Stardock and Gas Powered Games have come together and created a gamer’s “Bill of Rights”. Stardock CEO, Brad Wardell, states:
“These are the key elements that publishers need to adhere to in their games; they’re all pretty common sense, but they’re things that the game industry is increasingly straying from.”
Gamers shall have the right to return games that don’t work with their computers for a full refund.
Gamers shall have the right to demand that games be released in a finished state.
Gamers shall have the right to expect meaningful updates after a game’s release.
Gamers shall have the right to demand that download managers and updaters not force themselves to run or be forced to load in order to play a game.
Gamers shall have the right to expect that the minimum requirements for a game will mean that the game will adequately play on that computer.
Gamers shall have the right to expect that games won’t install hidden drivers or other potentially harmful software without their express consent.
Gamers shall have the right to re-download the latest versions of the games they own at any time.
Gamers shall have the right to not be treated as potential criminals by developers or publishers.
Gamers shall have the right to demand that a single-player game not force them to be connected to the Internet every time they wish to play.
Gamers shall have the right that games which are installed to the hard drive shall not require a CD/DVD to remain in the drive to play.
Stardock is excited to announce that “phase two” of its digital download platform, Impulse, has begun and all updates, new games and software applications will soon be live. Phase two of Impulse sees new games from 2k (Civilizations III, Shattered Union, Sid Meier’s Pirates! and Sid Meier’s Railroads!) and Tilted Mill’s Children of the Nile enhanced edition. New software applications include a host of Corel applications like WordPerfect Office X4, CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4, and Corel Paint Shop Pro X2 as well as software applications from Genie Soft, Iolo, and AVG Internet Security and Anti-Virus & Anti-Spyware software.
Phase two of Impulse also adds the ability for users to install and update third-party and freeware programs that are available via Impulse. This makes the transfer of the catalogue of programs installed on a user’s machine extraordinarily simple from machine to machine as it’s all centrally located on Impulse. Phase two has already addressed user feedback and incorporates significantly faster load times, downloads, a smart queue option and a smarter updating process which exponentially decreases processing time for updates.
Episode 16 of the WinCustomize SkinCast is up, and this is an extra special one! About two weeks ago we posted that Darren McPhee from AMD will be our guest, and we will be giving away 3 prizes, one of which is an ATI 4870 video card courtesy of AMD/ATI. The other two prizes are a copy of Sins of the Solar Empire, and the upcoming Demigod game. We received a bunch of great questions, and although we had a difficult time narrowing it down to 3, we eventually made our choices.
Congratulations to the winners, which are…..
Sorry, you will have to listen to the podcast to find out!
Although we had to take another break from the WinCustomize SkinCast last week, this week we are returning and will have a special guest, along with some huge prizes we are giving away. For an upcoming episode of SkinCast, we will be talking with Darren McPhee, the Sr. Marketing Manager in Gaming for AMD. We will be discussing several topics with Darren including AMD/ATI products, graphics, gaming, and much more.
We will also be taking user-submitted questions from the community for this episode, and the top three questions selected will win a prize. We will select three of our favorite questions, and the users who submitted these questions will win one of the following:
Grand Prize Favorite - ATI Radeon 4870 512mb video card courtesy of AMD/ATI.
Second Favorite - Copy of Demigod, when released and beta access.
User submitted questions must be submitted as comments in theWinCustomize thread only, no other means will be accepted. Questions can be related to ATI/AMD, skinning, Vista, technology, gaming, etc. The deadline for submissions is 11:59pm EST, Wednesday, August 13th, 2008. Good luck and get those questions in!
*Employees, family, direct firends of Stardock, AMD/ATI, GPG, IC can ask questions, but are not eligible for prizes.
The Political Machine, is the turn-based strategy game that puts the player in the role of a presidential candidate. Players can play as real-world candidates such as Barak Obama or John McCain, choose amongst historical candidates, or design their own from scratch.
The Political Machine 2008 version 1.04 is now available to all registered owners of the game. This update includes various tweaks, as well as new elements to help you create your own bobble-head. Also, a new enhanced chat feature that allows players to smack-talk opponents in multiplayer during the final votes. Version 1.04 also adds several new ‘Dark Horse’ candidates, such as the wise-cracking Minister Mike Huckabee, the rock skipping Mike Gravel, and media stud Dennis Kuchinich.
To obtain the new patch, just click on the Download Updates button from the main menu, or use our new state-of-the-art digital distribution client, Impulse. If you don’t have The Political Machine, you can pick up a digital copy for $19.95 at http://www.politicalmachine.com or through Impulse. For a boxed copy, visit your local retailer including Target and Best Buy .
Sins of a Solar Empire is one of the biggest hits this year, and I’m pleased to announce the next major update (v1.1) will be available as a public beta sometime in July.
Stardock has made available the preliminary change log to Sins of a Solar Empire v1.1. Developer Ironclad has been busy updating virtually every part of the game based on player feedback. Version 1.1 not only includes a host of play balancing changes but new content such as an updated graphics engine, updated visuals, new damage animations, and more. It also includes a new multiplayer system called “Alloy” which eliminates the need for configuring routers or changing port numbers.
This huge beta will only be available on Impulse from Stardock. The preliminary change log which lists many of the updated features can be found here.
I just went and picked up copy of Battlefield: Bad Company. There is a bad storm coming through so I only got to play a bit of the single player. It seemed pretty good, although I am really wanting to go head on into the multiplayer aspect of it.
Stardock has released the highly anticipated Impulse today. Impulse is the next-generation of digital distribution for PC games and applications. With Impulse, users don’t have to worry about losing registration numbers or finding long lost CD’s when setting up or updating a new or existing PC. Once a user purchases a game or application, that item is associated with their Impulse account so it will always be accessible.
Impulse will also provide a virtual platform called Impulse Reactor, a set of server-side features for developers that will work even if the user doesn’t have the Impulse client installed. Impulse Reactor will include support for virtual drives for saved game data, multiplayer matchmaking, game rankings, NAT negotiation for multiplayer games, friends lists, and support forums.
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