Valve Discusses Charging Customers Based on Popularity

[The Lugz]

this is so open to abuse it's unreal
if valve do this it just proves they have no idea what their user-base wants or needs or how griefers think.

all it will do is cause chaos on forums, grief-ing in games and more rage-quits because people are petty enough to try and make others pay more for their games

it's the beginning of an idea, but frankly if it gets implemented in the form described I will never play another competitive game from valve again it's just not worth it to me if other people can not only ruin my game-play experience but also my savings..
it's just another in the mounting pile of good reasons to never use multi-player
some of which are;

people are stupid
people like to dick around and grief your game-play
people want the shiny achievement because it makes them feel special so they drag you through stupid events to get them
people want to grief your wallet because they can

no thanks, no valve related multi-player for me any more

if anything you want the EXACT OPPOSITE!
a reward system for being top score and getting positive votes in a game
for every 1000 positive votes and max score you reduce the price of games by 0.01%
because why would people vote you up if you're a pest?
and if you're contributing toward the game-play significantly then you're helping the community as a whole

perhaps throwing a steak in a cage of trolls is just more fun to valve? who knows.

 

[jp201]

Interesting idea...

It will probably cause tons of rage, though.

raging will raise the price by $10 for all games.

there I stopped the raging

 

[jp201]

I like the idea, but I can't help but feel free speech is being damaged or something is somewhere.

I hate when people use "free speech is damaged" in terms of video games. Your on someone elses property when your saying that stuff and if they don't like it they have the right to kick you out as they see fit. In this case it is just raising the price for assholes.

If your causing a scene or doing inappropriate stuff at my restaurant you better believe your kicked out. Consider them being generous not just banning the IP altogether.

 

[powell86]

Burden of proof would be on the applicant to show that it was not good faith, meaning someone would have to prove bad faith against Valve. And that's not easy. I find it hard to think of a way in which Valve might be accused of operating in bad faith with this. I guess we're only speculating though, in the absence of any specific guidelines from Valve as to how they'd implement the idea.
Maybe if they were unduly favourable to people who did mods for them? Even then, it would probably be okay.

Yeah you are right, burden of proof will be on the plaintiff side. Nonetheless IMO it is easier to do that as honestly "jerk" and perhaps even a barometer using forum ratings is iffy at best. And I can totally imagine people fighting back to say that their forum ratings were rigged. I myself have seen pple mass spamming negative votes due to petty differences.

But yeah you are also right in that I'm purely speculating. I honestly think it is a behemoth for Valve to pull it off.

 

[Weaver]

How is this not blatant discrimination? If you walked into a restaraunt and everything on your menu cost twice as much just because the waiter didn't like you that would be breaking price discrimination laws?

I think Gabe might be approaching so wealthy he becomes an insane, out of touch with reality recluse.

edit: never mind, software isn't subject to the Robinson-Patman Act.

 

[powell86]

this is so open to abuse it's unreal
if valve do this it just proves they have no idea what their user-base wants or needs or how griefers think.

all it will do is cause chaos on forums, grief-ing in games and more rage-quits because people are petty enough to try and make others pay more for their games

it's the beginning of an idea, but frankly if it gets implemented in the form described I will never play another competitive game from valve again it's just not worth it to me if other people can not only ruin my game-play experience but also my savings..
it's just another in the mounting pile of good reasons to never use multi-player
some of which are;

people are stupid
people like to dick around and grief your game-play
people want the shiny achievement because it makes them feel special so they drag you through stupid events to get them
people want to grief your wallet because they can

no thanks, no valve related multi-player for me any more

if anything you want the EXACT OPPOSITE!
a reward system for being top score and getting positive votes in a game
for every 1000 positive votes and max score you reduce the price of games by 0.01%
because why would people vote you up if you're a pest?
and if you're contributing toward the game-play significantly then you're helping the community as a whole

perhaps throwing a steak in a cage of trolls is just more fun to valve? who knows.

a part of me suspect that Gabe Newell just wanna do that so that he can charge more for his games and then claim moral high-ground by stating that he's doing his good customers a service. Makes one wonder though why he doesn't just ban all the assholes outright but instead try to skim off their money instead?

Seems to me that the message he's sending is: it's ok to be an asshole, as long as you are rich, and pay us and we'll allow you to continue be one.

Bear in mind that this is the same guy that created this:
http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=300

 

[Twad]

I dont see how this can work. Brainstorm time!

Because i would get pretty much everything for free, since im nice like that. But i dont see how it can be both profitable AND reasonably possible to begin with.

Stupid/mean/rude people are the minority, there woudnt be much of a loss there.

But it also require that everyone act in multiplayer to be judged in a way or another by the community. It is a penalty to people who have single player games?
Or is it a plan to push people to produce something liek hats to get royalties, and give valve a lot of money (and workload) in exchange of pennies... Heck, community produce all the models/textures for the next valve game, get a few pennies and a pat on the back for your contribution. Valve save money and makes money that way. Or at least thats how i see it.

Who will pay for the "niceness" police? Who is the police? Who watch the police?

What constitute being "rude/bad"? Swear words? Teasing? Joking? touchy subject? Speaking french? (seen wayyyy too many people kicked out of servers just because they said a single french word) Trolling/grieffing? Just being better than the other guy and he's pissed?

How many people will look at the "complaints", see if they are true or BS?

Is there a penalty for false flagging? What if there is a concerted effort by a group to make make a lot of people look bad?

 

[Life_Is_A_Mess]

Looks good on paper, however Steam would need to pull it off perfectly to work. I can see several complications. I would get stuff for free woot! XD

Capctha: urromp recieved
I copy, we have recieved the urromp!

