Stardock drafts "The Gamer's Bill of Rights"

They're doing it right.

There's been a lot of controversy between gamers over DRM issues and games being rushed out the door lately. So imagine my delight when Stardock, an independent developer/publisher of some pretty fantastic games, goes and throws us a bone like this.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, DRM (Digital Rights Management) is essentially software that companies are starting to install with games that we purchase. It limits the amount of times the game can be installed based on different criteria.

The idea behind DRM is to halt piracy, which is good in theory. However, it plays out rather horribly. Companies that use DRM software in their games are essentially treating the customers like the crooks. While the people who pirate the game will have a crack within the week that will render the DRM worthless, those of us who did the right thing and bought the game will have to deal with it forever.

In the case of Mass Effect, BioWare's latest blockbuster RPG, the DRM software included with the PC version of the game only allowed for three installations before the game was worthless. In and of itself, that's an outrage - you don't buy a movie or book and expect to be able to use it a limited amount of times before you have to buy it again, why should games be different? But as if that weren't bad enough for them, BioWare apparently didn't take into account was that the "average" PC gamer is constantly tweaking and upgrading their rig to run the latest games, and the DRM installed "used up" a new installation any time the system's hardware was changed. One user even reported that the DRM chewed up a new installation every time she restarted, and another said the installations were failing but the DRM was flagging them as used anyway. This is, of course, unverifiable, but most people can agree that technology can be a fickle thing and this sort of thing is all too plausible.

I, personally, will never trust my hard-earned money to a game or company that's going to treat me like a thief when I've done nothing wrong. I don't care if it's Starcraft 2 or Spore (which, notably, probably will not include DRM, so I don't start a panic), if it has DRM software it's not making my list of games to buy.

This has turned into a pretty long post; I'll bitch about incomplete and buggy games being released later - I'm looking at you, Age of Conan.