Gamers Need a Bill of Rights

Diablo III shows why.

About a year ago, the video game company Blizzard made a huge announcement about the latest edition of its beloved Diablo franchise: The long-awaited Diablo III would feature an in-game "auction house" where virtual goods could be bought and sold using both the game's gold coins and real-world currency. This was a big change for the Diablo series, and it meant adding a newly stringent forms of digital rights management for players. Gamers would have to be online all the time while playing Diablo III (which had never been the case before), and would be limited in how they could use their auction-house items after buying them.

Long-time fans of the series complained that these changes infringed on their rights. Why should they have to be online while playing the game? What if they don't have access to an Internet connection secure enough to share personal information? And why can't they have more control over items that they bought with their own money?

[Lelldorianx]

I hear your complaints, but this is silly. The company spends the money, hires the developers, and does all the hard work. You decide whether to play it or not. Until you're working in management and making decisions on the game's features, consumers don't have a voice. The only voice a consumer possesses is exhibited by whether a product is purchased or not.

Don't feel entitled. Just as readers don't dictate what an author writes, gamers don't get to decide what is or is not in a game.

[Kyosuke_Sanada]

And I wonder where these game companies get the magical monopoly money to supply these many processes.

You do know to make money its all about supply and demand. If customers DEMAND something and companies don't SUPPLY it, who are the companies going to sell to themselves.

In short, if a customer really wants something in a game or anything and they go through the proper channels to raise awareness which in turn grows his or her group past the majority. Nobody has the right the slap the broom out of their hand to voice their concerns and it would be completely asinine if a company ignores the devoted part of the market which is why so many gaming companies are closing nowadays.......

Companies should make money no doubt but a constant flow of income is achieved by building trust with the consumers to set a foundation. If a gaming developers keeps ignoring the demands of everyone I would love to see how long they would last.....

[sarydactl]

Perhaps just saying consumers of digital [intellectual] property. It can be expanded to include amazon books, apps, and otherwise. Not saying I'm for or against it (I believe in freedom of information), but as long as we're looking for a way to hold companies accountable, that would probably be more appropriate.

[Hufandpuf]

You give up your rights when you give up your money.

[SeekDev]

To a certain degree. You don't even own the rights to the code of the game you bought. When you buy a game, you pay for the ability to play it. That's about it.

[vortis]

But if you pay for the ability to play the game and you can't play it, there needs to be accountability on the distributor/publisher side so that consumers are protected.

[SeekDev]

I strongly agree. DRM is the biggest offender when it comes to the distributor/publisher accountability. With always online DRM, if the servers are down and you can't connect, how do you get compensation for that? What if the company can't maintain the servers anymore, what then? There's too much that a distributor/publisher is not accountable for. Tis ridiculous.

[chukamachine]

I think game companies listen to gamers to much and are influenced to much. And as a result you get a different game.

Gamers complain, games get easier. and either gain features they shouldn't have had, or lose features most people want.

I'd prefer the developers made all the choices without being influenced at all.

[Kyosuke_Sanada]

The true problem is game companies need to try harder in sifting through the complaints to find a balance in between the gaining new fans and keeping the old. Also they should only grab suggestions that promote the identity of the game.

[vortis]

You're completely wrong.

Games are screwed up because of marketing focus groups.

Google search it.

Gamers haven't changed, it's why we can still play games from 15 years ago and talk about how cool they are.

Gamers who complain in today's environment do so because gaming has shifted away from gaming culture and towards business profit. Most games are all "Me-Too" clones designed to cash in.

EA spends more money on marketing than they do in investing in game production (i.e., they spent $50 million marketing Battlefield 3).