In April of 2009 Stardock released Gas Powered Games’ much anticipated PC action/strategy game Demigod. Within hours, it became apparent that the multiplayer infrastructure created for the game was not sufficient to handle the sheer volume of players resulting in a poor online experience. Publisher Stardock and Developer Gas Powered Games teamed up to design, develop and release a more scalable solution but this meant for the first 3 weeks of availability of the game that multiplayer matchmaking was unreliable. Right #1 from the Gamers Bill of Rights states: Gamers shall have the right to return games to the publisher that are incompatible or do not function at a reasonable level of performance for a full refund within a reasonable amount of time. In addition right #2 states: Gamers shall have the right that games they purchase shall function as designed without technical defects that would materially affect the player experience. This determination shall be made by the player. Demigod clearly violated #2 on launch. While Stardock and Gas Powered Games believed after a lengthy public beta that the game’s online infrastructure was ready, the result clearly showed otherwise. Because Stardock is a signer on the Gamers Bill of Rights, Right #1 was enforced. Players who ran into online problems were actively told that they could return their game to Stardock for a full refund even if they purchased it at retail (thus Stardock would eat the cost difference between wholesale and retail). Stardock advertised this right in the game’s user manual as well as in the online forums and in mailers to users. Between April and the end of June, 1712 users returned Demigod to Stardock for a full refund. By August 1st, nearly 1000 of those users had re-purchased the game from Stardock (with some unknown number likely repurchasing it at retail) once the connectivity issue had been addressed. Anecdotal evidence indicated that many users were encouraged to purchase future games published by Stardock because they knew that they would be taken care of if a game they purchased with “Stardock’s name on the box” had a problem with their computer. While it is too early to tell whether Stardock’s following of Right #1 will result in a long-term economic benefit to the company, it seems clear that following it helped avert potential ill-will from the gaming community and provided, even inadvertently, a precedence for what a violation of right #2 is.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account