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Brad Wardell's Plan To Save PC Gaming

Posted by Soulskill on from the he'll-cure-cancer-after-lunch dept.

A few weeks ago, we discussed Stardock CEO Brad Wardell's "Gamer's Bill of Rights," a proposal for removing some of the PC gaming industry's more obnoxious characteristics, such as annoying DRM and no-return policies. Shacknews sat down with Wardell for a lengthy interview in which he discussed his reasons for starting the project, how it's being received by game companies, and how he wants the gaming community to help. Quoting: "I've already gotten calls from Microsoft, from Take 2, and other publishers who are interested in moving forward on this. Obviously the first step is we have to really define these items. And I've had other developers and publishers who have come back and said, 'No, because it's not flexible enough.' For example, what happens if someone wants to do a policy where there's CD copy protection, but after the first month [consumers] can download a patch that gets rid of it. So obviously that's a perfectly good solution too, but our thing eliminates the ability to do that."

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  1. Oh, for the good old days . . . by MarkvW · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Back in the '80s when things were fresh and new, I remember the eagerness with which I went to Egghead/Babbage's to look at the computer games.

    There was so much variety in the games. People were trying all sorts of different things. These games were not hundred-megabyte heavyweight games, they were much lighter--but they were more interesting.

    Now everything is so similar. The gaming mags freak out over frame rate and animation quality. I could care less. I value freshness and cleverness much more.

    My wife plays, and loves, the popcap kind of games on the internet. They are nothing special at all, but she likes them because they are novel and fun.

    I think I had more fun playing the original ASCII empire game and CIV II than I get playing later, overwrought, Sid Meier games (and he designs among the best).

    The massive multiplayer games could be tons of fun, but there's no way I'm putting down a subscription to play.

    All the damn game publishers are trying to hit home runs all the time, like the movie industry. That sucks. I'd rather see a lot more variety out there, like in the '80s.

    Anyway--that's my gripe.