Slashdot Mirror
Is It Time To Enforce a Gamers' Bill of Rights?
adeelarshad82 writes "The SimCity launch debacle is only the latest in an increasingly frustrating string of affronts to gamers' rights as customers. Before SimCity, we had Ubisoft's always-on DRM (that the company only ended quietly after massive outcry from gamers). We had the forced online and similarly unplayable launch of Diablo III. We had games like Asura's Wrath and Final Fantasy: All the Bravest that required you to pay more money just to complete them after you purchase them. And let us never forget the utter infamy of StarForce, SecuROM, and Sony's copy protection, which installed rootkits on computers without users' knowledge. As one recently published article argues, maybe it's time for gamers to demand adoption of a Bill of Rights."
Seriously, as long as you keep buying from them, do you think they give a shit about your "gamers bill of rights"? Here is how EA looks at rights: "We've got a right to your money, you've got a right to give us your money and STFU." And as long as you keep playing that game, they're going to keep screwing you.
Why should they care if the game actually works? They got your money and they know that no matter how much you bitch, you'll be standing right there in line for the next one--begging to be butt-raped by EA *yet again*.
Oh, and my favorite quote from the article:
This was loosely based on the Gamers' Bill of Rights website, which hasn't been updated in three years
Yeah, fight the power. Such a powerful and organized movement must be giving EA nightmares, while they sleep on a big pile of your money.
You have the right not to buy horrible shitty games. Is that so hard?
We had the forced online and similarly unplayable launch of Diablo III.
We? We had no such thing. We had the option to not purchase the game. Many of us took that option.
You can only complain if such requirements aren't publicized. In most cases, these requirements were made clear not only prior to sale, but prior to the game's release. If you didn't want it, why did you buy it?
It is called the Right to Refuse to Buy, coupled with the Right to Obtain Decent Reviews Before Purchase.
Stop spending your money on this garbage.
There are plenty of great indie/homebrew games out there. I know it's a long shot that these titles will ever be "mainstream," but the biggest problem is that although I hear gamers whine and bitch about DRM and the like, none of them have the self-control to stop buying these titles. Stop. It. I know it's hard, for example, for a Final Fantasy fan to NOT buy the latest FF title, but realize that as long as you do so, you will keep this going forever.
Scorta futuere amo!
No.
If you feel they're giving you the short stick, don't buy their product. There are plenty of games and devs out there who do not enforce this kind of stupid crap, and the quality of indy games coming out these days is huge. The case for buying AAA titles, which are the only ones that try to pull this kind of crap, is quite weak.
The reason they try this shit is that people will still buy the product if they do. If they do it, and nobody buys it, then the issue will solve itself.
...the right to not purchase a product.
All else is just a bunch of whining; if you want change, STOP BUYING THE GAMES that have this sort of offensive DRM.
If you're not willing to go without Call of Honor: Modern Ops 6 in spite of its ultra-heinous requires-a-credit-card-on-file DRM, then you have no power to assert any other demands on the companies requiring such things to play the games they're selling.
Just don't buy it.
"Bill of Rights" issues are for people who don't have a choice, like "Patients Bill of Rights" You do not have a choice about getting sick, you do have a choice about gaming.
To enforce it you need people to stop buying crap like that. But given that SimCity has been selling hugely apparently, despite the horrible reviews and the protestations.
See, I don't like any of that stuff either... so I didn't -BUY- it.
You want to protest this stuff, then do it. Don't buy it, don't steal it, it's entertainment, you seriously don't need it to survive or even to enjoy the day. There are other things to do. Support the companies that show respect to you and tell the other companies to screw off that they can't have your money or your eyeballs.
The idea of a Bill of Rights for gamers seems to me ridiculous (and also very US-centric). How about a Bill of Rights to clean laundry? I mean, there would be new Bills of Rights being written every five minutes if this was a reasonable solution. What you may need is stronger consumer protection laws. I think I read the other day that people in England are entitled to a refund on game purchases, which turned out to be useful in the wake of the recent Sim City fiasco.
1. You have none
Giving EA & UbiSoft your money is like a walking into an alley with a thug holding up a sign that reads ...
Services for Sale:
Rape: $60
Non Penetration sexual assault: $40
Egregious but quick fondling: Previously $30 but a Manager special for $15
Ea refused to refund purchases when the game clearly didn't work as advertised. Implied warranty should come into play unless ea can prove that most attempts to play the game worked
Otherwise don't buy the game on release day
You people fall for the supermarket checkout aisle high margin item impulse buy scam
If you buy the game on release day then you're tagged as someone willing to pay any amount to play the game. Just like sports fans paying for the sports packages and music fans paying today's ridiculous ticket prices.
Everyone complains but they still whip the credit card out like a good Pavlov dog consumer
Here's the only right you need:
1. The right to return the product for a full refund within 30 days of product delivery.
If the publishers are legally obligated to return the money, they will make an effort to get it right so that consumers don't exercise that right.
Really?
I lived in Italy in the 90s and hated buying crap on the economy. Way better rights for Americans if you shop at the right store
So you're proposing a "Bill of Rights" to prevent game publishers from playing games with gamers?
As a group, gamers have no rights. As human beings, citizens, purchasers, and other titles, they have lots of rights they're not exercising. Don't complain about your need for new rights when you're not using the ones you have, or you water down your argument and start a rights race in which the corporations will say they need more rights because the gamers just got more rights.
Demand away. You won't get shit. Just a fact. How about not buying the games from companies that practice what you perceive to be douchery? Didn't think so. Crack dealers always win, addicts lose.
"Life is not magic." Dr. Ron Weiss - "If we don't play God, who will?" Dr. James Watson
Just enshrine the four software freedoms in law. The rest will work itself out.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
With SimCity, I had no idea that it was forced cloud - 100% of the time. No where on the FAQ does it say that you must be online. I assumed that the cloud storage, and Live Service where there if you chose to use it. Like most games that require a central hub for multiplayer, I assumed this was the case here too, just to realize after that I couldn't play for 3 days. I still can't find anywhere that states the game is 100% online
Keep in mind that various forms of copy protection have been around almost since the dawn of the personal computer. I can't even begin to count all the Apple II and 1980s PC software that was copy protected - and caused so much pain for legitimate users who could not back up what they bought.
