Valve Discusses Charging Customers Based on Popularity

[Adultism]

Yeah, "Great Idea" I hated what he said about jerks having to pay an extra 100$ for mic, I'm a huge ass and I cuss out everyone on TF2 who pisses me off. So this kind of thing would make me super angry, I'd probably end up quitting TF2 if he made charges like this, or raised the price for a new game by valve if you are a rude person. Like 100$ for a game if you are a jerk instead of 49$ seems like a crap idea too me.

I am also reading a lot of a comments and I see its mixed.

So what someone team killed you? Its just a game

Thats the thing here, Its JUST A GAME. We shouldn't be punished for being a jerk on a game, Almost everyone is rude on the internet because they know nothing bad can happen. This is WHY we have a BANNING system, so charging people shitloads of money for a game just because they are rude will probably piss off a lot of gamers.

I can't even state how bad of an idea, there are just so many reasons, but you know Gabe, once he gets an idea in his head hes going to stick with it

So now I'm going to have to pay 200$ for episode three.

I also WOULD support the idea if it helped the good players

Hell yeah power to them, Sometimes I like hanging out with nice players, they put me in my place and keep me chilled out, so yeah if they were rewarded for being good players it would be cool, but he wants to punish the bad players.

SO TL;DR

So this is my overall opinion, Give discounts and free items / games to players who are helpful / nice or get nice reviews. People with bad reviews don't get any discounts but at the same time they don't get charged more money for a game just because they are an asshat.

 

[[zonking great]]

This doesn't work. How can you do this in a system where others can troll you with bad ratings? Holy bad idea, Newellman!

 

[Mxrz]

Welp, I guess I'm done with Valve. You'd think every player review system ever being abused out the ass would caught their eye, but oh well.

Unless he was just trolling the interviewer or something.

 

[bram961]

i think this is quite an interesting way of selling games but wouldnt it be better to have like if a player is good to the community has in the case of steam a good vac record and works alot with steam taking it to good use and not making other people get offended then they get a bonus like sale on games and stuff

but if the player breaks vac record things doesnt use steam at all makes other people offended then they have to pay full price

what i mean is that i dont like the popularity thing in it
i dont want to have to get 10 people to join into the server im playing to get sale i want to get sale by being a nice guy in the community and another reason why i dont like the popularity thing is because we have this option called singleplayer its somthing many people use and they dont get to have other people joining their game

*yay sarcasm on people not knowing while evrybody does *

 

[Cid Silverwing]

NO!

NO!!

NO!!!

Why they are even considering this is an affront to all sanity.

 

[Emilin_Rose]

The irony here is that 2 of valve's most popular games, TF2 and Portal, are pc only, yet when i hear the nerd-rage, it sounds like my little brother and his friends, Livetards who are dicks to everyone online, ragequit whenever something goes wrong, and constantly threaten to boot or ban people for just playing the game how they want to play and not following the livetard's plan to get himself a new achivement or whatever.

I would give anything for this system to be used. Anything. My virginity. Just once it would be nice for there to be a reward for being a good person, rather than standing off to the side while the dick next to you demanding his drink for free because it was 'too hot' or something.

I do like the idea of charging a fee for voice if someone is really horrible.

I don't think charging more for a game is fair, even to the people who treat others badly, but that wasn't what the original post said. The game is given at full price, not an inflated price, to someone with a bad reputation. Then they have two choices. Either play the game without the voice, and play it without teamkilling or ragequitting long enough to earn free voice, or pay the fee to talk to people.

It's a nice idea, because people who had to pay for voice or work to earn it aren't nearly as likely to abuse it as someone who just gets it handed to them regardless of their track record, and the people who don't have to pay or wait are the people who weren't abusing it in the first place.

 

[Pescetarian]

This'll be fine if it's significantly scaled back, with mic-spammers, griefers and such having to pay dues by way of Steam or they get banned from the game, or something. It makes sense from Valve's point of view, and I think that if it is ever implemented it will take the form of some sort of reporting system. However, I don't see why it should be anything more than a couple dollars more or less.

