Pc's bill of rights from starducked, standards for pc dame devs

http://kotaku.com/5043432/the-pc-gamers-bill-of-rights

Not a day goes by that PC gamers don't have something to complain about, whether it be misleading PC requirements for the games they buy, games being released in an unfinished state, or brutal copy protection measures that treat them as if they were all potential criminals. Indie developer and publisher Stardock feels PC gamers' pain, and has announced a Gamer's Bill of Rights, containing 10 specific rights that all PC gamers should have, as a guideline to encourage PC gaming companies to embrace better customer service policies. The list includes the right to return games that don't work on your PC, realistic minimum requirements, and single-player games that don't force players to connect to the internet. Gas Powered Games' Chris Taylor wholeheartedly approves.

"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."

Hit the jump for the full list of rights. They're intelligent, well through-out, and will never be officially instituted in a million years.

Stardock Announces "The Gamer's Bill of Rights"
- Indie Developer / Publisher Hopes to Encourage Better Customer Service

Plymouth, MI - August 29, 2008 - Stardock announced today the Gamer's Bill of Rights: a statement of principles that it hopes will encourage the PC game industry to adopt standards that are more supportive of PC gamers. The document contains 10 specific "rights" that video game enthusiasts can expect from Stardock as an independent developer and publisher that it hopes that other publishers will embrace. The Bill of Rights is featured on Stardock's website (www.stardock.com) and is on prominent display in Stardock's booth (1142) at the Penny Arcade Expo.

"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.

Someone once said that: "The customer is always right" Most businesses still follow that rule, unless that customer is a PC gamer, then he is a criminal and should be treated as such. Things need to change.

I fully agree with all these points. Of course it's easier for Stardock to say they give money back if the game won't run than it is to for e.g. Crytek whose games are 10 times more demanding. But I'll give the list 9/10 anyway. I believe this is what the utterly useless PC Gaming Alliance should be doing, enforcing these points. But no, lets just all sit on our hands and whine about piracy.

All heil Stardock! *insert arnold picture*

I only disagree with:

1) You should know your own PC specs to begin with, so buying a game that's not compatible is your own fault. Why should another consumer have to suffer and deal with buying an open box at full price later on if you are able to return it for full price.

8 ) Are they referring to copyright warnings and terms of use agreements and what not? If so, this is smart on their part. If they don't have those things built in the game, then they would have no case in court against a person who was caught for piracy.

Judge: "Did you explain to the end-user that copying of your software was prohibited?"

Dev: "Uhh, well...umm...no, we just assumed they would know that."

Judge: "Claim denied."

Dev: "nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"

Other than those 2 points, a very good list!

I only disagree with:

1) You should know your own PC specs to begin with, so buying a game that's not compatible is your own fault. Why should another consumer have to suffer and deal with buying an open box at full price later on if you are able to return it for full price.

RotaryRX7

that is true, maybe they should change it to "they have a right to return if perfoemance if poor on lowest settings even if system meets the requirements"

8 ) Are they referring to copyright warnings and terms of use agreements and what not? If so, this is smart on their part. If they don't have those things built in the game, then they would have no case in court against a person who was caught for piracy.

Judge: "Did you explain to the end-user that copying of your software was prohibited?"

Dev: "Uhh, well...umm...no, we just assumed they would know that."

Judge: "Claim denied."

Dev: "nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"

Other than those 2 points, a very good list!

RotaryRX7

this most probaly means DRM schemes which causes lots of problems to legit customers like game dvds not working on some drives or having install limit , or anything otherthing which forces a person who had bought a game to use a crack for it

I only disagree with:

1) You should know your own PC specs to begin with, so buying a game that's not compatible is your own fault. Why should another consumer have to suffer and deal with buying an open box at full price later on if you are able to return it for full price.

8 ) Are they referring to copyright warnings and terms of use agreements and what not? If so, this is smart on their part. If they don't have those things built in the game, then they would have no case in court against a person who was caught for piracy.

Judge: "Did you explain to the end-user that copying of your software was prohibited?"

Dev: "Uhh, well...umm...no, we just assumed they would know that."

