The Gamer's Bill of Rights 272
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.
Gamers shall... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Gamers shall... (Score:5, 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.
It's worse than that...DVDs and fast forward (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.
Re:Gamers shall... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Gamers shall... (Score:5, 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.
At the very least ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:At the very least ... (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)
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Copy protection will not stop piracy in general,
I agree, they should remove the DRM, then I don't have to work around it.
Re:At the very least ... (Score:5, Informative)
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Pretty much. Really the line between DRM and identification is pretty slim, a lot of identification policies (server check) are really just identification. Really my Guideline is that if I'm already logging into your server, you have every right to check my CD-Key to make sure I didn't steal the game (online games, Stardock patches). Otherwise it's DRM.
And bans are usually applied to IP addresses, not CD-Keys. If the admin of a server could see everyone's CD-Keys, well, it wouldn't be a good situation (I th
Re:At the very least ... (Score:5, Informative)
That's Just The Tip Of The Iceberg (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
Re:That's Just The Tip Of The Iceberg (Score:5, Funny)
Brad Wardell is also calling for:
* Ponies for everyone
OMG Ponies
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Are there herbivorous zombie ponies?
Right #11 (Score:5, Interesting)
Gamers shall have the right to modify their games to alter their singleplayer experience.
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Why? Ok, it doesn't harm anyone as it's basicly like cheating at solitaire, but is it something the game developer/publisher should spent resources on? Unless of course they intend to have user-created content through an editor of course, but I don't see any ethical problem with just saying "this is how the game works, enjoy!" If you really wanted to pull that angle I'd focus on having bugs fixed instead, but that applies equally well to single and multiplayer.
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It seems to me you've answered your own question. They might want to do something with user mods. The exclusive right to do something commercial with user mods is one of their assets under copyright law, but it isn't worth much if people are just going ahead and doing it without you. If you've ever been involved selling a company, you get through things that have real value fairly quickly, then you spend ten times the time haggling over things that might have value in some kind of radically different fut
Ten Commandments (Score:2)
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Aaargh. Reading CAD is almost enough to cause physical pain.
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This is a contentious point. I have a friend who outright refuses to play any videogame or PC game unless the source is open and he can create or modify all the levels. But the thing is, while you ARE free to manually edit the binary code making up the game, for the developer to provide the game engine is a completely different thing from providing the game.
The way I see it, a game is a creative work, like a marble sculpture. If you buy the sculpture, you ARE free to chip bits away from it, because it's you
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Are we reading the same comment?
The GP did demand any help in modifying the game. He demanded a right to do so. Which is exactly what your sculpture example is all about.
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Should of course have been:
The GP did NOT demand any help in modifying the game. He demanded a right to do so. Which is exactly what your sculpture example is all about.
I take issue with this one (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.
Re:I take issue with this one (Score:5, Insightful)
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There is... offline mode, and despite what others have told me, I have gotten it to work with Valve's games too.
Yes, Valve does snoop on how you play their games. But what they do with the data is make their games more fun through patches. They'll go, "ok, we see this is where people die the most. Why do they die the most? Sheer number of enemies? Low health? Puzzle is just *too* hard?", etc... So it's not entirely without merit on their end.
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Steam's system IS DRM, in that it controls who can access your games, and where you're allowed to. But unlike any other DRM scheme, 'who' is anyone with the account password and 'where' is anywhere you have a net connection and a gig or two of space.
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a good piece of wishful thinking (Score:2)
These are actually more closely related to business ethics than anything else.
More developers are calling for the removal of DRM in their games these days. Publishers don't seem to listen or care and that's part of the problem.
I seriously see EA just not listening to customers. They don't care either. EA believes it doesn't need PC gamers. They believe they can be profitable with console titles alone. And more publishers are believing this every day. LucasArts has decided not to publish for PC due to
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This gets pointed out a lot but while your praising STEAM it is its own DRM implementation, and the important part here, watch carefully;
It's not the DRM most people hate, it's the poor implementation of it. If it worked smoothly nobody would notice it. But since every user is stuck with CD keys, looking for the play disc, online activations, and verifications, and its all buggy as shit. Then it gets noticed.
