Editor's Note: The Dick Tax

[iniudan]

...Said something without a punt...

To be more on topic, I don't see how this can work for most model on how to apply that are all exploitable.

 

[DrunkWithPower]

I can only only bad things happening. I don't know exactly how Valve is with security but the whole "We hack because we are for free speech" could put a damper on Steam. After all, the giant that is Sony felt that whiplash.

 

[mxfox408]

I think valve is making a mistake by doing this, as it will make assholes even worse and may even increase their numbers

 

[ciasteczkowyp]

It will end up like this:
Liked guys like eachother and pay little to none for online games.
Disliked guys or guys who have a zerg of self adoring pricks against them just leave "valve's perfect world"

The Longevity of such a project shouldn't exceed 2 weeks.

But sure, let em waste cash. It's not as if I'd pay for a uneven gameplay even if I had those 200 friends to hug with.

 

[plugav]

I just hope that if Valve puts this idea into practice, there will be scientists around to study it. It already sounds like Newell wants to use his clients as lab rats, so why not share the results with the rest of humanity.

 

[Giest4life]

Thank you, Mr. Pitts, for pointing this out. I think of myself as a pretty amiable player to play with, but I find this idea of charging people according to their nature singularly revolting. I know that--if--I won't be affected by this system too much, I will stop using Valve's excellent service.

You know...it's funny that the Depeche Mode song in fact does NOT talk about self-interest as the guiding principle for all people in general. It moreso talks about how our *DIFFERENCES* are the driving force for our conflicts and about how we'd rather not learn to be different (and change or understand another point of view) but how we'd rather remove offending different things, including other people, from our lives for the sake of our personal comfort or validity of our beliefs (like say...thinking self-interest is the guiding force for all people).

People are people not because of self-interest, like this article seems to make a beautiful leap of logic. People are people because, in spite of all our cultural differences, what seems to be universal is that we, not on an individual level necessarily but on a mass group level, are intolerant of other people different from us.

But yeah sure - I guess everyone likes to jump onto the 'people are shit' bandwagon around these parts and ignore the fact that self-interest is primarily propagated only in western cultures rather than say...certain eastern based ones where you have millions of people that have been taught to believe that self sacrifice is worth far more.

People can exist just fine wether or not they are taught nothing but self-interest or self-sacrifice, even to the point where either extreme becomes harmful. But people will always be people because, the bigger the number of our crowds, the more intolerant we become of our collective cultural differences. A good case in point is how the Escapist community as a whole has grown more and more intolerant the more popular and numerous it has become, up to the point where in many ways it has become blind to this intolerance of outside opinions and actions.

That's ultimately what the song refers to for me moreso than the overtly-simplified 'people are shit' version. But believe what you will I guess.

Just curious, why was I quoted in your post? A mistake, perhaps?

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

first rule of online games: drama is unavoidable

The proposed system has the same problems of every moderated system.

If the system is crowdsourced it will create 2 issues; one is cliques will grief-mod anyone who crosses one of their members and at that point the people with the most time on their hands (basement dwellers) have power, and two it creates a group-think environment where anyone with an unpopular opinion is downvoted just because the majority disagrees.

If the system is run by appointed/selected moderators then you have the "forum god" problem where the moderators exercise their powers in an arbitrary and capricious manner and there is no meaningful appeals process. That in turn chills reasonable discourse because there is no way to know when a statement crosses the imaginary line in a mod's head from normal to "offensive".

The Escapist forums aren't free from this either but at least leaving up the moderated posts is more honest and forces the mods to exercise some restraint. Though it would be better if the individual doing the moderation was named in the moderated post for an extra level of accountability.

And tangentially on topic the new forum health thing should have started everyone at 0 rather than adding your past infractions to your "permanent record" in an ex-post-facto manner.

 

[Loonerinoes]

Just curious, why was I quoted in your post? A mistake, perhaps?

Sorry...you're right - twas my mistake...blergh. I'll edit it and such.

 

[Keldon888]

The system is a nice thought, but there is no conceivable method of judging this.

-You can't judge participation statistically in a objective based game.
-Public popularity can be easily abused by groups.
-Measuring popularity via team habits just screw people who aren't good, no one wants to be on the losing team,

There's no way to do it.

 

[mcnally86]

Removing half your market by upping the price of a product some can't afford as it stands is bad enough. Removing them by asking for money they don't have and calling them an asshole while you do it?

I hope they do use this system and I hope it fails. There. Charge me more for that.

So your argument is that...wait, what? I'm sorry, I'm actually struggling to work out what you're complaining about this time. Do you mean that you're pissy that Valve are ostracising the less desirable parts of its audience simply for being dislikeable? Because...that's the exact reason I support it.

