The Gamer's Bill of Rights
I saw this posted over on Voodoo Extreme this morning:
The Gamer's Bill of Rights from Stardock
Basically, they're your rights when purchasing a game, and will be adhered to by every subsequent Stardock release:“As an industry, we need to begin setting some basic, common sense standards that reward PC gamers for purchasing our games,” stated Brad Wardell, president and CEO of Stardock Corporation. “The console market effectively already has something like this in that its games have to go through the platform maker such as Nintendo, Microsoft, or Sony. But on the PC, publishers can release games that are scarcely completed, poorly supported, and full of intrusive copy protection and then be stuck on it.”
Chris Taylor, CEO and founder of Gas Powered Games stated, “This is an awesome framework for the industry to aspire to, and ultimately so that we can provide our customers with the gaming experience that they have wanted for years, and really deserve.”
As an example of The Gamer’s Bill of Rights in action, Stardock instituted a policy of allowing users to return copies of The Political Machine purchased at retail to Stardock for a full refund if they found that their PC wasn’t sufficient to run the game adequately.
“The PC market loses out on a lot of sales because a significant percentage of our market has PCs that may or may not be adequate to run our games. Without the ability to return games to the publisher for a refund, many potential buyers simply pass on games they might otherwise have bought due to the risk of not being certain a game will work on their PC. The average consumer doesn’t know what ‘pixel shader 2.0 support’ means, for instance,” said Wardell.
According to Stardock, the objective of the Gamer’s Bill of Rights is to increase the confidence of consumers of the quality of PC games which in turn will lead to more sales and a better gaming experience.
The Gamer’s Bill of Rights:
1) Gamers shall have the right to return games that don’t work with their computers for a full refund.
2) Gamers shall have the right to demand that games be released in a finished state.
3) Gamers shall have the right to expect meaningful updates after a game’s release.
4) Gamers shall have the right to demand that download managers and updaters not force themselves to run or be forced to load in order to play a game.
5) Gamers shall have the right to expect that the minimum requirements for a game will mean that the game will play adequately on that computer.
6) Gamers shall have the right to expect that games won’t install hidden drivers or other potentially harmful software without their consent.
7) Gamers shall have the right to re-download the latest versions of the games they own at any time.
8) Gamers shall have the right to not be treated as potential criminals by developers or publishers.
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.
10) Gamers shall have the right that games which are installed to the hard drive shall not require a CD/DVD to remain in the drive to play.
This strikes me as a very sensible and reasonable approach for expectations around purchasing PC games. I especially like items 2 and 5.
A Mind Without Purpose Will Walk In Dark Places
"I may be out of ammo but I ain't out of chainsaw B*TCHES!" - Sinister's warcry for Gears of War
11) Gamers shall have the right to dream.
Morrolan wrote:
XBLA / Steam: Dysplastic
Where's the petition to sign up?
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I think 3 is wholly unnecessary. In fact, one could argue that it's in conflict with 2. If a game is shipped complete then there are no updates necessary for it.
(@)
So, where do I sign up!?
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LobsterMobster wrote:
Fair point, but I took that point to mean balance adjustments to the game once it is released into the multiplayer wild. While you can play test a game into the ground using 100 people behind the developer's closed doors, once it is being played by hundreds of thousands of people in the public, the need to re-balance certain aspects of it will often arise.
A Mind Without Purpose Will Walk In Dark Places
"I may be out of ammo but I ain't out of chainsaw B*TCHES!" - Sinister's warcry for Gears of War
I can imagine the publishers saying, "but they are!!!"
I like the list. A lot, actually.
I agree with Dr._J. #2 is for singelpayer games, and #3 is for MP games. Like the constant balance-tweaking and content adds that TF2 has.
St.Hillary wrote:
Commence your hatred, gentlemen.I love Stardock!
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Tempest says: "A team hat doe snot communicate and talk to each other about what the next move will be is going to lose."
Mex is my hero = "f*ck it, I'll do it. WE'LL DO IT LIVE."
If 2 is obeyed, 3 is not necessary.
"PEACE ON EARTH. GOOD WILL TO MEN. PUBLIC SHELTER. ADMISSION 50¢"
11) Gamers shall only have low budget 4X space strategy games in order to make the first 10 financially and logistically possible for the majority of PC game publishers.
I would think the first rule of PR is to ignore forum people, because they vacillate between crazy and liar. - Elysium
Fixed.
I mostly agree with you, but I don't see any reason why PC gamers should just resign themselves to the fact that they should have to download and install multiple patches to a game they haven't even played yet just to make it work.
Zigguratbuilder wrote:
PSN name: DoubtingTom396 Frie-hend meeeee uuuuup!
Stardock have made their decision; now let them enforce it.