At least it seemed like by the early 90s most vendors gave up on crazy stuff like checking for intentionally bad/misnumbed/nonstandard sized sectors because they couldn't guarantee that such non standard tricks would work on every single PC out there, and most people required the ability to run from a hard drive. It was mostly dock checks and serial numbers for a while. But then they started the same nonsense with CD-ROMs.
And now with the damn kids who don't mind being tracked or having an always-on internet connection, they tie you down to a remote server for activation or to use the stupid program at all.
On other words, THIS SHOULD HAVE DAMN STOPPED A LONG TIME AGO!
A problem is that major video game publishers have every incentive to collude to pass off "horrible shitty games" as all that's available to console owners. What do you think players will do to work around this? Buy a PC to hook up to the TV in order to play games from indie developers outside the cartel? Or stop video gaming entirely?
If you are this upset about DRM and bought Sim City you are to gaming what an anti-racism activist who couldn't wait to vacation in apartheid South Africa is to the cause of fighting racism. Sorry, but that's just how it is. The level of DRM was well-known in advance. You chose to buy it anyway. You want the government to force them to make the game you want work they way you want.
Talk about first world problems. I don't think you could come up with a way to make 95% of the human race "see things your way" using arguments that didn't involve a captive audience, guns and sharp bamboo shoots...
The SimCity launch debacle
The launch aside, it's yet another terrible incarnation of a great series. I've been peeking at a few videos on youtube because I was hoping for something with a little depth to it, but it's even below my worst expectations (and given Simcity Societies, the expectations were already pretty low).
Simcity 4 with NAM installed still beats this game gameplay-wise hands down from what I can see. It's one of the few games that get reinstalled every X years on my computer. It's ridiculously in-depth if you want it to be, and you can add plenty of mods to make your roads curvy/circular with overpasses and underpasses and however the hell you please.
This has nothing to do with "bill of rights", it's just a bad game with stupid DRM. No need to write a longwinded document nobody's going to read, which will immediately get dismissed with the word "entitled". Just don't buy it.
In fact, don't buy games that use a mechanism you don't agree with, if that be day 1 DLC, the form of DRM they're using, or if you expect them of eating babies. Play another game and have fun. Take those 60 bucks and buy something else.
There seems to be multiple problems here:
1. Game can't handle intake of people at launch.
Ok, the issue here is that the game company has to shell out a lot of resources to support all the people who want to play it at launch. These resources will need to be reallocated later since chances are that the usage will never peak that high again, or even that close.
Solution:
A single player "demo/tutorial" of the game at launch that players must progress though in order to access the online version. Since players play at different rates, this should reduce the load peak that games experience.
2. Gamers want a guarantee that they will be able to play the game indefinably, even if servers go offline.
Solution:
The game company puts in a reasonable minimum support timeline when you buy the game that they will support it for. E.g. If they guarantee to support the game for a year, you buy it 1 year after it is released and they cancel it 6 months later, then you get your money back, but everyone who bought it at launch doesn't.
3. Gamers don't want bandwidth to interfere with their gaming experience, and don't want maintenance down time.
Solution:
None really. This is simply one of those items a game is judged by. If latency on their end is bad, then gamers may have a case that they are receiving poor service, and perhaps a standard contract of compensation could be drawn up addressing this issue.
4. Gamers want to modify the game they are playing, or simply create their own cheats.
Solution:
None. It is too a lesser extent a good thing as it makes cheating in an online game harder.
5. Gamers want to pirate the game.
Solution:
Shoo... go away pirates.
The only ones who really wins in a class action lawsuit are the lawyers. The customers would end up with some lame EA credit or a few bucks back at best.
Much better at least to *try* to work with EA/Maxis on resolving the issues first - so far they are offering a free game to everyone registering by 3/18 (which is at least as much as a class action would get, without lining the pockets of the only people I can think of who are sleazier than EA execs - class action attorneys). And hey, they may still actually fix the issues, add new features, and eventually make it a decent game...
but I agree with you on the silly release day impulse/frenzy - I never bought the new Simcity because I waited a couple days, read the reviews (which often trashed the game even when it worked as intended), saw the issues, and stayed clear. How hard was that?
There are plenty of games and devs out there who do not enforce this kind of stupid crap, and the quality of indy games coming out these days is huge.
The problem with indie is that certain genres are underrepresented due to limitations in the input and output devices traditionally associated with PCs Are there many indie fighting games? Or indie cooperative platformers? Or indie party games in the vein of Mario Party and WarioWare? These genres have traditionally been exclusive to consoles because despite all PCs being capable of using gamepads and HDTVs, the use case of PC + TV monitor + 2 to 4 gamepads happens to be far less common than console + TV monitor + 2 to 4 gamepads or PC + desktop or laptop monitor + mouse and keyboard.
A consumer protection law for software is what you want. Too bad we all agree to waive any expectations of warranty once we've agreed to the license agreement which few people actually read.
The right to get a refund on digital media, particularly media that is DRM enabled should be introduced however. If the company is using DRM to protect their intellectual property by enforcing per seat licensing then consumers should have the same right to return this software within some time frame established by law - ie. 15 days. The company selling the software can remotely disable the DRM function in the case of games that require an account, the only concern I see companies having is with people cracking the DRM after they've already downloaded it, then requesting a refund.
However, calling it a "Bill of Rights" makes you look like some entitled idiot who believes this is on the same level of some US Constitutional amendment.
I bought the latest Simcity and I like the game. It has its flaws, but this is the PC gaming industry - I expect nothing short of bullshit from new releases. I could spend a lifetime just compiling a list of bugs in newly released software ...
No, just no.
No one is forcing you to buy the games.
