What Gamers are Entitled to?

OK, joking aside, what are gamers really entitled to from the game industry? Those days, the self-entitled title have being given a lot to gamers, and I believe most of those times they are deserved. Gamers wants the world in a silver plate for free. But there is some things that gamers are really entitled to have and the industry have to give us. Those things are things like:

- Games who can be played from beginning to the end without problems: Gamers have the right to play games without needing to reset their machines even once, or quitting and reloading the game or having to reload a previous save because the game froze or glitched so bad that become impossible to continue. Skyrim is a great example of what is not OK. The PS3 version had so many problems that many gamers just gave up playing until it got fixed.

I am not saying that games need to be bug free. It is OK to have some minor audio and visual glitches as long as they are both minor and rare. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, a game as big as Skyrim have way less glitches. I just crossed with one in my play through. But there is no excuse for any product with game breaking glitches to be launched.

- Games who accomplish all that was promised: This one is way more tricking. Wording make all the difference and how you read the wording can make a lot of difference. Mass Effect 3 is victim of this. To many, they promised a game whose ending would be shaped by your choices since the first game, while for others the promise was that your choices would influence the end. In my opinion, ME3 made true of the developers words, as your choices have influence at both the ME universe and the ending.

But we have one example where the promise was very clear. EA and Sony promised to all Battlefield 3 players a free copy of Battlefield 1943. Than they said they would not hold their word true and said they would not give the free game. And after a lot of backlash they finally gave the game copy. Any gamer would have the right to feel cheated, as the announcement of the free copy was made in an official public event.

The lesson for publishers and developers is to never make a promise you have no way or no intent to accomplish.

- Gamers have the right to express their opinions: Everyone have the right to say their opinions. No matter how petty it seems, the gamers always have the right to say what they don't like and why they don't like it. The moment the things passes far is when they started to do campaigns demanding that their opinions and rantings to be answered. Well, no, nobody have to give what you want just because you are unhappy.

The game works as supposed to? Them you have what you deserve. The fact that you don't like it does not mean that developers and publishers needs to change the game to fit your personal taste. you can say you are unhappy, but that is all you can. Oh, wait, you can always talk with your wallet and show your disappointment by not spending more money with said game/developer/publisher.

- Gamers can decide how much they want to pay: Yes, you can decide that. You think that $60 is too much? You can always wait a price drop or a sale. You think DLC is a rip-off? You have all the right to not pay for it. But guess what? Publishers and developers can decide how much they want to ask for their products. You don't need to pay that price, however. If you really want prices to drop down or to certain practices to stop, you need to stop enabling those practices by giving your money to them.

Games are entertainment, so they are superfluous. You can live without it. Talking with you wallet and not just your mouth is the mos effective way to state said opinion.

In the end, games are just games, just a hobby. Taking it out of proportion and making a big fuss hardly help in stating your point. And the game industry is a business as well, and they will not heard your complains if you keep spending money with them. Gamers have their rights, but those rights are not given to them by themselves. When you buy a game, you are entitled to this game and all its features to work properly, from beginning to end and to receive all that was promised to you. More than that is just undeserved self-entitlement.