Topic: CNET AU's Code of Conduct for Digital Distribution

[MysterD]

CNet AU -> Code of Conduct for Digital Distribution.

I agree w/ A LOT of this stuff here. Great article.

[Cobra951]

And the loser is...

For its ridiculous requirement for players to be permanently online to play its games, for marking up the prices of its games in different regions, for enforcing activation limits on some titles and for selling old titles that are broken on modern hardware and operating systems, Ubisoft is currently the most consumer hostile publisher online.

Great read.  Thanks for that.  It's mostly common sense, but it needed to be disseminated in an organized, straightforward way.

[idolminds]

Don't...require sign up to additional services, unless it facilitates online multiplayer.

Anything that impedes the speed of entry into a game should never be mandatory. This is worse than the gamer being asked to "register the game" way back in the days of CD ROMs, which conferred no benefit to the user, and was hence of no appeal.

While we respect that bundling an application like GameSpy or GFWL to enable multiplayer might be easier than writing your own code, we'd prefer that it wasn't running when we're playing the single-player version of the game. We already have a Steam overlay, why do we want a GFWL one as well? It just creates more overhead for our systems to deal with, taking up precious cycles that could be used on the game itself.

I like how GFWL and Gamespy is BAD for singleplayer, but logging in to Steam is OK.

But I do agree with the article for the most part.

[MysterD]

I really like the upselling versions thing - which is starting to get more common on Steam, which sell the NEW re-released version (likely w/ more expansions and/or DLC) at a reduced cost - which often seems to be at 33% off.

i.e. STALKER series (STALKER: SOC or Clear Sky owners get a discount if they want Call of Pripyat); upgrade Divinity 2 from Ego Draconis to DKS Edition; upgrade Blood Bowl: Original or Dark Elves Edition up to Legendary Edition.

Also, absolutely agree w/ this:

Don't
1. ...double dip DRM.

If your title is on Steam, you should not require GFWL sign up, or bundle SecuROM/Tages, or run a separate key/activation server for the single player portion of the game. All of this functionality is already provided by Steam, and every level of DRM added is added is a barrier to purchase, not to mention seriously hampers usability for the legal owner of the game.