In the days of novel-length EULAs, always-on copy protection, forced multiplayer features, and DLC-powered games, gamers can’t forget that they are paying customers of publishers and retailers, and have the same rights any other customers do when they’re dissatisfied with a game. They can’t shrug and accept when the games they spend money on bore into their computers, search their files, call servers without letting them know, and generally treat them like criminals for the temerity of paying money for software.

The SimCity launch debacle is only the latest in an increasingly frustrating string of affronts to gamers’ rights as customers. We shouldn’t only be upset that EA didn’t have enough servers running for the game’s launch. We should be upset that it was unnecessarily designed from the ground up to require an always-on online component. We should be upset that a series that has always been large and single-player has been made small and multiplayer with gamers having no choice in the matter. This wasn’t an issue of not enough servers and poor planning. This was an issue of ignoring gamers’ needs and wants in favor of a system that treats users as children and criminals.

Before SimCity, we had Ubisoft’s always-on DRM (that the company only ended quietly after massive outcry from gamers). We had the forced online and similarly unplayable launch of Diablo III. We had games like Asura’s Wrath and Final Fantasy: All the Bravest that required you to pay more money just to complete them after you purchase them. And let us never forget the utter infamy of StarForce, SecuROM, and Sony’s copy protection, which installed rootkits on computers without users’ knowledge.

Gamers deserve better. They deserve to be recognized as paying customers and not potential criminals strapped to piggy banks. Because of this, I offer the Gamers’ Bill of Rights. It enumerates what we should expect from game developers, publishers, and retailers, and limits the unnecessary and offensive overuse of copy-protection measures. We should be able to expect a certain level of support for the games we buy, and we should feel safe in the fact that they won’t violate our computers when we run them.

If companies like EA, Ubisoft, Square-Enix, Nintendo, and Capcom truly want to regain or keep the trust of gamers, they should consider this an outline for how to treat customers in the future. 

This was loosely based on the Gamers’ Bill of Rights(Opens in a new window) website, which hasn’t been updated in three years but still has an active forum. 

Preamble
Gamers are customers who pay publishers, developers, and retailers in exchange for software.

They have the right to expect that the software they purchase will be functional and remain accessible to them in perpetuity.

They have the right to be treated like customers and not potential criminals.

They have the right to all methods of addressing grievances accessible by other consumer.

They have the right to the game they paid for, with no strings attached beyond the game and nothing missing from the game.

Gamers’ Bill of Rights
I. Gamers shall receive a full and complete game for their purchase, with no major omissions in its features or scope.

II. Gamers shall retain the ability to use any software they purchase in perpetuity unless the license specifically and explicitly determines a finite length of time for use.

III. Any efforts to prevent unauthorized distribution of software shall be noninvasive, nonpersistent, and limited to that specific software.

IV. No company may search the contents of a user’s local storage without specific, limited, explicit, and game-justified purpose.

V. No company shall limit the number of instances a customer may install and use software on any compatible hardware they own.

VI. Online and multiplayer features shall be optional except in genre-specific situtations where the game’s fundamental structure requires multiplayer functionality due to the necessary presence of an active opponent of similar abilities and limitations to the player.

VII. All software not requiring a subscription fee shall remain available to gamers who purchase it in perpetuity. If software has an online component and requires a server connection, a company shall provide server software to gamers at no additional cost if it ceases to support those servers.

VIII. All gamers have the right to a full refund if the software they purchased is unsatisfactory due to hardware requirements, connectivity requirements, feature set, or general quality.

IX. No paid downloadable content shall be required to experience a game’s story to completion of the narrative presented by the game itself.

X. No paid downloadable content shall affect multiplayer balance unless equivalent options are available to gamers who purchased only the game.

Think it needs work? Do you have your own ideas of what gamers should expect and what publishers should offer? Discuss the list and what changes you’d make below.