There are consequences to being an asshole in real life. I don't see why virtual lives should be any different. Only, I think it should be a subscription-type deal. That way, there IS encouragement to change. Let's say you pay for all the features you lost for being a dick. Now, you have incentive to be a dick, because you've paid for it.
However, if you lose all that stuff again because you've spent a month being even more of a dick, you now have a drain on the wallet. That drain can be cut off simply by playing nice. However, going purely off of player reviews or something will be a pain in the ass. Nobody goes out of their way to give a favourable review. Perhaps if you can stay below a certain amount of negative reviews...or some system like that.

Luckily you are in the minority on that, and Valve, being a business and wanting money, will fold to the majority.

The status quo is ever so.

Unless the majority are paying them more money to play. Which is plausible. I would then call the experiment a total success, wouldn't you?

I think its unfair to call something a success when psychology tells you it wont be. Once someone start trending bad they will probably keep trending bad and will be more liable to hate people at the top of the good ladder.

Then they can pay Valve extra to enjoy the game. They can hate all they want, but the more vocal that hate is, the more money they'll have to keep pouring in. Surely you don't think people are stupid enough to bring this on themselves on purpose?

However, I do also think it can't be too strict. And you can't just slap price tags on people just because they get reported. I HATE that.

Besides, if people boycott it, Valve just turn it off. They haven't really lost anything major...since by the time they start losing large portions of their audience, they ought to be quick enough to turn off the problem and let them all come back.

Oh snap I'll have to pay more the the escapist now.

Seriously though good point. I guess they should implement it all they could lose is development cost. I'm just afraid haters with big enough wallets are ganna see this as a green light to hate more. I already payed whats to stop me now?

 

[Cousin_IT]

I assumed Mr Newell, Gabe, was being flippant to get some laughs.

 

[EonEire]

As long as its looked into and the right people are charge more, 100% support for this.

 

[mcnally86]

You know I just had a though (rare as this is for me.) What if people at maximum dick tax go around egging on and taunting people at maximum perk just to make people have to pay more. I could see this happening. Basically it allows greifers to grief your wallet.

 

[Loonerinoes]

I assumed Mr Newell, Gabe, was being flippant to get some laughs.

Hahah...who knows. Perhaps they'll pull the same shtick in the end as Blizzard did: "Oh no no, you see...we only announced forced Real ID as a test! We weren't serious, we wus just trollin'! Are you mad bros?!"

And I'll believe them just about as much. Namely...not at all.

 

[Thyunda]

Removing half your market by upping the price of a product some can't afford as it stands is bad enough. Removing them by asking for money they don't have and calling them an asshole while you do it?

I hope they do use this system and I hope it fails. There. Charge me more for that.

So your argument is that...wait, what? I'm sorry, I'm actually struggling to work out what you're complaining about this time. Do you mean that you're pissy that Valve are ostracising the less desirable parts of its audience simply for being dislikeable? Because...that's the exact reason I support it.

There are consequences to being an asshole in real life. I don't see why virtual lives should be any different. Only, I think it should be a subscription-type deal. That way, there IS encouragement to change. Let's say you pay for all the features you lost for being a dick. Now, you have incentive to be a dick, because you've paid for it.
However, if you lose all that stuff again because you've spent a month being even more of a dick, you now have a drain on the wallet. That drain can be cut off simply by playing nice. However, going purely off of player reviews or something will be a pain in the ass. Nobody goes out of their way to give a favourable review. Perhaps if you can stay below a certain amount of negative reviews...or some system like that.

Luckily you are in the minority on that, and Valve, being a business and wanting money, will fold to the majority.

The status quo is ever so.

Unless the majority are paying them more money to play. Which is plausible. I would then call the experiment a total success, wouldn't you?

I think its unfair to call something a success when psychology tells you it wont be. Once someone start trending bad they will probably keep trending bad and will be more liable to hate people at the top of the good ladder.

Then they can pay Valve extra to enjoy the game. They can hate all they want, but the more vocal that hate is, the more money they'll have to keep pouring in. Surely you don't think people are stupid enough to bring this on themselves on purpose?

However, I do also think it can't be too strict. And you can't just slap price tags on people just because they get reported. I HATE that.

Besides, if people boycott it, Valve just turn it off. They haven't really lost anything major...since by the time they start losing large portions of their audience, they ought to be quick enough to turn off the problem and let them all come back.

Oh snap I'll have to pay more the the escapist now.