 

[Groundchuck]

I like the idea, and i would be willing to guess this would take a severe amount of monitoring to work properly, It could not be policed by the users in a thumbs up thumbs down kind of way because of obvious exploits, but i would like to see the scumbags of the interwebs be held accountable for their actions in some way. And for the people who think that Trolls not buying their games will hurt steam thats laughable their is far more decent people playing games that would enjoy an enviroment devoid of trolls and that goes for console players too.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

You know what this will lead to? A bunch of jerks finding a way around the system so they can "popularity bomb" other players so those guys don't get any good reputation.

I mean...It's a nice idea, but people are gonna break this system so badly...I know it.

 

[jjofearth]

Here's the thing...I have never griefed, I have never hacked, I have never voice-spammed, I have never bunnyhopped, noob-tubed, corner-camped, spawn-camped, or in any way made the experience worse for my peers. In fact, whenever I get a chane, I help people out. Unfortunately, however, very few people on Steam actually know me. I'm relapsing to primary school just thinking about it - I was a really nice guy (modest too ), and I had literally no friends. Come year 6 (I'm not sure what grade that is...curse my tea-drinking Englishosity) I met one - just one - person, and from that one person I developed more and more friends, eventually becoming instantly recognisable to everyone in the school (like I said, modest). But before that, I wasn't. I was bullied, picked on, ostracized, and I feel a bit like that's what Valve are proposing (no bad blood to them, I seek only to make a point). It's literally a popularity contest, a "see-who-has-the-most-friends" competition, and the popular kids win. Of course, I see no real reason to make this point, given that it's several pages deep already and likely people are going to read the first 2-3. I think that's a rather fitting metaphor for this situation, actually. (/hipster )

 

[tehweave]

Hands up if you can see this failing horribly.

*raises hand*

 

[Hybridwolf]

Gabe, Shut up and finsh episode 3 please. I love your system, but not for online gameplay, I think TF2 is now a completely different game to what it started out being, and I think this idea is FUBAR. Do you honestly have the man power to check every report and make sure it's not people attempting to downgrade a persons reputation for being too good? Or because they did something "wrong"? I wouldn't dare play Left 4 Dead without fear of my reputation being damaged because some kid kept running in and wanted me to heal him. And the people who make designs, what are you on about? Why do you feel the need to pay people who are giving in designs for free anyway? If you're that guility, then give them some cash yourself, y'know, unlike in the Japanese fund raiser where you got your player base to do it for you instead.

TLDR: Stupid system, easily abused, pay people who make designs for you. Problem solved.

 

[SuperNova221]

If I assume a few things, or no, two things, this could be a great idea.

1: You aren't charged more for being a bad person. Just normal retail price.

2: Valve implements it well. It seems like a hard challenge, but if anybody could implement this, it would be Valve.

Those are the two main things that I can think about. If they get those two things it would be much more agreeable.

Edit:

this is so open to abuse it's unreal
if valve do this it just proves they have no idea what their user-base wants or needs or how griefers think.

The customer is always wrong.

And to address the rest of your post, read the first, original half of my post. Although I pretty much agree. Players should be rewarded for good behaviour, not punished for bad. Or if there is any punishment, it shouldn't be in the form of charging more money. Just retail price. As for the actual implementation, I really can't think of a way to do it. But I put my trust in valve to find a way that would be hard to abuse. I really, seriously doubt they'd go for a rating system.

 

[The Lugz]

this is so open to abuse it's unreal
if valve do this it just proves they have no idea what their user-base wants or needs or how griefers think.

all it will do is cause chaos on forums, grief-ing in games and more rage-quits because people are petty enough to try and make others pay more for their games

it's the beginning of an idea, but frankly if it gets implemented in the form described I will never play another competitive game from valve again it's just not worth it to me if other people can not only ruin my game-play experience but also my savings..
it's just another in the mounting pile of good reasons to never use multi-player
some of which are;

people are stupid
people like to dick around and grief your game-play
people want the shiny achievement because it makes them feel special so they drag you through stupid events to get them
people want to grief your wallet because they can

no thanks, no valve related multi-player for me any more

if anything you want the EXACT OPPOSITE!
a reward system for being top score and getting positive votes in a game
for every 1000 positive votes and max score you reduce the price of games by 0.01%
because why would people vote you up if you're a pest?
and if you're contributing toward the game-play significantly then you're helping the community as a whole

perhaps throwing a steak in a cage of trolls is just more fun to valve? who knows.

a part of me suspect that Gabe Newell just wanna do that so that he can charge more for his games and then claim moral high-ground by stating that he's doing his good customers a service. Makes one wonder though why he doesn't just ban all the assholes outright but instead try to skim off their money instead?

Seems to me that the message he's sending is: it's ok to be an asshole, as long as you are rich, and pay us and we'll allow you to continue be one.

Bear in mind that this is the same guy that created this:
http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=300

yup, looking at that I guess you have a point
money money money

 

[Leefank137]

I'm kind of two minds on this issue. On one hand, it is a great incentive for players to actually be civil with each other while playing online. Nothing motivates like the all mighty dollar. On the other hand, it is kind of unfair to those of us that mainly play single player games, like myself. Then again, it's an incentive to have a positive impact on the community, so maybe it's not all that unfair after all. Hell, it might just motivate me to try out some online play.

 

[Sixties Spidey]

Yeah, I can see this idea being abused by everyone. Imagine a guy who doesn't really spout a lot of obscenities or anything has to pay more because of his player review or "rep" being shat on. I can see several ways that would bite Valve in the ass.

 

[Rewdalf]

People who have reason to fear this will rage.
My only worry is what if someone is misunderstood or unfairly labeled?
I for one act reasonable wherever I am, internet or otherwise. So I'm not afraid of this.
Of course people will be less inclined to offer constructive critisizm for fear of having their game prices hiked.
This seems like both a good and bad idea.