STEAM is a method of DRM that doesn't intrude on your gaming experience, most people don't even real
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I like steam. Even though it's DRM, I feel it's a good trade of. They get their DRM, and I get the ability to reinstall any of my games with a single click. And I don't have to keep the CD in the drive. And there is a friends interface. And there are achievements.
It's the closest thing to xbox live available on pc. And there's no subscription fee.
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I've known that Steam is a DRM platform since I started using it when they first released it.
I don't mind the phoning home for my multiplayer games since I need to play them online anyway.
but for third-party single player games, it doesn't actually require the phoning home if you launch the app from it's own exe
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Make it so! [sharpie.com]
DRM vs. Impulse (Score:2, Interesting)
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I use Steam and Impulse and have bought games through both systems. GalCiv2 has a limit on how many times you can install a game. The advertise that you can install it on multiple machines. I installed it on two computers at home, a laptop, and another machine at work. I ended up formatting and re-installing the laptop and Impulse said I had used up all my install codes.
I opened a support ticket and it took about 30 hours for Stardock to review the ticket and add more install codes to my account.
They've Purposely Omitted: The Right to Sell (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."
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It depends on whether the judge thinks the EULA is binding. Contracts can override the right to first sale, and some judges will unfortunately uphold such terms in an EULA.
Can I expect the obvious? (Score:2)
Can I expect that their next release will live up to each and every one of these rights?
If so, I am already interested.
If not, then I have to assume this is all bravado in order to paint their company in a "Holier then thou" image.
As the man said, "Put your money where your mouth is".
In a perfect world: (Score:2, Interesting)
0: The freedom to run the program, for any purpose
1: The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
2: The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.
3: The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
Please, spare us the GPL advocacy for once (Score:2)
That wouldn't be a perfect world, because like most GPL fanbois, you have failed to notice that no-one would be producing top class games in that environment. The GPL and commercial reality are fundamentally incompatible without some sort of mitigating factor, and high quality games are probably the single best example of this.
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Also, if open source was such a boon to game development, why are there no huge open source titles to rival Doom, Half Life (1 and 2), FEAR, FarCry, any of the several hundred pro racing games, any of the thousand or so pro sport games, Flight Sim, WoW, EVE or any of the other top games out there right now?
This isn't an 'either/or' scenario, the current closed source game d
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This is what bugs me about open source advocates when it comes to trying to evangelise to currently closed source shops - you are essentially saying to them that to make money they would need to build two products instead of the one they build now. You are saying that they need to build the product they would have anyway, and then build a second supporting product to ensure they make money off the first. For a lot of industries, that simply doesn't
Bill Harris's Bill of Rights -- StarForce Must Die (Score:2)
For my November 2006 Escapist article "StarForce Must Die [escapistmagazine.com]," I asked blogger Bill Harris to present a "DRM Bill of Rights [escapistmagazine.com]" that resembles Brad Wardell's list. Really, in a sensible world that recognized our right to control the information stored on our own computers, this would all be common sense.
Maybe a silly point, but... (Score:2)
It's kind of disturbing when people label something that would otherwise be good to have, but otherwise don't have a real *right* to, a "Bill of Rights", when the original, real "Bill of Rights" were more fundamentals being put in for a "just-in-case" measure, more clarifying what they felt were always being protected, for a safety measure. In fact, some opposed the Bill of Rights' inclusion on the grounds that it would lead us down the route it has today--that they are what prevents the government from pa
Except ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Gamers Rights (Score:2, Funny)
Gamers have the right to remain silent (about bad games). They have a right to an attorney.
Anything they do/say can and will be used against them in their moms basement.
11 (Score:3, Insightful)
Can be summarized in one. (Score:5, Insightful)
Thou shalt listen to your customers.
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Corollary: make sure the people you're listening to are indeed your customers. Not, e.g. pirates. Their opinions don't count.
hmnn (Score:2, Insightful)
Hmnn... This would kill blizzard's bussiness model of releasing a half-complete game while they finish it and finally release the completed work as an expansion.
Linux Rights. (Score:3, Interesting)
What about the right to play the game under Linux or Mac? Trust me, Game developers hate Linux with a Holy passion.
Its a religious thing.
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You already have the right to do that. However, you don't have the right to expect support for it (unless there's an official port), and you'll need the emulation tools to make it work.
