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:
Who is asking for another warranty? If you buy a car with 30 000 miles on it, you get the balance of the warranty.
If you sell 10 000 copies and 1 000 change hands you still have only 10 000 copies out there. This really strikes me as a complete red herring. What difference does it make if it is the original owner downloading patches or if he stops and sells the game to another and that person is downloading, same support (or a slight trivial increase).
Every time I hear this it seems like nothing but greed backed rationalization.
Consumer preference: Gamer A gets tired of a game, decides to sell it to gamer B, thus recouping something and Gamer B gets a lower price. Win-win for both consumers.
Corporate preference: Gamer A is tired of game so he should just throw it in the closet and get zero value returned and game B should pay full price. Lose-lose for both consumers. But win for the corporation. Two copies sold and only one being played.
I think Stardocks policies are among the best in the industry, but they do not constititue any kind of consumer bill of rights, because of obvious conflicts like the above. My annoyance stems not so much from Stardock policies, but from the pretension that this conflict of interest doesn't exist when it is so blindingly obvious. Suggesting there is no such conflict is insulting to the intelligence of all involved.
I personally think #10 is the best.
But if you sell a million copies? Even if on average it costs $5 (number out of nowhere, obviously) to support each copy, and a million copies change hands, they now spend another $5 million on support without seeing any revenue from the 1 million new users.
True that at any one time you have the same number of copies regardless of how many times it's re-sold, but they would still potentially spend multiple times to support the same copies.
If you have an installation issue and you contact support, that time does cost them money. If you re-sell and the new user has installation problems and contact support, it costs them money again for the same thing. Keep going in the chain..
I personally doubt it's a lot of money per person. But take ~3.3 million users potentially reselling over the years, and the new ~3.3 million again reselling. Even small amounts per person add up to a lot of money when enough users are involved.
So, if you loathe the idea of essentially wasting your $40-$50 if you get tired of a game, again how do you expect a company not to loathe wasting millions when their millions of users "get tired"?
This "conflict of interest" mainly exists because we as consumers tend to be very hypocritical. We want to do exactly what we want and we hate the idea of wasting money, and yet we don't want to allow companies to have the same ideology and expect them to be OK with wasting money because, presumably, they have a ton of money to waste to begin with (even though by comparison with paying $40 for a game, most of us have a ton to waste as well).
You are building a ridiculous house of cards out of "what ifs" here. Do you work for these guys?
First the amount of copies that actually changes hands is quite small as is the number of people who call support lines to install a game. Probably on the order of 5% each or less. 5%x5% is a very small number.
That you (and/or Stardock) think the customer is being hypocritical for not being concerned that it will add pennies in support cost to support proper resale rights is irrelevant to my point that such conflicts do exist. Belittling the consumer about his concerns doesn't make them go away. This is exactly why consumer rights don't belong in the hand of the producer. That leads to a one sided (producer favorable) set of rights that are obviously nothing more than the producers policies renamed.
Personally I'm very pleased with number one. If my computer meets or exceeds the minimum requirements as stated on the box, I expect that the game will work on my system. If it doesn't, I want a refund.
The current return policy for opened computer software is analogous to going to a restaurant, buying a meal and then discovering you are allergic to one of the ingredients. If you didn't know, and the chef didn't know, it's really nobody's fault. But at the same time no one in their right mind is going to expect you to pay for that meal.
I also will cheer the virtues of number 4, which basically flips the bird to Steam.
Number two is also a BIG one that I like. One of my favorite games, Star Wars: Battlefront 2, still has a gameplay glitch that has not been solved in a single patch since the game was released. It's only a minor annoyance, but it speaks volumes about the lack of commitment developers have to actually fixing bugs. Jephir is correct when he says games are abandoned. I have a stack of cool games with big problems because the developer just doesn't care enough to fix them.
In the wake of that mini-rant, I'd like to add number 11 to the list, which might even replace number 10 because I really have no problem with that one.
11. Gamers shall have the right to expect that games with bugs or glitches will continue to be supported, updated, and fixed even if the original developer that made the game is bought out by, or merges with another company or developer.
I freaking love stardock. I really do. In fact not only that I want to marry stardock have kids with it and those kids to go on to lead sucessful and meaningful companies that support gamers.
Has anybody else noticed that EA broke most of these rules when they released spore? Stardock I may not truly love all your games but I still freaking love you as a company keep it up you guys the gamers want to see much much more from you guys
The Escapist just published a very nice article on the basic topic at hand. The title of the article is "We the Gamers."
Spawning babies. You'll have so many babies. 400 babies.
Didn't you get your money's worth when playing the game for hours and hours, the way I see it, a game that is fun to play has payed itself !
Not only that, developers/publishers who give in return a rock solid game, NEEDS to be backed up (certainly PC games !! ) to show others that there is still a profit IF you create a good game ! So, why would I sell a game for less money ? I'd recommend Gamer B to get the game aswell !!!
People have always had the right to sell their used goods for whatever reason. Perhaps Stardock is moving in that direction. Note the interim update that Stardock has made to the "Bill of rights":
10. Gamers shall have the right to sell or transfer the ownership of a physical copy of a game they own to another person.
https://www.stardock.com/about/newsitem.asp?id=1123
Just so people realise what they mean by no updater is like when E.A DOWNLOADER HAS TO BE ON TO PLAY E.A GAMES!
sorry but i had to stress that point.
I tried to play Assassins creed 2 online for example and ubisoft had that same kind of system i had to be running their program same thing with settlers 7 as well it irritated me because it constantly checked my online and i couldn't use trainers or cheatengine etc. all kinds of ridiculous things when i just wanted to play in singleplayer and enjoy myself ontop of that it forces you to update every time instead of just staying with the version you have.
Whereas impulse you can download the game and never turn it on again and still run just fine.
Thats the Difference now if after reading this you still don't get the difference you are clearly incapable.
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