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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.

8 of 272 comments (clear)

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

    not have to pay fo...wait what?

  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)

  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. 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."
  6. 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.