Butler` says:

I can see what they are getting at, but as you rightly point out, the list does seem a bit point-scorey throughout - even rose tinted.

It’s certainly nothing to feel like you’re being overly critical of.

August 30th, 2008 at 12:26 am

someyoungguy says:

point 9. i really wish i could play(and mod) my retail copy of HL2 on my desktop. i don’t have the internet at home though…

August 30th, 2008 at 12:31 am

Jae Armstrong says:

Points 2 and 3 directly contradict each other. If a game is finished, it cannot be added to by definition.

Point 2 should probably be rephrased as “Gamers shall have the right to expect games not to be released in a bugged state” (still controversial, but hey), and Point 3 should perhaps become “Gamers shall have the right to expect bugs in a game to be patched to the best of the developers ability” (bear in mind that some bugs might require complete reworking of the game from the ground up).

August 30th, 2008 at 12:49 am

Leelad says:

Are they saying Steam is a bad thing?

While some points would be nice if adhered to the whole thing is anal pie after the Steam dig.

August 30th, 2008 at 1:02 am

chaos4u says:

im really supprised at the blase attitude here so far .

after reading several forums on the comcast cap.

and now a company that is trying to improve pc gaming and ensure that gamers are treated fairly.

im disappointed to read comments like propaganda, and not appreciate the the royal treatment you get when you buy the game from the digital download store .

i find this really alarming . it appears consumers have become a push over for what ever is handed their way .

whether it be gaming, internet service, or cell phones it looks like the majority is willing to accept poor service and products.

after stardocks article i was kinda expecting to see a rallying of support for better treatment. but after reading this article and these comments . it looks like people really do not care and will gladly pay for a lesser product and cheerfully ignore those who are offering better services and products.

well hooray for stardock!! its good to see a company who wants to support their customers and will try to deliver a product that either meets or exceeds a high standard.

yes i am excited by this because its about time a company comes forward and says we realize we need to satisfy the customer and deliver a quality product .

so thank you stardock for trying to take a stand i hope you are able to live up to this standard.
i hope that in time through your efforts people will realize that there is something to be said for a company who cares about quality . and the bar will be raised and we will all benefit from this.

August 30th, 2008 at 1:21 am

kimliatach says:

Here Here
Chaos4u
/seconded

August 30th, 2008 at 1:35 am

Carda says:

Point 2 seems to be aimed more at the publishers than the developers. Particularly Sega, who seem to have this anal tendency to provide the development team with just enough time to get the game to work, but not enough time to make it not suck (and anyone who’s played the most recent Sonic the Hedgehog game knows exactly what I’m talking about).

I would gladly wait a few more months for a truly complete game than have a game that was pushed out early but incomplete… like it was delivered by C-section or something.

August 30th, 2008 at 1:40 am

Mickiscoole says:

I think that the main problem with this is with the use of the words ‘finished’ and ‘adequate’ etc. Jump onto the Counterstrike forums and you will always find someone who believes that they should be able to run it on 100% graphics with a frame rate of 250, and any less is false advertising by valve or something.

August 30th, 2008 at 1:49 am

MeestaNob! says:

I agree in principal with the majority of those points, it’s a list of things we should expect but sadly don’t receive due to being treated like fools by the industry. What’s worse is the notion that these ideals would be somehow easier to adhere to if we just wrote them down.

The thing I most dislike about the list however is that a few of the points feel like Stardock grandstanding a little. Whilst the none to subtle digs at DRM and draconian piracy methods are appreciated, attacking quality platforms like Steam is not. While the idea of a Bill of Rights for Gaming sounds like a noble cause, using it as a cynical attempt to dig at competitors is petty and, in this example, slightly pathetic. This is amateur hour stuff, and they should reconsider before they try something similar again in the future.

Much like an actor spouting off about apartheid or terrorism or whatever, I cant help but feel StarDock should STFU and stick to what they do best: making software.

