Developers Corner – Perspective and Structure
A lot of recent litigation activity lately, and I’ll try to link to it as the week goes on. However this is a long overdue post on how a developer uses perspective (his or her own) to make their world, and how the structure guides the course of that world.
Ten Things a Game Should Have from the Blog “I’m Talking Games”.
Innovation in Games from Keen and Graev’s gaming blog.
Mapping Perfection: talking about user-created maps in games. Escapist Magazine discusses their place and their use.
So, basically, these three articles cover first, the basics a game should have, second, the innovation a game CAN have, and third, the user-created input that a game MIGHT have.
So when will games be ready for a “warranty of implied merchantability for a specific purpose”? Were people hanging around outside Henry Ford’s offices in in 1928 saying their car did not meet their ideas of what the “ideal transportation model” would be? How about 1938? Is this a silly question? Is it a silly question because the software industry feels it is the only industry that can still (after thirty-some years of making money from consumers) say “if it is opened, you can only exchange it for the same software”?
Do you believe there is not a basic standard of usability that a video game must live up to? How about online MMOs? If not now, when?
Comments welcome and expected.
Jay Moffitt is a Tennessee attorney. This blog is for entertainment and educational purposes only and does not consitute legal advice or create an attorney/client relationship. Jay Moffitt is not certified as a specialist in this area by Tennessee and Tennessee does not certify specialists in this practice area. All comments will be answered promptly and courteously as long as they are germane to the discussion and do not contain specific game names or incidents.
Tags: Game expectations, Game requirements, User Maps, Warranty, Warranty of Implied Merchantability
At least one objection might be regarding the short lifetime of games. If legally I can exchange, say, Batman: Arkham Asylum for an alternative game provided I bring it back the next day then I could buy it at 9.01am, play until 2 am, finish it off the next day and get my new game. Many single player games really can be finished in a very short time.
A friend of mine once complained to me that HMV, a record store here in London, were being awkward about exchanging records he bought there. As they had widely advertised a no questions asked exchange policy I was initially outraged on his behalf. When he went on to say he’d used the same receipt to swap and tape fifty records all for an initial £10 purchase I felt considerably more sympathy for the shop.
Basically if you can take a game – even for a very short period – then exchange it the developers stand to lose a lot of revenue.
jaymoffitt Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 12:55 pm
Some very good points. I’m not advocating a liberal return policy on video games, just not a closed-door policy on EVER returning video games. I’m sure you’ll agree with me that games are the ONLY form of medium that is no-return, no-exchange (even with other goods that have no resale value there is sometimes a return for an EQUAL value, not just an IDENTICAL product).
My point as I tried to make in the short post was that a developer should have enough confidence in their product that if the result is absysmal, say as measured in the bottom 5% of Metacritics, or a D grade in three or more of the top national publications, a dissatisifed consumer can EXCHANGE it for an equal value game from the same publisher. Sure, that’s a bottom-line hit, but so is an enraged “I will never by another game by this publisher” and actually meaning it.
Appreciated the comment, and I do want to note I enjoyed reading your blog http://www.stabbedup.blogspot.com
It must vary by jurisdiction but this is the Amazon policy here in the UK
“If for any reason you are unhappy with a DVD purchased from Amazon.co.uk, you can return it to us in its original condition within 30 days of the date you received it, unopened (with any seals and shrink wrap intact) and we will issue a full refund for the price you paid for the DVD.”
That’s the same as games here, if you open the shrink wrap you can’t exchange or refund it but generally if you don’t open the shrink wrap you can.
Personally my taste runs to minimal intervention. I don’t think governments need to legislate on behalf of consumers on this issue because I don’t think consumers are unaware of the risk of wasting money buying poor games. I think it would be brutally hard on the industry if there were some standard they were required to meet assessed post-release by customers.
Of course general consumer protection law may generate that scenario anyway but I hope not.
Regarding the business case my experience has been that whenever a company extends more generous conditions their product does well. Diablo 2 came with free bnet access for life. DDO skyrocketed after it went F2P and gave a third of the game away.
Many thanks for the kind words re my blog!
jaymoffitt Reply:
February 8th, 2010 at 4:01 pm
I agree with you generally regarding government intervention. But I will hold to my opinion that in some cases the mere “threat” of government intervention forces an industry to self-police. But as for the particular comment you’re 100% correct.
Again, thanks for reading the blog. The comments (and commenters) have and continue to make this a better blog.
Sincerely,
Jay Moffitt