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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.

22 of 272 comments (clear)

  1. Gamers shall... by mactard · · Score: 5, Funny

    not have to pay fo...wait what?

    1. Re:Gamers shall... by Z00L00K · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why only gamers?

      Replace it with Consumers. All the DVD:s with the non-skippable FBI warnings that nobody ever wants to see and which destroys the experience of the movie.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
    2. Re:Gamers shall... by BlueBat · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Actually, I hate not being able to go directly to the menu and choosing to play the movie or going to a scene or even seeing the extras. After the second or third time that you have put the movie in, it gets VERY annoying that I can't skip all of that crap. The first time is fine when I want to see the trailers and such but after that, they are just annoying. Let me watch what I PAID for and stop bugging me you jerks.

    3. Re:Gamers shall... by Jarjarthejedi · · Score: 4, Insightful

      More like "Oh no! I have to watch a screen of legalese and possibly some junky trailers for fifteen to thirty seconds because I bought the movie legitimately! Why didn't I just pirate it and skip this junk!"

      That screen can get very annoying when you know that it's well within your abilities to get the movie for free without it, but instead you chose to buy it legally and are now being punished for it.

      --
      There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
  2. At the very least ... by vlad_petric · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They do what they preach. Galactic Civilizations I, II and their expansions were always released like that, and they were highly successful.

    I really don't see the "wishful thinking" part. Their model actually works. People who pirate aren't gonna be stopped by copy protections. The only effect those protections have is to annoy the hell out of the paying customers.

    --

    The Raven

    1. Re:At the very least ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Copy protection will not stop piracy in general, but it will stop ordinary people from sharing their newly bought game with their friend.

      People who play games like Galactic Civilizations have no friend so copy protection is useless.

      (Hint to clueless moderators : that's a joke)

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

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

    3. 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"

      --
      The game.
  3. That's Just The Tip Of The Iceberg by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Brad Wardell is also calling for:

    * Ponies for everyone

    * Sunshine and rainbows, everyday

    * World peace out of the power of love

    And in his most daring position of them all:

    * He's AGAINST kicking puppies

    1. Re:That's Just The Tip Of The Iceberg by Monsuco · · Score: 5, Funny

      Brad Wardell is also calling for:

      * Ponies for everyone

      OMG Ponies

      --
      The Gospel according to lolcat
  4. Right #11 by kwabbles · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Gamers shall have the right to modify their games to alter their singleplayer experience.

    --
    Just disrupt the deflector shield with a tachyon burst.
  5. I take issue with this one by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "#9 Gamers shall have the right to demand that a single-player game not force them to be connected to the Internet every time they wish to play."

    I don't want to EVER have to connect to the Internet to play a game after I buy it. Product activation, DRM, Steam - these are all the reasons why I have stopped buying games. And I used to buy a lot of them.

    I'm still curious as hell over whether Half Life 2 is as good as Half Life 1. But I'll never know, because Valve doesn't want to allow me to buy it.

    1. Re:I take issue with this one by Psychotria · · Score: 5, Insightful

      To be fair, I was furious with Valve when I purchased HL2 and only had modem (56k) at the time. Over time I have become less hostile towards their content delivery/activation. They did a little thing like recognising that I already had licences to various games when I bought the orange box, and allowed me to give away copies of these previous purchased games. Compared to MS and others, I found this strategy to be wonderfully "honest" and rewarding. I still hate the internet registering/activation/communication thing, but what valve/steam did (in my eyes) put them up quite a few notches in my respect-meter.

    2. 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.

      --
      Your evaluation period for Productivity 1.0 has ended. Please purchase more coffee to continue using this product.
  6. They've Purposely Omitted: The Right to Sell by Adrian+Lopez · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Like I said on GamePolitics, here's one additional "gamer right" that Stardock wouldn't like (their EULA forbids it), but which I think is essential:

    "Gamers shall have the right to sell their copy of the game to somebody else, provided they remove any copies of the game from their own systems upon doing so."

    --
    "In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
  7. Re:Full Refund is self righteous B.S. by Psychotria · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Well that's crazy. I have, sitting on my desk, a purchased copy of Rainbow 6 Vegas 2. I uninstalled it about 30 minutes after installing it. My computer far exceeds (as in 400% or more) the minimum specifications. The game still ran like crap. So I took it off and will never buy a game from that publisher again. I am not going to go through the hassle of trying for a refund. I am not going to go through the hassle of telling them I will never buy one of their games again. They won't listen anyway. So, it will sit here on my desk with my beer on top of it. Expensive coaster? Yeah, but I don't care :-)

  8. Re:Here's another addition by Broken+scope · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What? They won't let you download shit off their servers unless they can verify that you paid for the game?

    Boo Fucking Hoo.

    They basically gave the game out for free. A fully functioning and playable game for free, a game me an my roommates spent countless hours messing around with for a few weeks, un patched.

    Pardon them for not letting the people who didn't support them with a purchase suck down their bandwidth too.

    Jesus fucking Christ people are never happy. It's never enough for some people unless they can have what the want and maybe if they are feeling generous toss a few bucks to the creators.

    --
    You mad
  9. Can be summarized in one. by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Thou shalt listen to your customers.

  10. 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.

    --
    When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
  11. Re:Here's another addition by Skye16 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    10mb patches spread over a few tens of thousands of people? Are you kidding?

    If it's not costing them that much, how about YOU fucking pay for it, you arrogant sonuvabitch?

  12. Re:Here's another addition by tlhIngan · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That's the business model on how to cope with piracy. Release a product, and only let legit users update the product. Pirates will just have to keep downloading new versions of the product (or find someone distributing the patch).

    I see nothing wrong with this - patches can be considered "support" and pirates don't deserve support. If they wanted support, they can buy the product and get the updates with no issues, or just log onto their favorite site and grab the update that way.

    They know people will pirate their software. So they make it worthwhile to be a legit owner - patches, updates, etc. Let the cheapskates get their way, and let the legit owners know they're appreciated. In effect, it boils down to, is your time hunting for updates (and fixing any viruses/trojans/etc that get installed) on your favorite pirate sites worth it compared to just buying a copy and having it do the updates for you without any worries. Seems a fair trade.

  13. It's worse than that...DVDs and fast forward by wfstanle · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Not only that, some DVDs disable the fast forward so that you have to look at up to 10 minutes of trash before you can view the movie. It gets even worse, the movie that they were hyping often is a bomb and no longer available but you have to sit through the previews nonetheless. Disney is a BIG offender in this and add to that they specialize in kids movies. Try to explain to a crying kid that just wants to view his favorite movie that he has to wait until the trash is done showing.