimum requirements that make sense), and some are aimed at repairing the damaged relationship between game companies and customers ("Gamers shall have the right to not be treated as potential criminals by developers or publishers"). Wishful thinking or not, it will be interesting to see if they manage to get other publishers to sign on.

4 of 272 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I take issue with this one by Kooty-Sentinel · · Score: 3, Informative

    Just an FYI every time I reformat, I just backup all the .gcf files in Steam\steamapps except for winui.gcf and plunk them back into the folder once I install Steam again. It's worked for the past three years for me... no activation... no nada.

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  2. Re:Do as I say, not as I do? by donscarletti · · Score: 4, Informative
    Lets go over the points individually then.
    1. Not really a developer issue.
    2. Supreme Commander was stable and polished out of the box, it had a couple of balance issues and bugs like anything, but was generally fairly good.
    3. The Supreme Commander updates have been frequent, useful and quick to download and install. If it's anything like Total Annihilation the patches will keep on coming for years and will include new content as well as fixes.
    4. Honestly, I don't find starting into an updater that annoying, but for what it's worth, Supreme Commander goes straight into the main menu. Does it even come with an updater? I've always downloaded my patches from my ISP's mirror. You don't even have to use their shitty GPGnet thing either.
    5. I've played Supcom with a PC at the bottom of the specs and it worked fine on small levels and was still playable on big ones. It's required specs may be high, but then again so are the specs recommended on the box.
    6. SupCom installed SecureRom at launch but removed it in v3223. They broke their own rule, but seem to have learned their lesson. Lets wait until they next release a full game to see if they are genuine in this.
    7. SupCom is out on Steam which allows it to be downloaded in full.
    8. I don't know if Gas Powered Games or THQ think I'm a criminal. A lot of people think I might be because of the way I dress.
    9. SupCom can be played single player without an internet connection.
    10. SupCom can be played without a DVD.

    So that's eight passes, one unknown and one late resubmission. They are doing comparatively well.

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  3. Re:At the very least ... by pcolaman · · Score: 4, Informative

    No need. Stardock has never had DRM or used CD checking.

  4. Re:At the very least ... by thatskinnyguy · · Score: 4, Informative

    This is how they annoyed the hell out of customers back in the day. link I'll give you a hint... "Don't copy that floppy"

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