If you don't like it, don't buy it. It's really that simple.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
The problem is multiplayer games are constantly being changed, and not always for the better. You can't just "not buy" the update.
Sure you can. (Or should I say "Shoryuken"?) If you don't like Super Smash Bros. Brawl, a multiplayer fighting game, you can always buy Super Smash Bros. Melee and use it in a Wii that has GameCube controller ports, or you can buy Super Smash Bros. (N64) on Virtual Console. Unlike online multiplayer games, local multiplayer games don't get balance-breaking updates that players are required to accept.
I'm a relatively old school gamer. I played games when they came out in DOS, and remember times when getting a game patched was something of an unknown. Heck, if the game didn't play or was too buggy - you just returned it to the store like any other product. The last game I got to do that with was Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall.
... until I got burned once too much. Now it's off the menu for me, regardless of incentive or bonuses. I could care less if I get a Team Fortress hat with a $60 purchase if that $60 purchase is bunk. I don't need a free copy of a 3-year old game that I would have bought if I wanted it a year ago. It's just not worth it.
I've watched the evolution of companies trying to scrape gamers for any profit they can. First there were developers who sold a game and then released minor content for free as a thank you; Expansion Packs were substantial affairs. Then they stopped adding the thank you gift of minor content. Expansion Packs got smaller. Eventually Expansions got so small they were sometimes called DLC. Lots of games started offering some DLC as time went on to keep bringing in money for the game. Soon DLC started being included in the game at launch, but was unlocked with an additional purchase or pre-purchase. Now it's everywhere - the DLC costs for a game wants to equal or exceed the original cost of the title at launch.
I used to pre-order when a game got me excited
DRM has been a messy nightmare across the board. Many games do just fine without it. I generally don't care as long as the game and my system are not impaired by it. If I have to be online to play a game I'd normally play solo, I don't buy it. If I have to run something like StarForce, I skip it.
I no longer buy DLC one at a time and patiently wait for the *entire* game to be sold as a single "complete" package. I consider the copy-protection choices as an important variable in my decision to buy. I never ever buy a game on day 1 or pre-order anymore.
I have my rights because I never gave them up. I suppose a "Bill of Rights" might be useful for people who haven't been jaded by the industry, but it only takes a few sour titles to turn any gamer off the crap they're being fed.
Just not buying the games gives copyright absolutists an excuse to attribute losses to widespread infringement. Letting publishers know exactly why we're not buying their games makes "bawww bawww piracy" less believable.
Just wait for the next round of consoles. You won't be able to buy disks for them, all the games will be download only, require online access all the time and no, you can't sell them. And all your movies and music will be streamed, and no, you can't keep them or transfer to other devices to watch/listen to them. But you will be allowed to buy install credits, 500cr at time for $100, but the games will be 510cr, so you have to buy two credit packs, and just like a strip joint, wont let you cash out the funny money for real dollars when you leave. And you cant get a refund if the game is crap or doesnt work as advertised.
And still people will flock to the new shiny, handing over all their consumer rights along with their money.
US consumers have quite a few rights and quite a few laws and agencies protecting those rights.
The scary and sad part is that apparently the consensus here at Slashdot is that:
a) Consumers have NO rights and
b) Don't like it - you don't have to buy it, fuck you.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
At the time of sale, the latest SimCity was unusable for the purpose for which it was sold.
I'm not seeing any need for new rights here, just enforcement of existing law.
Why don't we start with honest reviews that focus on the DRM that the game will use as a playability issue just as they would framerates or any other issue? If all of the major review sites started reviewing games with a DRM section saying:
Requires
( ) Serial Number
( ) Registration
( ) Activation
( ) Online connection to play
( ) Replaces DVD driver
( ) Wont work if you have installed ______
( ) Works only on one computer
( ) etc
Let people know what their actually buying and let the market make informed choices. When game reviews start reflecting and scoring the playability of DRM and sales start trending accordingly than publishers will start to review their practices.
Unfortunately most review sites would be blacklisted if they tried by themselves, so you would have to do it en mass like the cable companies did with 6 strikes. Band together and they wouldn't be able to blacklist the few sites that started reflecting the playability of DRM.
This problem could be fixed by the review sites, if they gave a damn.
Stardock already wrote up a Gamer's Bill of Rights. Then they promptly broke their own set of rules, so they had to rewrite them.
In the original draft, they forbade releasing an update to a game that removed compatibility for previously supported platforms. Then they released version 2.0 of Galactic Civilizations II. That patch could only be downloaded via Impulse, which uses .NET and is thus unable to run on Windows 98, which was one of the platforms GalCiv2 supported. So, oops. Shortly afterward they rewrote their GBoR to more or less remove that rule.
Thing is, even though Stardock wrote up these rules, they're in no position to force any other company to adhere to them. No one is. Not unless all the platform owners (including Valve and EA, for Steam and Origin respectively) get together and lay down a set of rules for being allowed on their platform/service. Or you try and get a law put in place or something. But the ESA would probably fight a law like that, anyway.
Everyone just says "Don't buy the game" and thinks that's the end of the discussion.
THAT IS NOT A SOLUTION AND STOP FUCKING REPEATING IT!
And if you aren't a gamer, then stay the hell out of this conversation. It doesn't concern you.
4. Gamers want to modify the game they are playing, or simply create their own cheats.
Solution:
None. It is too a lesser extent a good thing as it makes cheating in an online game harder.
Perhaps a group of friends all want to play the same mod in a private realm. Where's the "cheating" in that?
Providing effective negative feedback to a games company simply through not buying their crappy product works well only when the people willfully abstaining constitute a majority of their customer base.
Unfortunately, that condition is almost never met. Only a small fraction of purchasers are well informed, many are casual players who don't participate in gamer communities, many games are purchased as gifts, many gamers buy sequels just because they have earlier releases, and finally, quite a few buyers have more money than sense and will buy anything.
As a result, even crappy games generate enough income for the company to consider its investment justified, especially when the alternative is that they have to admit to failure. Even after the recent catastrophe, EA still believes that they did perfectly well, give or take a few minor issues. Just a few well informed gamers not buying their products will not break down such strong delusions.