Judge: "Claim denied."

Dev: "nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"

Other than those 2 points, a very good list!

RotaryRX7

As for #8, they're probably talking about DRM and the like (judging by Stardock's track record).

nice points. alot of it is common sense. sins is very nice in that way. i dont need impulse running to run it. i dont need the CD in the drive (technically i dont need the CD at all). the game also looks nice and runs well on lower spec machines (though dealing with massive armies and maps at max details will still give a high end PC something to think about).

alas it will fall on deaf years (except stardock and GPG of course).

Stardock: the greatest thing to happen to gaming since... well... ever?PBSnipes

No kidding. Stardock's quickly becoming my favorite dev/publisher.

Not to sound ungrateful, but that list sounds like something you'd find in a System Wars fakeboy joke thread. I think what's sad is that many of those things they specify are actually widespread enough to constitute "rights violations."mjarantilla

Not to sound ungrateful, but that list sounds like something you'd find in a System Wars fakeboy joke thread. I think what's sad is that many of those things they specify are actually widespread enough to constitute "rights violations."mjarantilla

[QUOTE="mjarantilla"]Not to sound ungrateful, but that list sounds like something you'd find in a System Wars fakeboy joke thread. I think what's sad is that many of those things they specify are actually widespread enough to constitute "rights violations."Teufelhuhn

SecuROM and their ilk have a motto, and that motto is "Every user is guilty until proven innocent". Ironically, their overly-aggressive methods towards preventing piracy are driving thousands of gamers into resorting to...less than legitimate means of obtaining the game. Not to mention the thousands who boycott games that have SecuROM. I would be very interested in seeing a comparison chart of how many games SecuROM and the like have prevented from being copied to the number that were ripped and copied due to user frustration with their software.

SecuROM and their ilk have a motto, and that motto is "Every user is guilty until proven innocent". Ironically, their overly-aggressive methods towards preventing piracy are driving thousands of gamers into resorting to...less than legitimate means of obtaining the game. Not to mention the thousands who boycott games that have SecuROM. I would be very interested in seeing a comparison chart of how many games SecuROM and the like have prevented from being copied to the number that were ripped and copied due to user frustration with their software.

Verge_6

It's a pretty good list.

I believe #5 will help PC gaming more than all other ones put together.

Actually, I'd like a standarized performance benchmark (say, 1024 x 768 with all effects turned to medium at 30fps, with a certain amount of programs running in the background), and make the cheapest way to achieve that be the "minimum system requirements", and kill the "recommended requirements" tag.

I'd love to see a numeric score (Vista was supposed to make this standard), but I'm still iffy as to it's viability, especially when you've got games that might require vastly different balancing between the elements on your computer.

Stardock seems to be pretty naive about human nature. If you allow 1 & 10 then you will have people who will install the game and return it even though it works. Stardock also serves a niche crowd which means that their model may not work for every other company. Some game genres like single-player shooters have much higher rates of piracy than rts games. Other genres like female casual sell well and have a high profit margin since the targeted demographic (teenage girls) has extremely low piracy rates.

That list of rights is more a list of wishful thinking. It may give you fuzzy feelings about Stardock but that list won't improve the current decline in pc gaming. Expect more delayed console ports and Nancy Drew type crap. If you think that pc gaming is healthy then you haven't been doing it long enough. Consoles used to be lucky to get pc ports (Doom 3), not the other way around.

That list of rights is more a list of wishful thinking. It may give you fuzzy feelings about Stardock but that list won't improve the current decline in pc gaming. Expect more delayed console ports and Nancy Drew type crap. If you think that pc gaming is healthy then you haven't been doing it long enough. Consoles used to be lucky to get pc ports (Doom 3), not the other way around.dc337

What are you talking about? Since when have games been ported from the PC to consoles in this generation? I hope you're not talking about Oblivion or BioShock or whatnot, because those were designed with the 360 in mind as lead platform, not the PC. The only actual PC games ported to the 360 were SupCom (LOL), C&C3, and BfME2. And the only NON-RTS PC game actually ported to consoles I can think of was Orange Box, which did better on PCs anyway.

