The Gamers Bill of Rights – Stardock
2008 September 9
I’ve been playing a couple new games recently and while preparing a blog post for Stardock’s new game Sins of the Solar Empire I surfed over to their site to see a new post entitled Stardock Announces “The Gamers Bill of Rights.” After reading it through (and also the varied comments) I must say I agree with every point. I have enjoyed many of Stardock’s games especially the Galactic Civilizations II and it’s expansions. When I think about it Gal Civ II is one of only a handful of games I have purchased and not downloaded via torrents in recent memory and the reason why I bought their games had a whole lot to do with being treated well, no hassle with DRM and an excellent game.
The Gamers 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.