However, you do still have the 'right'.
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What about the right to play the game under Linux or Mac? Trust me, Game developers hate Linux with a Holy passion. Its a religious thing.
I'd like to see a headcount on how many zealots we have on each side here, please. If anything, they're the atheists into money and here's some valid points in the business case:
1. How much do we have to change from our DirectX Windows version (if not DirectX, fill out questions 11-2000)
2. Total size of market: Very small, but growing a little. Huge percentages don't count.
3. Are they gamers: Very few, since there's very few games for Linux. Catch 22, but not our problem.
4. How many of the gamers will buy t
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Gamer's Rights DOA (Score:2)
The first, including rights 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10, is because company executives think that the number of pirated copies equals that many copies worth of revenue lost. This grossly overestimated loss of revenue means that they will spend more than the appropriate effort in trying to reduce pirated copies.
The second reason is that the remaining rights expect companies and their investors to be
Similar articles: (Score:2)
Gamer's Manifesto [cracked.com]
Video Game 7 Commandments [cracked.com]
The Scratchware Manifesto [the-underdogs.info]
All good reads, if you haven't checked them out... and all very valid complaints!
He doesn't go far enough (Score:2)
He's got redudant points (not having to connect is a given if assuming you're not being treated like a criminal), and the list does not cover having to be online every time you wish to install a game.
One would think that would be covered by the "not treated like criminal" point, but apparently it's not, since StarDock forces you online to install unless you bought a physical copy of the game.
That is the only issue I have with both Steam and SDC/Impulse. I can create local backups easily, but I cannot restor
How to mod up? (Score:2)
Uhm... I'm confused. Where is the button to mod up the post itself???
Lets Get Some Bill of Rights for Consoles (Score:2)
Let them not respect that bill if they want (Score:2)
we give boon to those who respect it, we give the shaft to those who dont. and i assure you, we have given the shaft to many companies before.
PC Gamers you mean (Score:2)
Because if you are a console gamer, most of those don't apply to you.
Re:Key bindings for dvorak users (Score:3, Insightful)
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W = ,
A = A
S = O
D = E
Its much easier to say "AOE" than ",AOE" or "AE,O" or something...
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There's a default awkward pause after the word dvorak in my mind, so he's good.
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TFGH
It opens up many more keys for the ring and little fingers to utilize.
I actually use TFVH, with G as a quick-action key, but everyone I know things I'm insane to do so.
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TFGH
It opens up many more keys for the ring and little fingers to utilize.
I actually use TFVH, with G as a quick-action key, but everyone I know things I'm insane to do so.
TFVH? Wow... TFBH wouldn't be too bad though.
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JKL, or IJKL for more sinister players.
#11 should be, "Thou shalt be allowed to remap our stupid keyboard control layout.
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4562 (ESDF is only good on an ergonomic keyboard with straight columns)
4562 is pretty useless on a laptop unless you've got one of those new Lenovo monsters...
Re:Full Refund is self righteous B.S. (Score:5, Interesting)
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Funny you say that.
I had the exact same experience with two of the Rainbow 6 franchise games. Yeah. I was stupid enough to go back a second time, but that was the experience that led me to investigate, and further my knowledge of, the entire gaming industry. Odd side effect, but it actually improved my gaming experience in the long-term.
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I have also found that antiviral software on windows is a killer for some games WRT performance. And we haven't even got started with drivers and system setup issues...
Re:Here's another addition (Score:4, 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.
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Yes, because 10mb patches take so much bandwidth. I'm sure it wasn't piracy hurting them, just all those pirates downloading patches! How dare they.
If the unpatched game was functional, the argument might have merit. However, you and your roommates were the exception - plenty of paying customers had sync errors and crashes.
I don't give a shit if they want to implement whatever DRM they want. I'm not arguing that. I'm arguing that white-knighting them as a savior of the gaming industry as they do that is stu
Re:Here's another addition (Score:4, 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?
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As a corporation myself, I'll gladly pay for it. Boy, it's sure a good thing everyone signs their companies up for Slashdot accounts.
Or, you know, the fact that they offer an entire digital-download service that services thousands with games commonly over a gigabyte might provide a helpful clue into their ability to serve data commonly. Next on the white-knight brigade, lack of physical media option in new EA best-seller defended by Internet poster as "just a way for them not to have to pay the enormous shi
Re:Here's another addition (Score:4, 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.