The direction of the porting shows which of the platforms is healthiest. The current state of PC-vs-console gaming now is almost identical to the state of PC-vs-console gaming ten years ago during the PS1 era. PS1 games were being ported en masse to the PC -- Resident Evil, Parasite Eve, Final Fantasy, etc. -- while almost no PC games were being ported to consoles. Just as the PC was the healthiest platform back in 1997-2000 (Half-Life, StarCraft, Diablo 2, Baldur's Gate II, Torment, Fallout, Red Alert, etc.) when all those console games were being ported to it, the PC is the healthiest platform now, since all these console games (Tom Clancy games, GTAIV, Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect, etc.) are being ported to it.

In contrast, PC gaming wasn't growing as much during the PS2 generation. THAT was when you saw the most PC games ported to consoles, with games like Half-Life, Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell, etc., being ported to consoles.

[QUOTE="dc337"]That list of rights is more a list of wishful thinking. It may give you fuzzy feelings about Stardock but that list won't improve the current decline in pc gaming. Expect more delayed console ports and Nancy Drew type crap. If you think that pc gaming is healthy then you haven't been doing it long enough. Consoles used to be lucky to get pc ports (Doom 3), not the other way around.mjarantilla

What are you talking about? Since when have games been ported from the PC to consoles in this generation? I hope you're not talking about Oblivion or BioShock or whatnot, because those were designed with the 360 in mind as lead platform, not the PC. The only actual PC games ported to the 360 were SupCom (LOL), C&C3, and BfME2. And the only NON-RTS PC game actually ported to consoles I can think of was Orange Box, which did better on PCs anyway.

I never stated that consoles were getting pc ports. What I said was that in previous generations consoles were lucky to get games designed for the pc. Now we have console exclusives that pc gamers will only get if they are lucky. Force unleashed is a good example since Lucas Arts used to be a pc gaming company. The same goes for Gears of War 2.

Last generation there wasn't the same amount of multi-platform targeting because gaming pcs were much farther ahead of consoles. A fps designed for the ps2 looked ages behind the pc gaming equivalent. The gap has closed and now gaming companies are either treating the pc as an equal platform or ignoring it. High-end, pc exclusives are becoming rare. It no longer makes good business sense to spend years working on a pc exclusive like crysis.

Pc gaming is anything but healthy. Nancy Drew, The Sims and WoW dominate the charts. Most of the big games this fall are multiplatform and quite a few games that could run on a gaming pc are being released as console exclusives. My gaming pc will probably be collecting dust this fall.

[QUOTE="dc337"]That list of rights is more a list of wishful thinking. It may give you fuzzy feelings about Stardock but that list won't improve the current decline in pc gaming. Expect more delayed console ports and Nancy Drew type crap. If you think that pc gaming is healthy then you haven't been doing it long enough. Consoles used to be lucky to get pc ports (Doom 3), not the other way around.mjarantilla

What are you talking about? Since when have games been ported from the PC to consoles in this generation? I hope you're not talking about Oblivion or BioShock or whatnot, because those were designed with the 360 in mind as lead platform, not the PC. The only actual PC games ported to the 360 were SupCom (LOL), C&C3, and BfME2. And the only NON-RTS PC game actually ported to consoles I can think of was Orange Box, which did better on PCs anyway.

The direction of the porting shows which of the platforms is healthiest. The current state of PC-vs-console gaming now is almost identical to the state of PC-vs-console gaming ten years ago during the PS1 era. PS1 games were being ported en masse to the PC -- Resident Evil, Parasite Eve, Final Fantasy, etc. -- while almost no PC games were being ported to consoles. Just as the PC was the healthiest platform back in 1997-2000 (Half-Life, StarCraft, Diablo 2, Baldur's Gate II, Torment, Fallout, Red Alert, etc.) when all those console games were being ported to it, the PC is the healthiest platform now, since all these console games (Tom Clancy games, GTAIV, Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect, etc.) are being ported to it.

In contrast, PC gaming wasn't growing as much during the PS2 generation. THAT was when you saw the most PC games ported to consoles, with games like Half-Life, Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell, etc., being ported to consoles.