Finally, Gamer's Own Right

PAX or Penny Arcade eXpo is a convention-like event dedicated for gamers in US. It's similar to E3. Okay, maybe I've been speaking extra-terrestrial all the while. I am a PC gamer and might always be. This recent year, I'm building up hatred within myself towards console games. If you're 'with' me, you'll recall time not long ago, when there are clear dividing line between PC games and console child-play.

I missed that time. Nowadays, PC games are becoming more and more dumb and inaccessible in term of gameplay. All of this caused by the surging demand for console games since the introduction of X-Box in few years back. Publishers (capable one) seems to ignore PC gamers altogether. They come out with title made specifically for console and ported it to PC version just so that PC gamers can be disappointed. Buggy release, inaccessible UI, foolish game play and such has been plaguing PC gamers since then.

*Sigh* Console games were meant for mass market which made up mostly by idiot and now, we have to be dumb just because they demanded more.

But I was a little glad when I stumbled upon what is called (PC) Gamer's Bill of Right. Stardock and Gas Powered Games, combined to come out with some kind of standard for PC game maker to adhere. Both have produced one great game each, namely Galactic Civilization and Dungeon Siege II which very much stay true for PC gamers to enjoy.

The Gamer's Bill of Right - Copyright of EDGE Online

There are two Rights that attracted most of my attention which is:

Right 2 : Gamers shall have the right to demand that games be released in a finished state.
Right 5 : Gamers shall have the right to expect that the minimum requirements for a game will mean that the game will adequately play on that computer.

Right 2 is the most important one. Has Q&A department vanished from most of the game companies? I remembered back then when game tester were given months for play testing before the actual game was released. It seems now, game company just let people test their game through limited demo and hope for it NOT to be buggy after being released.

There are many people actually trapped with minimum requirement officially announced by game makers. Just take that lowly Oblivion for example. Did they even tried playing it with Pentium 2.0 Ghz, NVidia GeForce 6200 and 512MB physical memory? Awful, it takes couple of seconds before a click of mouse produces action and they assumed people are okay with it. This is where Right 5 take effect, correcting mistakes (or obvious tactic for more sale) made by game companies these past 5 years.

Well, a Right signed by two game studios won't make any difference but I do wish for it to become a start of a better treatment for PC gamers. Maybe we will see once again, the golden age of PC games (I made this up).