If you don't believe that, consider what effect the nerd boycott of Sony has had on their gaming division. Nil.
It's a very American thing to believe fervently that market forces will fix everything, but the fact is that the only feedback of which EA took notice was Amazon's removal of the game from sale because that stopped uninformed purchasers from buying , and Amazon only did that because of complaints, not because people didn't buy it.
Complaints and concerted community pressure are mechanisms of great power, and that power is far more direct than simply not buying a game can ever be.
I don't see any point in trying to enforce something like this. What I would like to see would be a "Bullshit Inside" badge attached to a game that meant it had any of those things. Then I could choose to spend money or not. We had to put stickers on music that had a naughty word in them, and we have ratings on games for every other type of potentially offensive content. Doesn't seem like a stretch to blatantly mark something as DRM enforced, or additional money required.
WWJD -- What Would Jimi Do?
(Smash amp, burn guitar, take home the groupies)
This bullshit needs to stop. There is no such thing as "gamers' rights". A group of people make a game and offer it for sale under whatever conditions they feel like offering it, and everyone else can either accept those conditions or walk away. It really is as simple as that. If enough people walk away then they'll change their conditions (or go bankrupt and learn to program the fry machine).
Seriously, the idea that game developers owe you something is ridiculous and you need a reality check if you expect it. Instead of talking about rights, why not talk about a "consumers' creed" that encourages people to boycott bullshit DRM measures.
Then again, maybe you could grow the fuck up and try to understand that all of this shit started because of massive online piracy. Piracy is NOT stealing and all of the big brother measures that they are enacting to combat it will have far reaching negative consequences for freedom of speech so I oppose them entirely. Nevertheless I think it should be possible to be a full time game creator without living in your mother's basement. If there weren't so many self-entitle pricks out there who think the world owes them a good time then things would be better for everyone.
For all those calling for such a bill, stop buying these games (read: stop telling your parents to buy you these games) and show your support for good games by paying for them (or donating to the authors in the case of open-source games).
p.s. The world doesn't owe you shit. There is no such thing as rights. "Rights" are rules that have been written by those who rose up to write them, and they will fade away just as fast as the power that created them. They don't come from neckbearch basement trolls bitching about trivial issues on the internet.
Mod this however you like. I honestly don't give a fuck. Whiny children will be whiny children.
The entire Internet is failing its users; from hamfisted government website blocking, through disparate exploitative walled garden systems with arbitrary censorship, right up to defective-by-design always online games.
Its easy to say "don't by service/product X" but the problem is that service after service throws up the same problems, and many such services offer unique functionality that through either innovations that others haven't caught up on, or patents that prevent others from duplicating the functionality. Companies force you to either accept unreasonable terms or not partake in some of the services on offer. Other industries don't seem to get this kind of caveat emptor free pass (remember the lead in Chinese toys? Dodgy Romanian horse meat in burgers in the UK?) Ill not get started on the outrageous flouting of tax law by Internet businesses.
We need to move on from two polarised sides, greedy authoritarian government/corporate lockdown of computing one on and strident unyielding crypto-anarchism on the other. We need to work out what are the rights and responsibilities of business and users on the Internet, enshrine them in international treaties, and perhaps strengthen them with cryptographic methods.
Draconian DRM actually incites me to pirate. Honestly, why would I pay for a game that has to be connected at all times in order to play a single player game when the cracked pirated copy that comes out a month later has a work around that, well, works?
Whenever a player quits EVE to go play WoW, the Average IQ of both games increase.
You and everyone else knows I was talking about online multiplayer games.
I was talking about multiplayer in general. Please allow me to rephrase my point more explicitly: If you don't like the direction that online multiplayer is going, there's always the option to give up online multiplayer in favor of local multiplayer.
I'm pretty sure we have a right to complain even if we didn't buy it. In fact I'm pretty sure companies would rather hear us complain (quietly) so they have some idea of the sales they may be missing. And I'm pretty sure would-be buys would rather hear us complain (loudly) so they can hear the negatives and make up their own mind about whether to buy a game, or even whether to boycott a company.
I have never understood this "shut up and buy it or don't buy it" attitude. It benefits no one.
EVE Online... and all you little shits complaining about Diablo III or SimCity sound like a day old nooblet that just got scammed by Spaceship Barbie...
See you little bitches in space.
I only play one game anymore, and I spend every night of it cowering in the cobblestone corner with a bow aimed at the door. Will the zombies let the creepers in? Each night I wonder...
That makes sense - if we're not busy complaining about Wiley & Sons vs. Kirtsaeng, we really shouldn't complain about anything else. Folks, remember: you should only ever take issue with one thing at a time. If you're not cool with something, make darn sure the rest of the world is alright by you until you're done being mad about that one thing! I, for one, am glad we've had focus brought to this conversation, so that instead of talking about the gamers' bill of rights, or simcity, we can instead just talk about Wiley & Sons vs. Kirtsaeng. And that's thanks to you, CanHasDIY. From all of us: thank you.
I'm getting annoyed by these damned always on services that spam you for a game that has no business doing anything when I'm not playing it.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
The market will, in fact, be the judge on these kinds of things. If people stop buying these products, and their complaint is that the lifespan issue is the reason they said "fuck off" then the game companies will change their policy, and provide games without these hooks.
If you are a gamer and MUST HAVE THE LATEST SIM CITY EVER, and U HAVE TO DOWNLOAD IT NOW!!!!!. Well, then, this is the game for you, this is the Sim City game that is available. Enjoy.
I have seen my favorite franchise get awesome, then suck again with F2P game that recently came out. (Mechwarrior). The standard model games I enjoyed (mechwarrior living legends, even the mektek mech4 free release) are all gone now.
So, I don't give MWO my money, and if enough people dislike it, then the game goes away and maybe they make another game in the old style.
If they don't then they don't.
If you don't vote, you don't matter, so don't waste your time telling me your opinion
I'm still fuming over lenslock...