Just a small aside: One thing that might slip some peoples notice is that StarDock can afford to invest more time and money into creating bug free quality games thanks to their other line of shovelware that makes them plenty of extra money. With a lot of developers going tits up every few weeks, it highlights a big issue with the industry: lack of diversification. Most companies in other industries have varied products and investments purely as a precaution. Perhaps the smaller studios who are going out on a limb with their first couple of products should be giving themselves a safety net by creating simpler games (or other software) initially to get a solid base of funding. There’s too many Origins in the world and not enough Valve/Blizzard/StarDocks’.

August 30th, 2008 at 2:02 am

Al3xand3r says:

Nice to see people here see how obvious the Stardock PR stunt is… Other websites reporting this took it seriously, even though they were skeptical about how practical the list is, ha.

But, whatever, I still love Stardock for what they do, it would be nice if they made a serious suggestion in the future but until Microsoft does it as a requirement for “Games for Windows” branded titles, it’ll never be taken seriously anyway. And Microsoft won’t.

Though, I don’t think Stardock should be blamed for having other sources of income. Other companies have superior sales with a larger amount of titles so they should be able to deliver everything Stardock does. It’s not like Stardock can afford to take a loss with piracy (and their other software is prone to piracy also by the way) otherwise they might as well give up on making games and just focus on their other business. What they do, any other studio can do also really, whether they only do games or not. Developing other types of software doesn’t make it easier to keep their games DRM free.

Also, as far as I know, their patches are just as easy as their full games to pirate, so their success doesn’t rely on providing content or services pirates can’t get. I’d say that’s based solely on the quality of their games, the respect they give their customers by default, and the fact they know piracy can’t be helped in any other way so they waste no resources for that, instead they spend said resources for better games, better support, better overall products that can sell more. I guess.

August 30th, 2008 at 2:05 am

Will Tomas says:

While you could argue that points 4 and 9 are digs at Valve, personally I wholeheartedly agree - for online games I understand why it’s necessary but I would at least like Steam to ask if I want to download updates for games. Also I went through a phase of not having the internet at home for months after moving house, and not being able to play the Orange Box because of this - even the single-player parts - I found intensely frustrating, and because Steam’s offline mode throws wobblies occasionally it wouldn’t even let me play the already installed HL2.

Good list, although I agree that they’ve chosen a list probably only they would agree with among developers. Lovely idea though, it being an arguable PR stunt notwithstanding.

August 30th, 2008 at 2:42 am

Bozzl3y says:

Also, number 4 - only comes into play if the game is released and is bugged to fuck, in which case point 1 or 2 comes into effect. The game should still be playable as a single player game if the internet is unavailable. Steam lets you play the games you’ve got if you’re on or off the net, and if you’re off the net, then no updates are necessary.

I think.

August 30th, 2008 at 2:57 am

Benjamin Barker says:

2ds pointed out what I was going to, that some of these are matters of labeling or disclosure– in a way that disregards how an indie developer might do business, it seems to me. The rest are either “buyer beware” common sense, or pointing out that DRM is annoying…

The would be much more reasonable as “Stardock’s Top Ten Tips for Buying PC Games”. I’ll take it as that.

August 30th, 2008 at 3:01 am

Darth Benedict says:

If anyone has earned the right to brag about their treatment of customers, it’s stardock. Even steam seems draconian in comparison.

August 30th, 2008 at 3:33 am

Drongo69 says:

It may seem like “propaganda” or “point scoring”, but Stardock have every right to do so. Holy shit, they don’t treat their customers with contempt, and yet they still manage to turn a healthy profit?

Radical!

I have zero complaints about these points, they are all spot on. It’s ludicrous that this is not the default state of the industry.

August 30th, 2008 at 4:20 am

Muzman says:

It’s a bit… nice in places. They might as well go right at the DMCA and its ilk, since its not legally binding.

A well equiped militia being essential to preserve the medium against time, the right of the people to keep and bear copyright security breaking and circumventing software shall not be infringed

August 30th, 2008 at 4:52 am

Darkelp says:

Okay, so I understand what Stardock are doing, but I see a few loop holes. One which involves numbers 1 and 10.

If this were to take affect, I could in theory go out and buy several games, install them onto a spare drive (or flash drive) and then return these products. I would of gotten the latest games for free. And I won’t have to worry about ant bugs because number 2 helps me out there. And I know I can get away with it, because number 4 means my copy will never be checked again to see if its a pirate copy.