Seriously though good point. I guess they should implement it all they could lose is development cost. I'm just afraid haters with big enough wallets are ganna see this as a green light to hate more. I already payed whats to stop me now?

That's where my monthly payment thing came into being. Regardless of your wallet size, getting stuff for free is better than paying for it, right? Then, you have an incentive to be good, as opposed to a punishment for being bad. It kinda does both.

 

[Callate]

This mis-use of the word "theory" overshadows the fact that Newell's hypothesis, that people will at least be more cognizant of behavior that isn't acceptable to their community if there's a financial incentive, hasn't been tested.

I'd like to suggest that it does indeed deserve a test, and that until it receives one it's way too early to be foretelling its doom under the inevitable weight of a more cynical assessment of human nature or ascribing words like "tyranny" to it.

 

[Sevre]

Honestly, Valve have missed one major thing here. We need bad guys.

Trying to encourage good behaviour is great, and boring. If we all played Goody-Two-Shoes the Medic who dashed across the map every time the E button is tapped we'd be playing Theme Hospital not TF2. One of the main attractions of TF2 is being a dick, look at the Spy class. There's nothing more fun than cloaking up to some complacent snipers and backstabbing them. The important word being 'backstabbing', they're encouraging this behaviour themselves.

After playing on a server for 10 minutes or so, you get a feel for who's a nice guy and who isn't. One of the most satisfying aspects of TF2 is going after the dicks. Y'know the kind, the spawn camper, that Soldier who keeps griefing you and every Scout player ever. Nailing that scout mid-jump with your sniper rifle is much more satisfying when he's dominating you.

It's only natural to bear some animosity towards people when you're playing TF2, how many times can that Pyro spy-check you before you ragequit? Valve trying to stamp out this animosity is ludicrous, how can you expect us to kill, maim and extirpate and then say 'Sorry about that, need a hand?'. This is CTF not a Jousting Tournament.

Taxing people for being dicks is ridiculous, the only reason we play online is to be dicks in the first place. We don't just need the bad guys, we are the bad guys.

 

[Baresark]

There are several flaws to this approach.

1.)people will try to bribe other people in order to get positive marks on their record, pushing game prices down, leading to lots of corruption.
2.)If a person pays $100 for a game, they have essentially bought the right to be a dick, by paying the dick tax.
3.)what's to stop people from being dicks by reporting other people as dicks.

I hope they don't think they would do something like the new League of Legends Tribunal system. That is flawed as well, from what I hear, pretty much everyone votes guilty on that, making it meaningless.

 

[matrix3509]

I think you are massively missing the point here Russ. For all of your BS philosophical rambling, people are not asking for a utopian internet society. People are simply asking for an online environment wherein they are not the targets of racist and homophobic slurs.

I play with friends online all the time. Its competitive as all hell and plenty of f-bombs are dropped. There is a difference between that kind of environment and one which enables, indeed, promotes griefing.

We are not asking that people change themselves, we are simply asking for people to have some god damned self-control. You would not go to a soldier's funeral and fuck the corpse (unless you belong to the Westboro Baptist Church), so why should similar behavior online have no consequences?

I'm sorry are you familiar with the internet? Self control is damn near utopian. Also what if a little kid joins your f-bomb server and the dad walks in hearing you guys. He gets mad and the kid says its your fault, now you guys all get a bad points as the dad starts reporting you all. One of your friends is pissed so he gets in a shouting match with the dad. Now the kids account has huge bad points (that his dad got for him) and so does your buddy. Now your buddy wont play that game anymore because he objects to the dick tax and doesn't want to pay more than you guys to play that stupid game.

Geezus we aren't going to get into some damn "what-if" argument are we?...I gotta be honest that sounds like the most desperate grasping for excuses I've heard in a long time. Also, if someone stops playing a game because they are being dicks, and thus are being charged extra, thats called a plus.

Also to the rest of your weak argument, just repeat every argument regarding the ESRB ratings and disclaimers of ever heard to yourself. Problem: Solved.

Also regarding people who game the system, regardless of what you people think, trolls are in the minority in just about every online community (not counting 4chan), and the minority cannot game the system with any appreciable effect. You all seem to think that this system will be entirely without oversight, which is just irresponsibly ignorant.

 

[Wado Rhyu]

worst f*cking idea ever.

if you are good at a game and kill less good players you are a dick. thats the basic defnition that most player give. a.k.a. gamers that are good will be flagged as a dick. then there will be the players that randomly decide if some one is a dick or not.

so in summery alot of ppl that don't deserved are labbeld dicks. and the will pay alot more for something that isn't true.

the idea is nice but the methodes for making it work are broken.

SO FOR THE LOVE OF GOD NNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO