Stardock publishes the “Gamer’s Bill of Rights”
Even if it’s technologically way ahead of any state of the art console, PC videogaming is often viewed as an industry in an identity crisis, on the edge of failure and suffering of ancient and purulent evils like piracy and selling of counterfeit media. In response of this unfavorable view - what is more contradicted by facts - the software house Stardock has brought a “Bill” of fundamental “Rights” for who plays on PC, a desirable behavioral handbook for videogames producers.
“As an industry, we need to begin setting some basic, common sense standards that reward PC gamers for purchasing our games” states the president and Stardock CEO Brad Wardell in a press release released by the company. The true difference between the gaming business on the PC and on the consoles, continues Wardell, is that “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“.
The PC titles market is often characterized by defective products, sold as finished but unable to offer that advertised, satisfying gaming experience. A policy that in the long run is hurting all the software houses, states Wardell, and causing just that unfavorable view as a dying market when it’s actuality a field in full bloom that hasn’t expressed its full business potential, yet.
A business potential, says the Stardock CEO, also curbed by the penetration of the trash of the DRM technologies, protections like StarForce and SecuROM which install hidden drivers whose only outcome is to uselessly bother who purchases original software without preventing, on the other side, piracy and its unauthorized release.
Wardell isn’t new to criticism against copy protections within the games, and in the past March he already said that software houses should think about developing software for their customers only, without taking into account the overall users base inclusive of who prefers piracy to copyright observation too. “Pirates don’t count“, stated Wardell at that time, strengthened by the results achieved by Sins of a Solar Empire (the best selling strategy game for 2008) with no use of any copy protection.
Other than DRM and technically defective or unfinished games, says the CEO, the other fester afftecting PC videogaming is the lack of any certainty about the software functionality on the installed machines base, often so far from the “recommended requirements” to be able to enjoy the purchased product at its best. For this reason, states Wardell, “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“.
In the attempt to give its contribution for spreading the view of the PC as an ideal playing machine, Stardock - with support from Gas Powered Games - has then drafted the following ten rules forming the Gamer’s Bill of Rights:
- Gamers shall have the right to return games that don’t work with their computers for a full refund.
- Gamers shall have the right to demand that games be released in a finished state.
- Gamers shall have the right to expect meaningful updates after a game’s release.
- 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.
- 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.
- Gamers shall have the right to expect that games won’t install hidden drivers or other potentially harmful software without their consent.
- Gamers shall have the right to re-download the latest versions of the games they own at any time.
- Gamers shall have the right to not be treated as potential criminals by developers or publishers.
- 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.
- 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.
It is, in essence, pure and simple common sense, nevertheless it is unlikely at least that gigantic multinationals like Electronic Arts or Activision-Blizzard will decide to adopt such a policy. More than money, the majors think primarily about the control on the distribution and circulation of their products when they talk about piracy and unauthorized P2P, and the only “fundamental” right that they are generally prone to grant to consumers is the one of being fleeced with outrageous prices paid just for scanty products.
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6 Responses to “Stardock publishes the “Gamer’s Bill of Rights””
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PC gaming is blooming, then you get lots of reasons for parents and other buyers to go console. I don’t get it really. It’s obvious to anybody who has played PC games for more than 10 years that PC game sales are falling, less PC titles are being released, the quality of those titles released are lessening, retailers are slowly moving out of PC game sales (hence the move to downloading - not because it’s so good, but because that’s all PC publishers have left!) and PC game magazines (both print and web) are seeing their advertising revenues down, their circulation down and their hits down.
A Video Game Awards ceremony recently shown on TV had little sections on the history of gaming, these little interludes totalled about 15 minutes of air time. While machine like the Atari 800 and Commodore 64 were mentioned, the PC was not. Only console machines. In effect this TV show decided PC gaming was not a part of gaming history.
The above are all signs of PC gamings decline. It is far from booming, although there are still winners like Stardock within this shrinking market.
I will say one last thing that has no logic to it and yet says something: How come, when a game is released on multiple formats the PC is always the last mentioned? As in ‘Available on 360, Wii, PS3 AND… PC?! If that doesn’t say PC gaming is at the end of the line, I don;t knwo what does!
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Well, I wouldn’t be so pessimistic. For my point of view the problems of PC gaming are others, first and foremost the lack of the “platform” thingy that gives visibility such as a strong brand like “Nintendo”, “Sony” or “Microsoft”.
Moreover, consider that the innovation is still and will continue to be on the PC side, for the gaming industry: look at Valve’s “Portal”, look at the Steam success, and consider that Half Life 1 grew up as a very refined Quake II mod. Consoles are great platforms, but are the most limited and useless thing out there if you want to “play” the hard and the right way
Not to say about the graphic cards, Intel’s Larrabee and so on. All that hardware wouldn’t be of any use if there won’t be PC games, so the future, for me, is VERY far from the rout
I was playing on PC at the time of Prince of Persia (1), I’m pretty sure that I will continue to play on PC for the time being
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I went to a gaming website in NZ for the first time and on the front page of the PC section (There aren’t really any PC gaming sites left, they are are multi-format now - another sign of PC gaming’s decline!) there was an article headlined ‘PC Gamers - don’t despair’ that included an interview with the head of Microsoft Gaming saying what you were about Steam,etc and pretending all was well.