DC Universe Online with it's maggot-bloated console-based design (many MMORPG powers, but no more than six per loadout) sadly got my money. Similar console- style Duke Nukem did not, and I had been waiting. :(
You have to say no. Money talks.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
How about software users (end-users?) in general.
It's not like just games have these issues.
Rushed-out, overpromised and underdelivered software is prevalent across all the industry, not just in gaming. The always-on DRM thing may be more prevalent on games, but various ugly DRM schemes are also used in some commercial software. Hasps/dongles which were not future-OS compatible come to mind.
In most circumstances players will want on the official servers in order to get the widest audience to play against.
Are you sure that most people even want to subject themselves to racial and sexual harassment from pre-pubescent members of "the widest audience"?
introduced by Brad Wardell of Stardock? That certainly went well for them with Elemental : War of Magic, that was completely unplayable on release and basically not complete. It was so bad that they had to give away the expansion, Elemental: Fallen Enchantress for free?
http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/09/03/elemental-launch-was-catastrophic-poor-judgment/
http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/10/26/fallen-enchantress-free-elemental-stardock/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamer's_Bill_of_Rights
http://www.destructoid.com/crashes-and-drama-surround-elemental-s-launch-182350.phtml
how would you recommend that freely licensed games get financed?
By making games that are good enough that people will beg you to let them pay you.
I can't see how the production values that first-world gamers expect in 2013 are within the small budget that donations can support.
I'd prefer something more tangible than something that is named after a much more important piece of paper which is also routinely ignored.
A law would be nice. Or, since we certainly won't see something like that in anything close to a foreseeable future, how about a "seal of approval", an icon you may slap on your game box if it does fulfill a few minimum criteria, like
- No spyware whatsoever coming with the game
- No mandatory connection to a network just to play alone
- No hidden fees and must-get upgrades just to keep playing
- A complete game where "addons" are really adding something and not just allowing you to finish the game in the first place
I could well see a few game pages or game magazines hand out something like that. Game makers already love slapping their "it got 98% at $gamemag" icons on their boxes, they'd sure love to do the same for something like this.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
There are tradeoffs to everything.
I, personally, chose to speak with my money and my conscience, with a bit of common sense added in. This means a few things...
1) Never give my money to someone that doesn't deserve it.
2) Never get in a line of people when the guy with a badge at the head of the line can legally stick his finger up my ass.
3) Never do business with anyone that has been given the benefit of the doubt and squandered it.
4) I'm not going to get everything I want.
Served me well so far, and nobody is pissing in my Karma pool, including me. I sleep well.
The problem starts where gamers don't even know about the DRM. It's also not something you'd logically expect. Why should you expect that a game that you play alone needs for some odd reason an internet connection?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
We already have the actual bill of rights. Living in a free-ish society means that we are free to support whichever products we wish by voting with our dollars as consumers.
What would a gamers bill of rights even do? Would it imprison or fine people or companies who violated the rights of gamers? I doubt it.
I. Gamers shall receive a full and complete game for their purchase, with no major omissions in its features or scope.
Don't buy games that are not complete. Wait for a game to become complete before buying it. It'll probably be even cheaper once it has become complete.
II. Gamers shall retain the ability to use any software they purchase in perpetuity unless the license specifically and explicitly determines a finite length of time for use.
Don't buy games that require activation servers that undermine their perpetuity. Treat every game that has such a mechanism as an implicit limit on the time the game will function, and make your purchasing decisions accordingly.
III. Any efforts to prevent unauthorized distribution of software shall be noninvasive, nonpersistent, and limited to that specific software.
Don't buy games that have invasive copy protection. Don't buy games from companies likely to release game patches which add invasive copy protection. Treat every game that requires new patches (e.g. games like those described in rule 1 and 2) as likely to acquire invasive copy protection in new patches, and make your purchasing choices accordingly.
IV. No company may search the contents of a user's local storage without specific, limited, explicit, and game-justified purpose.
Don't buy games that ... same as 3.
V. No company shall limit the number of instances a customer may install and use software on any compatible hardware they own.
same
VI. Online and multiplayer features shall be optional except in genre-specific situtations where the game's fundamental structure requires multiplayer functionality due to the necessary presence of an active opponent of similar abilities and limitations to the player.
What? Buying the game is already optional!
VII. All software not requiring a subscription fee shall remain available to gamers who purchase it in perpetuity. If software has an online component and requires a server connection, a company shall provide server software to gamers at no additional cost if it ceases to support those servers.
This is the same as 2.
VIII. All gamers have the right to a full refund if the software they purchased is unsatisfactory due to hardware requirements, connectivity requirements, feature set, or general quality.
How will this right be granted? There is already a judicial system complete with class action lawsuits to adjudicate such matters.
IX. No paid downloadable content shall be required to experience a game's story to completion of the narrative presented by the game itself.
Don't buy g....
X. No paid downloadable content shall affect multiplayer balance unless equivalent options are available to gamers who purchased only the game.
Are unbalanced games fun? No. Don't buy games that are not fun. I am surprised I even have to tell people this.
This whole thing sounds like a guys bill of rights.
1. All girls must be hot.
2. All girls must be cool to be around and not bitchy at all.
3. All girls must agree to be my girlfriend.
4. All girls can not break up with me until I am tired of them.
The consumer/producer relationship is a mutual one like romantic relationships. You can demand all this stuff if you want, but unless you change a bunch of laws nobody is obligated to follow them. Any company that decides to v
How about a relevant analogy? Are there a handful of laundry companies, with two players dominating the market with crappy service and high prices? The term "Bill of Rights" is obviously used because it's obvious to understand. It's like "Jobs Bill" vs "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act". No explanation needed with the first.
Texas passed an "HMO patients Bill of Rights" (that Bush took credit for passing, though he vetoed it - and people bitched at Kerry for flip flopping). There's been talk of a "cell phone users Bill of Rights" that would require the advertized price to match the out-the-door price - no more fees jacking up your bill by 20%.