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"Meaningful updates" isn't restricted to bug fixes. TF2 was released in a finished state, yet has had 3 "meaningful updates".
MechaSlinky wrote:
-on L4DStardock doesn't see 2 and 3 as being contradictory to one another. Stardock believes both that each game should be perfectly playable and fun right out of the gate, but also that customers shouldn't be abandoned after they have handed over their money. Their updates include AI fixes and other more "normal" patches, but also completely new content. It would be like if the Oblivion horse armor, and all those other updates, was released for free. (although Stardock does see a difference between expansions, which they charge for, and these smaller updates, which they think should be free and cause our product to continue to grow and improve over time)
I do not believe that we as consumers have a "right" to extra free content after the release of the game. I am all for developers giving us this, but once the game has been released in a finished state, anything more is just extra icing on the cake.
Jadawin wrote:
That's certainly true, although I also think some people are sometimes to willing to forget that it's a problem an open system will always have. I've seen plenty of games released in an unfinished state, no doubt about it. But I've also seen a lot of technically polished games automatically get the same reputation due to some weird issue on a certain setup that no amount of testing could have caught, and fixing it could cause even more unforeseen problems.
I understand the frustration of paying for something that doesn't work, but I also think people automatically think "lazy developer" when the answer is just as likely that a tiny amount of people, as usual, have an issue that takes the developer ages just to reproduce on their own, let alone fix.
I would think the first rule of PR is to ignore forum people, because they vacillate between crazy and liar. - Elysium
That's usually why you don't see me railing about bugs, especially as I seem to be a magnet for them. I just file a bug report, and it usually gets taken care of pretty quickly. (The trick is knowing the quirks of your setup). Really the only bug report I've filed that _hasn't_ gotten resolved quickly is the .jpg bug in Vista. (A substantial portion of samsung phones, when the images are transferred to a vista computer appear to be horribly squashed.)
St.Hillary wrote:
Commence your hatred, gentlemen.That's fair enough. Goodness knows I've seen my share of buggy software-- some of it I've even written personally. Bug Hunts are hard.
I still haven't forgiven Bioware for KOTOR, though. I really wanted to play that one, and it never worked on my system even though it should have according to the specs. Fortunately, the folks at Best Buy were nice enough to give me a full refund on my purchase of the game.
Maybe more games should do open betas?
Zigguratbuilder wrote:
PSN name: DoubtingTom396 Frie-hend meeeee uuuuup!
Very much the truth here.
Personally, I think that #5 is probably the most important on that list. While I can count the number of games that run reasonably well on minimum specs on one hand, I wouldn't want to ever consider counting the number of top tier games that are nearly unplayable on them.
Coldstream wrote:
Oh please, developers, find a way to make this happen more regularly. I hate having to keep my Civ IV disc in my laptop when I travel.
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Kuddles, I really don't see where all the vitriol is coming from, or what Startdock did to you to deserve it. There are more games available on Stardock than just low budget 4X space strategy games. In addition, the primary developer behind those 4X games has 4X games as their core competency. That's what they do well. It doesn't mean that nothing else can exist on Stardock.
So please spare us the cynical dismisal of attempts by one aspect of an industry to create some reasonable and respectable rules for self governance. Some of us do welcome it.
(@)
Okay, so Stardock lets you download their games over impulse with absolutely no DRM, and then if you say they didn't work they give you the money back? Man, see you guys later, I'm gonna go load up on free games.
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I said uneccessary. A finished and polished game does not need content updates. It's not a bad thing, but it's not necessary. Did Planescape: Torment need content added after release?
"PEACE ON EARTH. GOOD WILL TO MEN. PUBLIC SHELTER. ADMISSION 50¢"
I think the rules are fantastic and I truly believe Stardock will continue to follow them. I don't think the majority of the industry can be convinced to adhere to them (particularly the large publicly traded publishers) but one can dream. I've always had a ton of respect for Stardock.
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There already is a way of doing that, it just requires you to have a good firewall in your antivirus software.
Zigguratbuilder wrote:
PSN name: DoubtingTom396 Frie-hend meeeee uuuuup!
In the world of software, finished and complete do not mean bug-free and perfect. There's an important and distinct difference.
Fedaykin98 wrote:
wordsmythe wrote:
I agree with being able to return the game if it does not work but that might make people believe that since they did not read the min system requirements they can return a working game that is unplayable on their machine.
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I think he means content updates like TF2.
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Like Quintin said, finished doesn't mean perfect. It also doesn't mean that a developer can't look at it and think 'how can I make this awesome game better.
Both of these reasons is why I think TF2 has developed and KEPT such a huge following. It was released in a very polished, very complete form. However, since then it has been tweaked to be even better alongside the content updates to keep people interested in it. Crackdown is probably another game in the same vein that I've played even though you have to pay for some of it.
Coldstream wrote: