Stolen Pixels #17: Bill of Limitations

[Shamus Young]

Stolen Pixels #17: Bill of Limitations

This installment of Stolen Pixels theorizes that EA has a few tweaks it would like to make to the Gamer's Bill of Rights. You know, for that personal touch.

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[Eagle Est1986]

lol, good ol' EA, where would we be without them?

 

[pseudoidiot]

Awesome! I was sort of wondering the same thing, myself, as I read the original "Gamer's Bill of Rights": I wonder what EA's take on this would be. Another great comic!

 

[Shamus Young]

lol, good ol' EA, where would we be without them?

I know without them, my job would be a lot harder.

 

[The Schwarz]

Wait a minute, $100 USD is 'notoriously high'? Here in Israel it's about what an average game costs...

 

[JFargo]

Can I suggest you put a link to the original Gamers Bill of Rights? Some people may not have seen the link from your regular homepage, if you have comic readers that don't read your usual stuff.

 

[leverus]

Wait a minute, $100 USD is 'notoriously high'? Here in Israel it's about what an average game costs...

Aye.. I got to load out a 120USD for a new release every time I go game-shopping..

100USD is cheap here..

On the comic - sucks that they make games, which you simply can not boycott (Ex.: Spore) out of commonsense..

 

[Odjin]

Uhm... why? Spore doesn't tingle me one bit: the same old SIM style grinding festival... so what gives? Don't buy it... you won't miss much

What goes for the rights of gamers... extend it to rights of computer users. As soon as DRM comes into play rights exists only on paper. The same goes for other money picking strategies. Sad thing the game industries has become.

 

[i64ever]

#6

You have a right to give us a ton of money for a game that might or might not work.

Its sort of like a lottery. Maybe they could fill half the boxes with old newspaper. At least you'd know you were screwed before you wasted hours trying to install it!

 

[Mistwraithe]

There are very few companies around the world which are so determined and will go to such lengths to harrass, frustrate and annoy their paying companies.

There's a reason for that - it usually means you go out of business!

Maybe the only reason they haven't gone out of business is that even their paying customers give up on running the DRM laden version they purchased and instead install the latest crack so they can run it without being continually screwed over?

 

[Miral]

There are very few companies around the world which are so determined and will go to such lengths to harrass, frustrate and annoy their paying companies.

There's a reason for that - it usually means you go out of business!

Maybe the only reason they haven't gone out of business is that even their paying customers give up on running the DRM laden version they purchased and instead install the latest crack so they can run it without being continually screwed over?

That's an interesting point -- what if the piracy/cracking scene is actually keeping the industry afloat? I know a lot of people who have said that they only pirate/crack to avoid the DRM attached to games nowadays, or to defend against incompatibilities and the inability to return a purchased game.

Of course there's a bit of a chicken and egg problem there. Presumably at least some people were pirating for other reasons, which triggered the use of DRM and no-returns-policies in the first place, which then triggered more people to pirate...

 

[Halbert]

What's insane is that it's becoming SOP to sell someone an incomplete game, and then expect them to pay for "add-ons" that are nothing more than content which should have been part of the original content in the first place!

 

[ElArabDeMagnifico]

I'm sure you've seen this but I'll show you anyway.


I like this comic better though just because it really does seem like an EA manifesto. Is it just me or does this also seem similar to something Microsoft would do?

 

[Mistwraithe]

I hadn't seen that video... excellent!

I am so glad the games I like are mainly single player games... of course the games companies may just stop making single player games by the time they are through with this.

 

[snuffler]

On the comic - sucks that they make games, which you simply can not boycott (Ex.: Spore) out of commonsense..

Spore doesn't look fun at all. I'm not gunna buy it.

 

[Korey Von Doom]

I'm sure you've seen this but I'll show you anyway.


I like this comic better though just because it really does seem like an EA manifesto. Is it just me or does this also seem similar to something Microsoft would do?

I really don't get the use of BFBC in these references to buying stuff from EA, after buying the game there is nothing else to buy, the new maps and game mode were free

 

[SteinFaust]

damn, that poor Falcon's player! he will recover, then get hurt, then recover about 7 times.