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You're not getting what I'm arguing. If Stardock wants to do this instead of DRMing the game itself that's fine. The problem I have is when Stardock is held up as one of the "good guys" in the industry when they are doing the same thing as every other company is doing in a slightly different way. If they were, they would have none of this crap (i.e. the system they had pre-SOASE 1.1/Impulse): whether that's a legitimate business model is probably arguable, but it's what is being parroted nearly everywhere.
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The client is a downloader. Quit out of it if it's a fucking problem. You can run any Stardock game outside of Impulse/SDC.
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Does not having the update stop you from playing the game? Seriously, you're going to compare patch blocking to CD-Drive and server checks while running the game?
And what bloated client? It's a 75 meg client, that only runs when you want updates (doesn't run in the background or anything). If that's bloated then you need a new harddrive (the actual install might be smaller, I've had it for a while now).
Your last point might be true, I don't know. Did Sins of a Solar Empire try to get you to install Impulse
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If by terrorist you mean any indie game maker that hasnt signed up or follow the rules, then yes.
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The problem is that those of us that do that are very much in the minority on this.
As much as I'd love to play Spore, I'm not going to be buying a copy as long as I'm going to be subjected to that draconian DRM. It's a shame, but I'm not willing to put up with that bullshit.
I don't mind paying for software, but it needs to be a reasonable price, fully completed and the copy protection basically non-existent. As a customer, it isn't me that should have to put up with the pain in the ass which is DRM.
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What is the point of a boycott if you don't make it completely and publicly plain why you are boycotting?
Re:Do as I say, not as I do? (Score:5, Informative)
So that's eight passes, one unknown and one late resubmission. They are doing comparatively well.
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You forget that DRM is often the choice of the publishers and not the developer.
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6. SupCom installed SecureRom at launch but removed it in v3223.
10. SupCom can be played without a DVD.
Except in Poland, China, Brazil and Russia. I am unfortunate enough to live in one of those barbaric parts of the world. This is also the reason I did not buy this game though I really liked it. There's an item missing from the Bill:
11. Gamers shall have the right not to be discriminated against by the publisher based on their nationality, race or religion
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GPG has already made an absolute mockery of rights #2, 3, 4 and 5.
Supcom and FA both lack even the most basic functionality in critical areas, Patches were obviously not tested at all beyond making sure the game boots up, the recommended requirements are barely capable of running the game, and the only way to really get patches is through the hilariously poorly designed GPGnet.
In short installing Supcom/FA involves creating a GPGnet account, opening it up and not being able to do anything until it finishes
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GPG has already made an absolute mockery of rights #2, 3, 4 and 5.
"2) Gamers shall have the right to demand that games be released in a finished state."
Well, SupCom and FA had bugs, and balance issues, and stuff.. but so does everything. I can't say the problems seemed severe enough to me to consider them "unfinished".
"3) Gamers shall have the right to expect meaningful updates after a games release."
Which GPG provided; frequent patches, new units, improved balance, new features, rapid DRM removal, improved performance. They made a mockery of this? WTF do you expect, e
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When I played SC, the patches available on THQ's website were always several versions behind. If you wanted to download current patches manually, you had to guess the url or search their forum for someone else's url guess.
The forum had some scattered official information of download url's but this information was not updated consistently and was often several version
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But, if someone buys a complete game on a media, that should be their copy.
In that case, they should not attempt to prevent me from making (a) legitimate and functional backup copy(s).
Data or product. Pick one.
1. I do. And you seem to be oblivious to the fact that requirements aren't everything. I've had a few games simply not work, at all. They would simply restart the computer when you tried to start them (not a BSOD, no error at all. just kicks it over), i suspect a conflict with something (firewall, antivirus, and pretty much everything else ruled out) and whatever "protec
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If not then number 2 is referring to games like Kane and Lynch, where it's a good game, but with a little more time the game would have been great, but they rushed it out. I loved Kane and Lynch, but there are parts in that game where you can almost see the developer said fuck it.
Then 3 would be referring to updates, like Gears of War, where they fixed one glitch, but it opened up new glitches.