Okay so maybe this is alittle far fetched, but it’s quite possible in my eyes were these to be the standard for development companys.

Plus number 5 feels abit redundant with website’s offering to scan your computer to see if it can run the latest games.

I’m glad that Stardock are trying to create a set of standards for the industry. But as an avid gamer, and a gamer that doesn’t pirate any games, I gotta ask. Why weren’t we asked what we want a bill of rights to look like.

August 30th, 2008 at 7:54 am

Azhrarn says:

@Dorian
Absolutely right about #5, and credit is due for Stardock here too, usually you can get their games to run quite decently on computers a good deal below minimum spec. (although that takes quite a bit of tweaking)

Overal I think that this Bill of Rights is not a bad thing, there are other companies that come pretty close to this fulfilling many of the points on this list. (Valve only missing a few for instance)
Also, you can say what you like, but Stardocks no-DRM policy hasn’t been bad for them. (You do need the game registered through Impulse or Stardock Central to get updates, but that’s not really DRM)

GalCiv and Sins of a Solar Empire both sold well above expectations and even on some piracy sites you see calls from people that like the games encouraging pirates to purchase them, because Stardock deserves their support for not putting DRM on the software.

My appologies for sounding a bit like a SD-fanboy, but I really like the company (and thanks to my tastes, their games too)

August 30th, 2008 at 8:28 am

Richard Slater says:

The issue any developer is going to have is if the publisher starts getting uppity about releasing a game their hands are tied, loose the publisher, face penalties or release the game in an unfinished state. When it comes down to it, better an unfinished game than no game at all.

Equally publishers have to understand that pushing developers to release a game that isn’t finished will result in lower sales because people will quickly find out that it is buggy or even worse not feature complete.

Instead of “finished game” perhaps “feature complete” would be a better phrase.

August 30th, 2008 at 8:50 am

Guido says:

Meh, too much negativity and too little time. Just very short…

#2 and #3 contradictory? No, because yes, a finished game can be added to, if you define “finished” as “complete with all the features it’s advertised to have and no gamebreaking bugs”, as I’m certain SD do. Still, new features can be added, just look at SoaSE where they’re still working on the single player part. Those things don’t necessarily have to be free of course though, so #3 is possibly a bit too strong.

#5, the argument that there’s gazillions of specs out there and singling out a good minimum spec doesn’t work … well, if a computer has the exact specs that are given as “minimum” and, as happened in UT3 (that I like otherwise) they get 10 fps in a shooter, that spells pure fail. Leave away the minimum specs if you’re overwhelmed by your own industry’s base, the hardware.

#9 is indeed quite important, particularly for those of my friends who don’t have internet connections (yes, they exist). #6 and #8 then, just like #9, indeed show SD’s stance towards piracy, one I support, but not really one everybody has to like - they were the ones that made me buy SoaSE right after release though without even knowing how good the game is…

Anyway, now this comment got way too long for my time. All in all, I think this bill of rights is a huge step into the right direction, but unfortunately the points are too utopian for most gaming companies - they haven’t discovered yet that the game industry doesn’t work like the cars or clothes industry. Just look at how EA tries to lock down second hand sales, they’re silly like that.

August 30th, 2008 at 8:51 am

Rudolf says:

point 4 is total rubbish, especially for online multiplayer-enabled games. You don’t want people storming your servers with a dozen different incarnations of your game. That’s why you HAVE TO update to join say…battlefield, tf2, wow, counter strike servers…Everything else doesn’t make sense.

August 30th, 2008 at 9:10 am

suchchoices says:

Stardock and Ironclad are developing `micro expansions’ for Sins of a Solar empire. The first one is $10 for two new structures and some turret upgrade techs. Talk about a bargain!

Perhaps item number three in the bill of rights should be changed to read:

3. Gamers shall have the right to expect to pay a disproportionately high cost for meaningful updates after a game’s release.

Compared to valve’s stream of content updates for team fortress 2 - for no additional cost to those who already purchased the game - this reeks of cynicism and greed.

August 30th, 2008 at 9:19 am

The Apologist says:

I am kissing their nose right now. With tongues.

