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Stardock announces "PC/Gamer's bill of rights"

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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.
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If you buy any game with "online" in the title you should know better. This is nonsense.
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I don't see what games with Online have to do with single player games.
I think they are more talking about games like Bioshock than anything else, where internet activation was required despite the game being single player only. I'm not sure why you brought in the word "online".

People often have more than 1 PC, or maybe they want to play their own games wherever they end up. Having to transport the CD or DVD between multiple machines can be a giant pain. For most games there's a no-CD crack out after at most a few days anyway.
 
Originally posted by: Lonyo
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.
Click to expand...

If you buy any game with "online" in the title you should know better. This is nonsense.
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I don't see what games with Online have to do with single player games.
I think they are more talking about games like Bioshock than anything else, where internet activation was required despite the game being single player only. I'm not sure why you brought in the word "online".

People often have more than 1 PC, or maybe they want to play their own games wherever they end up. Having to transport the CD or DVD between multiple machines can be a giant pain. For most games there's a no-CD crack out after at most a few days anyway.
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#1: I don't have a problem with installing software on more than one PC. The required CD/DVD is to make sure that software is not being actively used at the same time on more than one PC, which in most cases violates the EULA (ie: buying one copy of Doom, installing it on two PCs so you and your buddy can play death-match). Sure there are cracks out there, no denying that.

#2: I guess I was thinking of people who buy games that are clearly marketed and labeled as "online games" (MMOs) and don't like the fact that they can't play unless they log on. I do agree that games marketed as single player (like BioShock) should not require an internet connection to play.
 
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.

Minimum requirements are just that..minimum... like i said before...those words are very subjective. whats Min for u.. maybe not Min for others.
 
Other than #5 and #6, the reason why none of those other business practices are common is because they do not make as much money doing it that way. Find a way to change that fact and you will get what you want. Of course, if you do find a way to change that they I recommend starting your own business because you just hit the jackpot by succeeding where many others have failed.
 
The only thing that has actually put a dent into pc gaming is when the punlishers started going with cdkeys/one individual only registration schemes. This killed the resell market on a lot of games and the software only stores stopped selling and buying used games and their new pc title space went from a wall dispaly as large as any single console selection to a small rack in the middle of the store.
 
Originally posted by: lupi
The only thing that has actually put a dent into pc gaming is when the punlishers started going with cdkeys/one individual only registration schemes. This killed the resell market on a lot of games and the software only stores stopped selling and buying used games and their new pc title space went from a wall dispaly as large as any single console selection to a small rack in the middle of the store.
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Yup, all of the money is in the selling of used games these days. Stores barely get any profit per sale of a new game.
 
Stardock is cool and they are doing some nice lip service, but they aren't in the position to make changes, all they can continue to do is keep paving their own path and hope that their business strategy helps them sell more games.
 
Originally posted by: LS8
7. Gamers shall have the right to re-download the latest versions of the games they own at any time.
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Download from who/where? You expect the developer to setup an FTP server with all their software for you to DL whenever you want? Who pays for the bandwidth? If you lose your media you should pay $5 to the dev for them to mail you replacement media or pay $5 to re-download.
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You missed the part where it says re-download, so Stardock intends this "right" to apply to games you bought from the net. It's implicit that the publisher already has a proper delivery system in place.

I agree with you in that I don't think every publisher *needs* to offer this. That said, if there are no free re-downloads, then IMO the gamer should be allowed to back up the game install by means of straightforward file system copy.

OTOH I think it ought to make good business sense. It costs the game publisher very little to do it, and it seems like a very nice value add. They could have only a small slice of their bandwidth dedicated to the free re-downloads, with a torrent back-end component. Using mostly the users' own bandwidth is not a problem because the service is an extra to begin with. (People could still opt out of sharing their bandwidth and get their download, albeit slower.) This works well for Blizzard.
 
1. Every company should release a demo - that way the gamer can see if the game works or not on their system.

2. It's very difficult to get rid of ALL the bugs in a pc game considering how many different configurations exist along with the numerous issues related to pc hardware components.

3. Agreed - and in a timely manner rather than "yeah..we know about it and we might look into it".

4. Completely agree unless it's a subscription based type game.

5. Completely agree and most games will work with the minimum requirements. I think a lot of people expect to play at 10billion x 23billion screen resolution on a pc that meets the minimum requirements.

6. No brainer on this one - at least provide us with a log file of what was installed.

7. No brainer again - however there should be a requirement to validate that YOU are the original purchaser of the game

8. I think only EA treats their customer as thieves. 😀

9. Agree

10. Completely agree - if I encounter a game that requires the CD/DVD, I immediately head to my favorite no-cd site and grab the no-cd/dvd executable. I'm not playing on a fkn console - I'm playing on my PC!

 
Originally posted by: coloumb
2. It's very difficult to get rid of ALL the bugs in a pc game considering how many different configurations exist along with the numerous issues related to pc hardware components.
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Finished and bug-free aren't the same. As you say, there will always be bugs, but some games are released in an unfinished state.
They may be missing features, or have broken elements etc.
I would classify Rainbow 6: Vegas as unfinished because it lacked even basic non-4:3 resolution support.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KOTOR2#Critical_reaction
Another example of an arguably incomplete game.
 
KOTOR 2 was the most incomplete game ever released that was still technically playable.
And that was a real shame considering how well they did on the first one.
 
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