The video game industry is growing fast. It is a multi-billion dollar a year industry that is quickly becoming as common and acceptable as any other hobby, activity, or obsession.
Gone are the days of the stereotype gamer hidden away in his parents' basement shunning society and human contact. Video games today are social, thought-provoking, artistic, dramatic, creative, and educational (not to mention downright exciting). With the video game industry reaching its largest audience yet with this latest generation of consoles, it may be time to stand up and tell the leaders of this industry what we expect in a game as gamers.
That's exactly what some gamers have already begun. User "jcpetersen" over on the Playstation Forums began a thread listing what he believes should be included in the "Gamer's Bill of Rights." Well thought-out and insightful, he and other posters have come up with an excellent list of "rights" that is beginning to read like a Utopian compilation of everything gamers have ever wished for or complained about in games. Although posted on the Playstation Forums, there should be no partisan gaming for this list, as nearly all of its rights apply to any console or platform's games.
Check out below to see some of the Gamer's Bill of Rights and make sure to comment on what unalienable rights you think gamers should have.
- Gamers have the right to map controller buttons any way they want. Multiple default settings are fine, but full customization needs to be included. Controllers have too many buttons and triggers for any setting to work for everyone.
- Gamers have the right to have a brightness setting in the game. Today's games are being played on some high end televisions, and we don't want to adjust our carefully calibrated display settings just because we need to fight shadow demons in the Cave of Darkness with the Sword of Eternal Night and actually want to see what we're doing.
- Gamers have the right to skip cutscenes and other cinematics. Games are interactive - if we're not active, we're not happy. If we want to watch your movies or anything else we're not controlling, we will - just give us the option to skip it so we can get back to playing.
- Gamers have the right to multiple playthroughs that add value. A different colored jacket is not adding value - make the game a different (better) experience that we WANT to play through again and again.
- We gamers have the right to speak loudly with our wallets and the right to refuse to buy bad games. Even if developers insist on making them and sequels with few improvements to justify the price.
- We have a right to be able to save anywhere games. Because, if we have to suddenly quit the game that we are playing, we can save the place we are at and go back to play later. Yeah, no more checkpoint saves.
- We have the right to not have shaky cameras that hide enemies and certian other aspects of the gameplay and make us dizzy while playing. Because manually adjusting a camera that won't sit still, just makes it frustrating to play.
- We have a right to have a training level for games with online multiplayers, because some of us need to have a place to practice first, before playing with other/better players.
[Via Playstation Forums]