@ those accusing them of self-promotion - I have written a charter like this before in an entirely unrelated field. If it is self-promotion, then whatever, but I doubt it. This just relates strongly to the way Stardock operate because they are a company with values - that’s they way they try and do things. Go them.

@Chaos4u If it is a genuine attempt to do something positive, they will want to establish what is an expression of the common ground which they can occupy with many gamers and other developers and publishers with similar values. Stardock will know, having put something like this out there, that they now need those people commenting, and particularly those suggesting edits will be very welcome to Stardock, and hopefully they will iterate on this start.

And I think Jetsetlemming’s list is the best I’ve seen.

August 30th, 2008 at 9:52 am

Dinger says:

Note that all rights are “Rights to expect” and “Rights to demand”, not “Rights to.”
Good list. Critical of Valve? Valve’s wrong on forced downloads. Stardock has already complemented Valve with the highest form of flattery: anyone see Impulse?
But if you’re modelling it on the Bill of Rights, you might as well state principles, rather than applications:
A. The publisher should only release games that will work in the conditions specified.
–> that means complete games. I don’t care about a studio’s economic woes, pressure of investors, full-page magazine adverts. The game must be finished and functional to an acceptable level. You can pay to beta Mount and Blade if you like, but if large parts of it are broken, a reputable publisher should not be releasing it.
–> That also means verifying that the min specs on there produces an enjoyable experience. Nearly two decades ago, when I worked in a testing house, we’d have to test every PC title that came through on a min-spec machine. Some things haven’t changed. Publishers and developers seem to develp on top-shelf rigs and shovel to the public.

B. The purchaser is the judge of a game’s functionality. Configurations vary. My CPU fan may have jumped its mount. Whatever the case, returns of non-working games have to be allowed.

C. A publisher should make no undue demands on the gamer’s hardware or internet connection. If a plumber comes to your house to fix the toilet, it’s not reasonable to expect her to go rifling through your bedroom. And if she wants to to borrow your car to go fetch a new toilet seat, well she better ask first. The same for a game. A game has no right to change anything on my computer not needed to play the game. If a game wants some multiplayer-secure spy software (punkbuster) installed, it better be optional and work without it as well, The same goes for my internet connection. Not everyone in the world has cheap broadband, and it is presumptuous to force the user to download a large sum of data.

D. Publishers must actively support a project post-release. Yes, patches butadditonal content if possible. Many here don’t understand this too well. Here’s the deal: making games for gamers instead of pirates means catering to the market segments that don’t pirate everything. Many non-pirates (and I’m going to guess, a lot of pirates) will buy games that they invest a lot of time in. The retail market plays to pirates’ proclivities: a big spike in early sales, followed by bargain cuts and a trip to the discount bin in six months. Pirates, likewise, download early, and often. Online distribution can and does see sales over a longer period. While adding new (free) downloadable content (and Sins has had some major freebies before this $10 pack) won’t do much to convince a retailer to put the thing back on the shelf, it does spike online sales. I’m sure Valve, if they ever talked about such things, would be able to tell you in monetary terms just how much each TF2 update is worth.

August 30th, 2008 at 10:25 am

tim e says:

Has anyone asked Stardock if games published through their digi-downloader will be required to adhere to these rules?

August 30th, 2008 at 10:47 am

Dinger says:

Azhram — that’s basically my point. SDC does not look like Steam; Impulse looks like Steam. I don’t really see this list as taking a swipe at Valve; you’d have to be a raving Angry Internet Man to see any criticism as an attack.

August 30th, 2008 at 11:40 am

Matt says:

Even putting aside the possibility of partisanship effectively torpedoing what ought to be a fairly significant document, there’s a much bigger issue here: duty.

If you’re going to have a right, there has to be* a duty placed upon other parties to ensure that that right is upheld, which brings up two big problems in this case. One, most famous expressions of rights are framed in terms of rights which result in negative duties, for a very good reason: I have a right to life, so you have a duty not to deprive me of my life, which you can achieve by doing nothing.