Getting butt hurt over the framing is your choice, but it's also your problem.
My reaction was, "Or, you could just not buy the game."
G4m3rz reaction: "But then I can't play my shiny!!!!"
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
While I pretty much agree with the Just Say No approach to drugs, there is one interesting exception here.
The reason consoles have limited software selection, is due to technological measures which limit access to the device itself, and a law causes the technological measures to also be legal measures. The government is therefore already directly involved in this situation with some rather heavy-handed regulation (e.g. "Thou shalt not install mod chips"), and solutions should not be limited to those you might find in a totally different situation, such as for example, a free market.
Since government force is already being used in this area, it is ok to use additional government force for pro-consumer and quality purposes. Just make sure that this is limited to situations where regulation-triggering technological measures exist. And all such regulation should be automatically repealed, if DMCA is ever repealed.
The counter-argument to all this, though, is that no one is required to use a game console. Sure, once you have one, the situation is fucked up. Obviously no one should ever buy one, or receive one as a gift. Before you spend your money on any console (i.e. crippled computer) you know what you're getting into.
Even so, though, within consoles, the programmers are getting special favors from the government, so there's no reason the favors need be lopsided.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
You have no rights, even if a piece of paper says that you do. All it is is a piece of paper that says you have rights on it. You either have the right to do anything you want or nothing at all, there are no in-betweens.
You have the right to keep your money in your wallet. If you choose to keep your money in your wallet, you have the right to not remain silent and can and should tell companies why you refuse to buy their games.
You have the right to wait, and not buy a game the instant it is released. You have the right to read actual reviews from actual players who have played the actual game as released and then make an informed decision.
If you decide to buy a game and it sucks you have the right to tell the company that you aren't going to buy any more of their shitty games. You also have the right to cry like a girl online.
There - a gamer's bill of rights, with the added bonus that it already exists.
Life needs more saving throws.
In 99.99% of cases your dollar is your vote.
After getting totally burned on the train wreck that was Master of Orion III, I swore off buying any title when it was first released. (I made a special exception for Borderlands 2 and I REGRET NOTHING.) This has since proven to be a smart move. Not only does the game end up getting properly vetted by the gaming public, it also gets patched, comes down in price, and runs exceptionally well on newer hardware.
Arkham Asylum? Fantastic game with a great story and top notch voice acting. My patience saved me $52. Borderlands? Same deal. Civilization V? Half off and I got a bunch of DLC that otherwise would have been much, much more. I've enjoyed a lot of games more by making sure the value proposition is more in my favor.
On the flip side, it's also saved me from some gaming agony. I'm glad I waited to see how Diablo III would pan out because none of my friends play it anymore and I doubt I would enjoy it based on their feedback. I'm having similar feelings about SimCity and have even gone so far as to dust off my old Rush Hour discs to play that instead.
I've gotta wonder what any of you gain by buying every game as soon as it drops. You're paying more and getting less certainty about what experience awaits you. Who needs that?
There is a difference between "insightful" and "inciteful" other than spelling.
I'm sure politicians and judges will this just as much respect as the real Bill of Rights. Which is to say, not much. (cf. Holder, Bloomberg, et al.)
Daniel
When that "PC" is a tablet or phone with the ability to connect to a TV, this is actually a pretty viable option.
I thought games designed for the sorts of operating systems that ship on tablets and smartphones were in touch genres, not mouse and keyboard genres, and not gamepad genres. To play a game in a touch genre, you need to be looking at the touch screen because it's completely flat and gives no feedback as to where your thumbs are relative to the on-screen controls. Or are more than an insignificant minority of tablet and phone games designed to prefer a Bluetooth keyboard or a Bluetooth gamepad?
What difference does it make? Consoles are just specialized PCs anyway. Does the OS really matter?
Yes. An operating system that allows self-signed code to run, such as GNU/Linux or Windows or Mac OS X or Android, guarantees a larger selection of games than an operating system that allows only code signed by the device's manufacturer to run, especially when the manufacturer has a policy of refusing to sign code from (say) a home-based family business. This is why the console I'm supporting in the next generation is Ouya. On the other hand, a lot of people appear to consider the benefit of not having to fuss with antivirus software worth the lack of selection.
Does the shape and color of the box matter?
Yes. A lot of people don't want to put a typical tower PC next to the TV.
If it matters to you, then you can buy a steambox and play steam games on a thing that looks like a console.
The PlayStation 3 was ridiculed for costing 599 USD at launch. The Piston will cost nearly twice that.
I don't think any gamer, regardless of how casual they are, will pass up the opportunity to buy a cool gaming machine they saw at their friend's house if it was really fun.
Wii beat PS3 early on in part because $249 is far cheaper than $599.
Isn't that, in fact, what many of us have done?
Slashdot users tend to be geeks and not exactly representative of the general public. The Slashdot demographic is far, far more likely to be willing to buy a second PC to put next to the TV than the general public. (See CronoCloud's comment.) So don't be so quick to extrapolate from what is working from what other Slashdot users claim would work out great for the general public. And even if something does catch on among Slashdot users, that probably isn't large enough of a market to make a product aimed at Slashdot users sustainable.
I'm sure making your own game counts as relevant industry experience
Developing games for a console also requires "financial stability" and a "dedicated secure office" (source: warioworld.com). A home-based family business that has self-published its own PC or Android game would probably not qualify. Do you remember the story of Bob's Game?
Amazon pulled SimCity from its store due to poor customer reception.
The download is back on line, and, at the time of this posting, No. 3 in sales of gaming software and hardware at Amazon.com.
It's ranking in sales unchanged despite all the negative publicity,
Sales of the retail box are down a little.
I wonder why.