Well here comes the bit about the problem you mentioned: That PC doesn’t have a PR person out there supporting the format like Sony and Nintendo do. Now here’s the point: Disagreeing with some of the points in the article I decided to register to make my points. I fully expected to be doing so in the ‘PC Gaming’ section,when when I got to the forum I saw sub forums for PS3 Gaming, I saw a sub forum for Wii Gaming, I even saw a sub forum for Card Gaming - but for PC Gaming all there was was a ‘General Gaming’ sub forum that within it had threads on routers and networking and console hardware problems - and PC gaming threads.
So there you have it. On the front page ‘Pc Gaming is doing great!’ editorial. In the actual forum PC gaming has been relegated to the general gaming section. The consoles demand Gaming sub forums, but the PC didn’t.
I think that says it all, about how you see one thing on the front page, but when you look inside you see PC gamers have to sit in the back of the bus. PC gamers, in the reality of it, are now second class gaming citizens.
Nine months ago a gaming award show on British TV had vignettes about the ‘History of Gaming’, each snippet was maybe ten minutes, and all together the vignettes added up to about 40 minutes. While the Atari 800 and Commodore 64 was mentioned, the PC was not mentioned at all. According to this TV show PC gaming had no part to play in the history of gaming.
With only multi-format charts available now, and NPD only reporting in a multi-format way, we are hearing less and less, officially, about PC gaming and PC gaming history.
It is all these small signs, plus many more that tells me that mainstream PC gaming hasn’t got long to go. Sure there will be a rump of grognards who know about Steam and how to download, there may be other independent publishers that are able to survive through downloads, but with no PC games in any retailers, no PC specific gaming magazines and gaming sites, to most casual and new gamers will not really know PC gaming exists. Certainly Mom and Pop when deciding on a gaming machine for Johnny will not even be aware a PC gaming market exists. Technically then, as long as one publisher survives, PC gaming is not ‘dead’ - but as a mainstream market competing with the consoles. Like the period 1995-2000, it will be ‘dead’. I give it 2-3 years, unless a miracle happens, for PC gaming to cease to be the mainstream gaming format it has been and is barely today.
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Oh - and Portal? Came from a third party developer that produced a title that was thrown in as a filler into a compilation because it was written in Source. Valve itself would never have thought of or made a game like Portal, and no major publisher would have released a game like this as a full price title (assuming it had not being written in Source and with the Valve connection, but just a C++ game that was been touted around the major publishers for release). At most, it would have been converted for console release maybe, but it would not have been accepted for PC release by EA, Blizzard, Atari or any one else. It’s only because it was written in Source and the developers came to Valve that it got into the Orange Pack. The response it got, by the way, showed how PC gamers are crying out for something different!
So when you use an example as to the ‘imagination’ of PC games, make sure you try and find a more general example, and not a very convoluted, one-off case that doesn’t really happen in the general PC gaming marketplace.
It’s no different than the people who use the example of The Sims to show how good sales are. You cannot use one-off examples to prove a general rule. It is using these one-off, ‘non normal’ examples that prove how bad PC gaming is doing because you cannot find a ‘normal example’ to give, because it doesn’t.
If one TV show is a huge hit and the rest of TV is below average you have no TV industry. If one car model sold like crazy but all other models sale were down there would be no car industry. So trotting out every time the Sims and Portal does not prove a successful industry, it just proves how far the norm is to those examples meaning the whole is in trouble.
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Well, again, you are WAY too much pessimistic imho. All the major creative talents of the industry on its whole (John Carmack, the founder of 3D Realms, Valve, and so on), unanimously consider the PC as the dream platform for videogaming. For a performance question but not only.
Personally I consider The Sims the shit of videogaming and a toy for casual gamers and not much more. I’ve used the Portal example to show that the pinnacle of videogaming is and will continue to be the PC. From where come all that FPS rockin’ on the Xbox 360 and on the PS3? From Wolf 3D, Doom. PC games. And the RTS? PC games. And so on. I could say that the pc gaming has influenced the home console market so much that it wouldn’t be where it is now without the 486, Westwood Studios and so on….
As I’ve already said, the very very bad thing about PC gaming is PR. And, considering that the big part of development platforms (I mean, 3D engines and related technologies) out there and in W.I.P. are multiplatform, I’m really confident in the future of my gaming experience.
Ah, and let’s do not forget the whole emulation thing to deal with. My next PC won’t have an LCD (CRT! I want a big, giant and beautiful CRT!) only for a reason: MAME on the LCD sucks
Cheers,
Alfonso.
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Well,I am sure you have heard of Good Old Games that started up last week. It is getting a huge response and word of mouth, and many people are pointing out modern PC gaming is going nowhere in their mind, so they are going back to earlier games. There are also many 20 somethings that are saying they are fed upwith FPS’s and are looking for something different that isn’t there.
Between lack of retail coverage, lack of specific PC gaming coverage both in print and on the web and the ever more onerous DRM madness, I give mainstream PC gaming another two years, give or take. So we’ll talk again January 1st 2011 and see who’s right; industry leaders and the media that, present company excepted, have a vested interest, or concerned gamers that just want PC gaming to be better and can see it’s getting worse.
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