 

[TiefBlau]

It's a very interesting idea, and it's by far superior in theory. But that's just the thing, isn't it?

You see, the world of economics (that is, entry-level freshman year economics) calls this phenomenon positive and negative externalities, under the implication that people who have a negative effect on society should get taxed for the benefit of others, and in turn people who have a positive effect should be subsidized to encourage their efforts. As you may expect, this role is typically given to governments, because you can trust (that is, you're supposed to trust) them to decide what is right or wrong for our society. That's their job.

Which begs the question: can you trust a private corporation (in this case, Valve) to tax and subsidize users based on good or bad behavior? Off the record, yes. But being that they're a private industry, their attentions may fall out of line. If you make more money by charging a higher price than you do by lowering it, and the only criterion is that people should stop being jerks, that's a natural inclination to raise prices.

But to be fair, this could also have the very opposite effect. Users don't like to be told that they're jerks. Every time you do so, your consumer base's sentiments regarding your game and work ethic worsen a bit. This forces companies to play it safe.

 

[jonoortrev]

Its definitely an interesting concept, but this would so easily get abused. Instead of adding extra costs to playing if you're a jerk, simply removing functionality would help people act civilly. And being nice/proactive shouldn't get some one a whole free game, that's not fair on more casual players who just sit in the middle road, getting like 10 or 20% off their next purchase, and even limited edition versions available to people who positively affect game play (for one example, I buy a lot of stuff from certain record companies, and they'll give me free rarer presses of certain purchases as well as what I've order, or send out low numbered copies of certain records, like a number 1 of run etc.), you could send them out free copies of the original concept drawings, numbered and signed by the artist.

Essentially I agree with the model they've proposed, the independent scenes of well, just about everything already do similar things, but it need to be so very carefully implemented to simply encourage good behavior with something worthwhile that's not over the top, and to cut out the loop bad players until they've learnt to be respectful(one from record companies I've heard about, simply cancelling orders they've placed and refunding them instead of responding to their rudeness).

 

[AndrewF022]

But being a jerk and making life hard for people is what competitive multiplayer is all about, that.. and being so good that everyone leaves the game because they simply can't beat you..

In all seriousness though, the current model is fine and works fine for most people, and if it ain't broken, don't fix it.. well you can fix it buy charging Aussies the same price as everyone else haha.. Valve are actually pretty good at that, so ill let it slide, non valve games are still far to much though.

 

[ExileNZ]

This plan sounds so risky and prone to backlash and failure, but... as a concept I love it.

Charge utter dickwads more. This is like some kind of etiquette holy grail...

 

[Carlston]

Wait steam has no way to report racists, cheaters or anything...how would they make this system work when they never cared about how people played to begin with?

 

[jowo96]

I think measuring antisocial behaviour may be hard to fairly measure especially as they have to distiguish between intentional and unintentional antisocial behaviour.

 

[player3141]

I can see this happening in future valve games, should Gabe decide to do this


Loyal, good, "popular" customer- price paid for a game - free to rediculously low

Loud, obnoxious, hated customer- price paid for game- none, they are either too angry to buy it, or they will pirate the game(I do not condone piracy and I am aware it is not practical to pirate an online game)


Valve profits - nothing! which will delay their games even further, hooray!(sarcasm if you didn't notice)

 

[airrazor7]

So basically, Mr. Newell wants to turn popular players into celebrities and give them free admission, in hopes that it will attract less popular players and for any player that he or whatever staff decides they do not like, they will bounce the player out of the way and charge them extra, basically penalizing with a fine, if they wish to continue using their services.

This idea is awesome! It's like how real life works! Oh, excuse me while I clean up this puddle of sarcasm that has dripped on the floor.

 

[Ed Classified]

I sure hope not being a jerk is way too much fun.

 

[A-D.]

First Reaction: Oh god, he's gone bonkers now.

Second Reaction: No really, he has gone batshit insane.

Third Reaction: Wait, are you serious?

Fourth Reaction: If that isnt a Troll, then Gabe really has gone whacko.