More generally we need a consumer bill of rights for digital goods. When the copyright on these goods expires they must enter the public domain; the assumption that they do is part of the justification for granting a copyright monopoly. DRM prevents goods from entering the public domain. A consumer bill of rights should require that either (i) digital goods protected by copyright are free from DRM (conversely you can choose to use DRM but you lose the benefit of copyright protection); or (ii) any person or organisation that employs DRM to protect copyrighted digital goods must provide the digital good(s), DRM design specifications, source code and keys to a designated government office that will verify that the provided keys/source/tools can unlock the DRM and then hold everything in escrow for the term of the copyright. There would of course be an administrative fee associated with (ii), and if the fee is not paid then the information under escrow is released into the public domain.
i-name =twylite [http://public.xdi.org/=twylite], see idcommons.net
I'm aware of some countries that require all citizens to file income tax returns using software that runs only on a specific proprietary PC operating system published by the same company that makes the Xbox 360 console.
So, you just go to an internet cafe to file your taxes on line once a year. While irritating and bizarre, it's hardly forcing you to buy Microsoft games.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
THERE IS POWER IN A UNION
(to the tune by the same name by Billy Bragg, with apologies)
Original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KO90EdKB-g
Filked by Warren Grant
There's power in subscriptions, power in demand
Power in the hands of the player
But it all amounts to nothing if together we don't stand
There is power in a Union.
Now the games of the past were all riddled through with bugs
The mistakes of the devs that we must pay for
From modern games and consoles to ancient text-based MUDs
Rushed out code has always been the bosses way, sir
The Union forever defending our rights
Down with the bugfest, all players unite
With our brothers and our sisters from across the internet
There is power in a Union
Now I long for the beta that they realize
Crappy, untested code cannot be sold us
But who'll defend the players who cannot organize
When they shove it out the door and try to cheat us?
Nothing speaks like money, or walking away
When will they learn that we decide what plays?
What a comfort to the gamer, a delight to the child
There is power in a Union
The Union forever defending our rights
Down with the bugfest, all players unite
With our brothers and our sisters from across the internet
There is power in a Union
There is power in a Union
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
"Do: agree to an industry wide standard on the location of save games. Save games are not a secret. They are not a treasure. They’re something most right-thinking people want to be able to preserve after a game’s uninstalled. They’re something many people need to get at when building a new machine, or simply continuing the game on another machine. They aren’t a DRM risk. We just want to know where our save games are, and we don’t want to have to trawl through seventeen different possible locations in the very bowels of Windows, trying to discern which lunatic name you’ve filed them under. When I install a game you let me choose the install location. Can you guess where I want the save games to go to? Here’s a hint. It’s not in C:\Users\John\AppData\Local\Roaming\Documents\Programs\Features\Gardening\Knitwear\Publisher\Developer\GameName\Sausages\X34265\"
I bought every single SimCity title so far, and lots of other Sim-games.
I'm not buying this.
It's enough of a compromise to buy online content from someplace like Steam or GOG without also having a game that CANNOT be played offline. That's BS. If it needs a server, make a microserver for personal use.
And WORSE they can't even make it WORK? Utter crap, guys. If my professional product operated like that when it was deployed, I'd be out of a job.
Dog is my co-pilot.
Gaming is a choice that you make, it's no different then gambling, drinking, doing drugs or other addictive activities. My roommate is addicted to playing computer / video games and really from what I've seen hardcore or even regular gaming is just sad. You can become addicted to anything and not get help and not have rights so why should we give special treatment to gamers? The difference between a drinker and a gamer is that one buys the product at another location. The second you give someone addicted to gaming a bill of rights then you need to give each addicted group a bill of rights.
In most of Europe, we have decent ones. If a product doesn't work as advertised, you return it to the vendor that sold it to you and get your money back. You very, very rarely have to go to the trouble of court.
I don't always research a £25 purchase beforehand, but I do expect that if that purchase turns out to be unusable through no fault of my own, then I can return it. EA is an exception to my usual behaviour. EA and Sony are now so infamous for poor consumer treatment that I will assume the product won't work as advertised due to draconian DRM and won't purchase it.
If you don't like games that require internet connections without needing internet connections, don't buy them. That's really simple. If you don't like EA's other business practices, boycott EA by all means. Plenty of MMORPGs like WoW, EQ2, Rift, SWTOR and EVE require internet connections, but of course they actually derive benefit from the connections and their servers usually work.
Capitalism is about buyer beware, period.
As a consumer you have a right to use your brain and NOT to buy a defective product in the first place, especially in light of the ample amount of review and coverage over the problems with SimCity. Anyone buying SimCity today in light of all the issues is a clueless idiot, I don't support giving idiots rights (unfortunately laws are created specifically to protect idiots anyways).
The only injustice here is the fact that games are not subject to the same return policies as other product. You buy any physical product that doesn't work or meet expectations you return it and either get a new one or a get a refund, however how retailers got away with not allowing opened software to be returned is beyond me, especially when that software goes out of its way NOT to be playable. All the government needs to do is step in and say ANY product or service is allowed to have a return policy, period.
In the meantime if a retailer will not allow you to return SimCity after this widely publicized fiasco, then don't shop at that retailer anymore. Again it comes down to voting with your wallets, a retailer losing money because of stupid return policies will change those policies quickly. But most people will rush out and buy the next EA fiasco the moment it is sold at the same retailer that refused refund for SimCity so nothing will ever change.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Buy a PC to hook up to the TV in order to play games from indie developers outside the cartel?
Maybe use a more open platform.
That's what I said. But a lot of people have shown themselves to be unwilling to try connecting "a more open platform" to a television monitor when said "more open platform" is a PC.
I don't really game anymore, but my daughter plays games on an android tablet. You buy the game for 99 cents or 3.99 and have no idea what other crap you will have to pay for once you put some time in the game. I don't have SO much of a problem with it if the initial download is free, as you haven't really bought anything, but when you shell out cash there's an expectation that you've purchased a complete product.
It would be nice if there were some 'Not screwing you too hard seal of approval' badge or something games could display. In game purchases are a bad idea.
...
Indie developers get a chance to make it into the living room and gamers don't have to worry about big AAA developers screwing them.
Oh, I was just following your vapid argument to its dumb conclusion. I guess that upset you, but to be fair, you do seem pretty easy to upset.