Here though if I have a right to redownload a title at any time, that requires that a duty be placed on someone that they make the effort to set up or make use of an effective download service, which means that if the duty-holder does nothing, they’ve violated one of my rights. Uh-oh.

(And what happens if that entity goes out of business or otherwise ceases to exist? Do I end up with an inviolable right to something that has no-one responsible for upholding it? Who, after all, holds the duty for patching DoW:Soulstorm?)

And of course you’ll notice some hand-waving there about “duty-holder”, which segues nicely into the second point: who is responsible here, who has the duty? Is it the developer or the publisher? (Or even the distributor, as in point 1). Sure, as a developer-publisher it’s a moot question, but for everyone else it seems that you’d have to pin everything on the publisher, as the holder of the purse strings - but then the strictures of points 2, 3 and 7 would probably combine to put the majority of publishers out of business overnight, effectively killing the PC gaming industry.

So yeah, I think this needs a little more thought if it’s intended to be a serious proposal rather than a PR stunt.

* I’m sure someone, somewhere has worked out a theory of rights which doesn’t imply duties. Good for them.

August 30th, 2008 at 12:36 pm

Ginger Yellow says:

“t’s a nice idea but i hardly expect a company that sells me something online to still allow me to download it off them 20 years from now. I’d like it but i’m not sure if it is realisitic. ea currently allows me to redownload my copy of mass effect for 2 years. If i can manage to make a backup of the game in that time i think if i loose it it is my own fault.”

I don’t know about that. Much though I love the digital download revolution, I do fear for what it means for gaming’s posperity. What happens ten years from now when half of developers/publishers have gone bust, and everyone has used up their activations? We’re going to lose a huge amount of gaming heritage forever if we don’t think about this sort of stuff now. It’s bad enough with dodgy backwards compatibility. Personally I think the ESA/ELSPA/PC Gaming Alliance should be funding an archive of games, in the same way that the AFI and BFI do for films.

August 30th, 2008 at 12:56 pm

SwiftRanger says:

@suchchoice: If there is one obvious flaw about Team Fortress 2 then it is that it didn’t ship with enough content (only one CTF map? I mean…), period. What Valve is doing now is generous but certain content updates were needed if you notice what they originally shipped with.

Those micro addons (two more in the works) for SoaSE are entirely optional, and won’t divide the online player base at all unlike some full expansions for other RTS games usually do. I think Stardock/Ironclad are just experimenting with it, like cutting a regular addon into three (content and price) and perhaps in the future bundle them all for an addon price to hit retail. It certainly doesn’t sound as idiotic as the Horse Armor fiasco, and Entrenchment has minefields (and who knows what else) as well which you failed to mention.

And seriously, if you think SoaSE didn’t got enough free updates then you’ve been living on another planet. They’ve been giving out free maps and have implemented numerous changes based on customer feedback in their updates.

August 30th, 2008 at 1:55 pm

suchchoices says:

@SwiftRanger - granted, tf2 only shipped with one ctf map - but the ctf gametype itself is horrible - at least on public servers - more often that not it leads to one or both teams playing an extremely negative defensive game and then the match drags on for half an hour without anything happening. Hydro alone is worth countless ctf maps. Apologies, my distaste for ctf drags me off topic. At least in my case, TF2 had more than enough content to keep me entertained for months until the free updates started to roll out.

Whereas Sins only had enough -gameplay- to keep me occupied for a couple of weeks. I disagree with the oft stated assertion that it’s a real time strategy game with the depth of a turn based strategy game - to me, it feels like a game with the depth of a real time strategy game which plays at the speed of a turn based game. Hardly the best of both worlds. The depth is certainly not helped by the hilarious imbalances in the game which leads to very few strategies actually being viable in multiplayer (sure, the game has a culture mechanic, but you’re never going to win via culture against a TEC player sova rushing and then spamming LRMs, not to mention the disparity between the late game techs of each race) so I feel that the patches based on community sentiment were entirely warranted and necessary.

Apologies again, I forgot to mention minefields, but even in the case that these are featured I fail to see how such meagre new content justifies a $10 price tag. It’s unfair to append `who knows what else’ because as yet, as far as i am aware, ironclad and stardock have not hinted at any additional content whatsoever.