Legality of the Right of First Sale is vapid, in comparison to "Dur, EA is a jerk but I keep giving them money anyway?"
My original assertion stands: you kids and your fucked up priorities...
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Another great example, or not I can't decide is Masters of Orion 2 which was one of my favorite of all time. MOO 3 was the first (and last) video game I ever pre-ordered.
If you can use it as a PC that might justify the cost.
That depends on whether people are going to want to A. do homework and Facebook and the like on a TV, or B. haul a PC back and forth between the desk (for doing homework and Facebook and playing games that work best on a desk) and the TV (for watching videos and playing games that work best on a couch). Of these two, which do you think is more likely?
Most of the time the closest that these publishers come to advertising their DRM is the statement, "Online connection required". To most of us, this isn't such a big deal when you are buying a game that is supposed to played online and with a bunch of other people. But yes, we do need a GBOR, and badly as this crap with EA once again shows us. If you buy a product and you can't use it due to the error of the company that sold you the product in the first place, you should be able to get your money back at the very least within 30 days - standard. Like they say, money talks, I just don;t think that the majority of buyers are educated enough on a particular issue,game, etc to make that decision at the time of checkout.
TVs and computer screens are basically the same thing at this point, they are just different sizes.
Technically they are, but the median home user does not understand this. The median home user has a mental set against connecting "a computer" to "a television".
for someone who wants a big television *and* a smaller computer screen at a desk, that person will either need 2 devices
Currently it's far cheaper for the second device to be a closed device (namely a game console) than for the second device to be an open device (namely a PC).
There are more benefits to a general purpose computer than just doing your homework and facebook.
What exactly are the benefits to the median home user that would justify 1. paying the substantial premium for a general-purpose computer as the second device over a closed second device, and 2. fussing with antivirus on the general-purpose computer?
There is no reason you can't do your homework on a 60" TV.
Other than 1. ergonomics, or 2. a household has both someone who wants to watch video or play a video game and someone who wants to do homework.
Also, the steambox is pretty small. It doesn't seem hard at all to carry around.
Even if it isn't "hard", it's still a time-consuming hassle. How long does it take to shut down a computer, unplug all the cables, plug in all the cables, and boot the computer again?
There are new conoles coming out that run steam and android.
Consider the market of open handheld devices with physical buttons for controlling a game character. There was already the GP2X line of handheld gaming devices made by GamePark Holdings that ran an open operating system, but GP2X never caught on in the West. The Pandora shipped so late that Android devices had already taken over, and the nD was vapor. One problem with just developing for Android is that every virtual gamepad I've had a chance to use has proven impractical because without any bumps to indicate the positions of the on-screen buttons, the player can't feel where to press.
If new console makers can offer better games at lower prices (i.e. because the developers have less hoops to jump through) then I think the market will reward that.
This is where CronoCloud would jump in and explain that historically, fewer hoops to jump through has resulted in worse games. There was a glut of shovelware for Atari 2600 on the market in 1983 and 1984. Retailers stopped carrying video games entirely because gamers reported being dissatisfied with the expensive game cartridges they were buying. It took a cryptographic lockout chip for Nintendo to get retailers interested in its third-generation video game console. And now, there's a glut of shovelware on Google Play Store. Ultimately, it's a search issue. So how do you recommend to sort out the quality games from the crap?
Less than 5 minutes?
That's still far more laborious than just having a console connected. You have to close all your open applications, make sure you have finished all your web sessions (including checking out at any online store), and reach around behind the TV instead of just locking the screen and letting it sleep 15 minutes later.
The amount of people willing to spend $1500 for a computer and a console but not $2000 for 2 computers because it's just too expensive is pretty small.
You'd be surprised. Parents buy what fits into their annual Christmas budget or annual tax refund, and if they already own a computer, $1000 is a lot bigger of a buy than $500. Especially consider late adopters who come into a console generation after a price drop or two; they can get a console for $200 or less.
There are reasons to buy a console other than price.
Such as that the vast majority of existing major-label video games in "console-style" genres are made for consoles. Mortal Kombat (2011), for example, isn't ported to PC. Thus, lets you play games from two platforms (PC and one of the consoles), while $2000 lets you play games from only one (PC). And that $1500 lets you fuss with antivirus on only one machine, while $2000 makes you do it on two. And only handheld consoles have physical buttons; smartphones rely on a flat sheet of touch-sensitive glass, which is far from ideal for certain genres.
So these 2 people are sharing a computer to do homework?
Yes. The scenario that I've seen play out in households in my survey sample is that one child does homework and receives video game time as a reward. This video game time is done on a console so that it can be overlapped with the next child's homework.
Well for one thing you can't have a conversation on slashdot on a typical console.
Only because Slashdot has become so script-heavy lately. I have posted to Slashdot from Internet Channel on my Wii console. Besides, you can when it's your turn on the PC. The base case is a console plus a PC that people take turns on; we're trying to reason why one would specifically upgrade from that to a PC plus a PC.
It's easier to list the things you *can't* do, which is play console specific video games
Most of the major-label games that people would specifically want to play on a TV, not a desk, are currently console-specific.
and even then you can play older console specific games on emulators.
So how does one obtain lawfully made copies of the ROMs that run in emulators? If I'm selling set-top PCs to people, I can't recommend "just pirate the games" without becoming liable for inducing infringement of copyright. See MGM v. Grokster.
That's pretty convenient for your argument that it is common for 2 people to want to play video games and do homework at the same time, but uncommon for 2 people to want to do homework at the same time.
See what I wrote above about overlapping the video game time as reward with a sibling's homework time. As for doing homework and homework at the same time, doing homework on a PC that's currently connected to a TV without straining one's eyes, back, or wrists would involve logging off all other Switch Usered sessions, shutting down the computer, and moving it from the TV to the desk, and then doing the same thing when one of the grown-ups wants to watch TV.
That wasn't the vapid argument that I was pointing out, but hey. You kids and your reading comprehension.