But, I guess, to each their own. If enough sins players are inspired to pay $10 for these relatively meagre microexpansions, then all the best to them, and to Ironclad&Stardock.

August 30th, 2008 at 2:56 pm

PJ says:

this article reaks of hypocrisy. Not the stardock bill or rights bit but the supposed “oh I am high and mighty professional reviewer and have no favorites”. RPS gives the feeling that Valve and Steam can do no wrong.

August 30th, 2008 at 4:40 pm

Dreaded Walrus says:

Starforce Gamer’s Bill of Rights.

Now that would be an interesting read.

August 30th, 2008 at 5:02 pm

Azhrarn says:

@Dreaded Walrus:
the StarForce one wouldn’t so much be a bill of rights for the consumer as one for publisher, and it wouldn’t be favorable to consumers either.

August 30th, 2008 at 5:39 pm

moonracer says:

It is a good start, but I doubt other companies are going to pick this up and say “lets work on this as a community” and create some sort of mutually agreed upon and reasonable “Bill of Rights”.

I think a big issue that is not touched upon here is that PC games need to get back to a state where legitimate owners can resell their used copies. That is something that used to be the norm and is now only possible with console games for the most part.

August 30th, 2008 at 6:29 pm

Gnarf says:

Oh, well done on discovering Stardock’s super-hidden and secret agenda and all. It would indeed carry a lot more weight if the list consisted of a lot of rights that Stardock themselves ignored, and serve more of a purpose if it was a list of things everyone was doing anyways.

Point 2 can’t apply to anything but the publishers. Developers don’t enter into it. It’s publishers that decide to publish or not publish games in whichever states they’re in. Fairly straightforward.

It might be worth debating whether players really would want that 2nd point though. A lot of more or less bugridden games have been crazy awesome. It’s not a given that each would have been released at all if publishers weren’t “allowed” to publish buggy messes.

August 30th, 2008 at 9:14 pm

slaine says:

All the comments talking about whether the 10 points are applicable to publishers or developers only are MISSING THE POINT.

It’s a GAMER’s bill of rights. These are supposed to be things a GAMER has a right to expect from the industry. How you split the responsibility along the publishing/distributing/development chain is IRRELEVANT.

It is the industry as a whole that should be responding to these issues. That’s why it’s called a Gamer’s Bill of Rights, and not the Bill of the Rights a Gamer Should Expect of a Developer.

Steam may be a necessary evil as far as digital distribution goes, but that doesn’t mean that their model is perfect, especially their DRM policies.

August 31st, 2008 at 1:48 am

Nick says:

Yeah, that right there is the stuff all right.

Now all they need to do is release a game I want to buy so I can give them my hard earned money. (Not-MoM ftw!)

August 31st, 2008 at 5:26 am

Al3xand3r says:

@PJ:
Uh, I don’t see Steam mentioned at all in the article while he does state he agrees with the NO DRM policies which would be something Steam is not doing. What are you on about RPG favoring Steam as if it can do no wrong?

August 31st, 2008 at 8:35 am

Gnarf says:

Like maybe if they wrote it on a napkin instead and called it “You know, whatever works for you and we’re not saying everyone should be going about it this way or anything, not at all, but these are some things we are doing and maybe someone thinks it’s a bit nice?”.

August 31st, 2008 at 12:30 pm

LionsPhil says:

Erm. This might start mattering the day people actually care about being regularly bent over by publishers, then paying for the priviledge.

As long as you keep buying badly-engineered, DRM-laden crap, I’m sure EA, Ubisoft, Valve, et. al. can just drown out the Internet bitching by going for a swim in their basement full of money.

September 1st, 2008 at 2:31 pm

cuprohastes says:

Actually Ubisoft released Splinter Cell : Double agent in such a poor state that it was mostly unplayable for a long time for most users. Also, Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl and Stalker: Clear Sky were released in such shambolic state that Clear Sky needed major patching twice within 7 days of release.

Both companies knew they had unfinished code but they sent it out anyway to generate cash on the grounds that “We’ll patch it later” and also because many stores don’t offer a return policy, that the games couldn’t be returned.

September 10th, 2008 at 11:36 pm