Valve Discusses Charging Customers Based on Popularity

[BanthaFodder]

...

Terrible idea.

Let's just have a hypothetical situation. Player A plays against Player B.

Player A is an amazing player. Player B is not. Player A wins.

Player B gets butt-hurt about losing because he's a prepubescent idiot. Player B decides to report Player A for offensive language, or whatever.

Terrible, terrible plan.

Let's have more hypotheticals, shall we?

Player A is gay. Player B is homophobic.
Player A is black. Player B is racist.
Player A is athiest. Player B is Christian fundementalist.
Player A uses XBox. Player B uses Playstation.
Player A dislikes COD. Player B is a COD fanboy.
Player A dislikes anime. Player B is an otaku.
Player A is a newb. Player B is impatient.
Player A is spy. Player B is not.
Player A is a furry. Player B is 80% of the internet.

Or; Player B is a troll. Player B is a griefer. Player B is a prick. Player B is jealous.

In other words, this system would be so easily abused by people with differing opinions or skill levels that it would cause Valve to lose tons of costumers cause everyone would have to pay a hundred extra just because they thought differently then Player B.

except Valve doesn't just take people's word for it. they'll review chat logs and see if the accusations have any actual weight to them. if they just banned people because Player B said they did something bad, there would be next to no one on Steam. hell, I probably would have been banned. it's the same as when people ask Valve to restore item X to their TF2 backpack; they don't just say "oh, okay guy, here's those 20 unusual hats you said you lost, have a nice day". Valve is smarter than that.

 

[BanthaFodder]

I'm glad to know Valve is ready to measure my worth as a human being.

This. Because a game company should do that.

jeez guys, it's not like Valve chooses who shall live and who shall die. if you act like a dick and cheat and grief, you will have to pay more. they aren't measuring your worth as a human being, they're seeing whether or not you play nicely with all the other boys and girls. if you abide by the rules, you get rewarded. if you act like a total cockend, you don't get rewarded. it's that simple.

 

[Trogdor1138]

It's a great idea in theory.

But... I feel it's open to backfire more than the positives that will come out of it. So it's stupid to pursue something with so many potential flaws.

 

[Pifflestick]

...

Terrible idea.

Let's just have a hypothetical situation. Player A plays against Player B.

Player A is an amazing player. Player B is not. Player A wins.

Player B gets butt-hurt about losing because he's a prepubescent idiot. Player B decides to report Player A for offensive language, or whatever.

Terrible, terrible plan.

Let's have more hypotheticals, shall we?

Player A is gay. Player B is homophobic.
Player A is black. Player B is racist.
Player A is athiest. Player B is Christian fundementalist.
Player A uses XBox. Player B uses Playstation.
Player A dislikes COD. Player B is a COD fanboy.
Player A dislikes anime. Player B is an otaku.
Player A is a newb. Player B is impatient.
Player A is spy. Player B is not.
Player A is a furry. Player B is 80% of the internet.

Or; Player B is a troll. Player B is a griefer. Player B is a prick. Player B is jealous.

In other words, this system would be so easily abused by people with differing opinions or skill levels that it would cause Valve to lose tons of costumers cause everyone would have to pay a hundred extra just because they thought differently then Player B.

except Valve doesn't just take people's word for it. they'll review chat logs and see if the accusations have any actual weight to them. if they just banned people because Player B said they did something bad, there would be next to no one on Steam. hell, I probably would have been banned. it's the same as when people ask Valve to restore item X to their TF2 backpack; they don't just say "oh, okay guy, here's those 20 unusual hats you said you lost, have a nice day". Valve is smarter than that.

This system would require them to monitor everyones multiplayer games at all times or just take peoples word for it like Youtube likes and dislikes. One would require so much man power it'd cost more money then it'd be worth and the other would be easy to abuse.

 

[Firehound]

I'm glad to know Valve is ready to measure my worth as a human being.

This. Because a game company should do that.

jeez guys, it's not like Valve chooses who shall live and who shall die. if you act like a dick and cheat and grief, you will have to pay more. they aren't measuring your worth as a human being, they're seeing whether or not you play nicely with all the other boys and girls. if you abide by the rules, you get rewarded. if you act like a total cockend, you don't get rewarded. it's that simple.

Or If you happen to be black, play a spy, dominate them in TF2, are an atheist, etc, etc.

 

[Flauros]

Valve has really embraced this digital system. The product isnt REAL, so you can do whatever you want with it. Give it for free to nice people, give out a thousand copies, have the price change according to how many games you have.

You can do anything, as long as it motivates them to stay on steam and buy more. Way to embrace the future.

 

[sergnb]

Not fair at all. I don't wanna pay more than this girl just because she has a shitload of perv 12 years old following her ass

I don't wanna pay more than this guy just because he has a broadcast in justin tv and he broadcasts gameplay or whatever

I don't wanna pay more just because I don't like to talk with random people who would most likely insult me for no reason

That without counting the massive trolling this system could involve. Let's say you get in an argument with someone in the middle of a Team Fortress 2. Now your argument is misunderstood and suddenly you have half of the server against you for no good reason. Now I have to pay 5 more dollars if I want to buy a new game. Well, excuse me Valve, but fuck that.

 

[Jandau]

Soooo... trolls can now grief me by making me pay more for video games? Really? And someone thought this would actually be a good idea? I mean, I can see why it might be nice to reward upstanding community members, but punishments are just silly...

Well, since the whole point of griefing is to make people pay attention and get mad at the griefer, and they most likely would have the voting system be anonymous, there wouldn't be much point to it unless if the griefer were to admit that he was the one who did it, and that could be used as evidence that he's using the system incorrectly and could quite possibly be used to report him in some manner. Unless if he were to try to make it seem as if he had a good reason....

That would be true... if the point of griefing was to get attention. People grief to hurt others, be it minor annoyances or emotional distress. Giving people the ability to inflict actual financial harm on others if they can get a large enough group of friends to back them up is nothing short of bullying. When people grief, they don't care if the other person knows who did it, they just want the other person to suffer.

Now imagine this system being readily available to people like Anon or Goons (Something Awful guys). Now imagine you piss one of them off somehow. Now imagine him getting all his little friends to downvote you, report you or whatever form this might take. Now imagine logging in one morning, having done nothing wrong, only to find you now have to pay extra for your games.

It's a terrible idea. Rewarding good behaviour might be ok, since abuse of this system wouldn't hurt anyone. But giving the people the ability to target others with a rating system that can cause them actual harm sound like something only a person who has never been on the Internet would think of...

 

[NathLines]

It's a really interesting idea. I can't see it working though. Maybe the wizards at Valve will show us in the future. I wouldn't mind since I never use voice and rarely ever chat in games. I can only benefit from this.

 

[FoolKiller]

I hate this idea. I don't want to hear people being nice because they want me to approve of them and so on. I also don't want followers nor do I want to have to bring friends just to get discounts. This model does two things I don't like:

It creates insincere niceness, which is just useless.

It reinforces nepotism.

 

[MCU]

Problems I see right away:

-Say hello to thousands of servers dedicated to nothing but idling/botting around to gather "popularity."
-Women already drink for free at the bar...now they get to game for free at home. I also predict a whole new crop of men acting as women online to score cheaper games. Creepy.
-The assholes are going to want to get their money's worth after being surcharged. I foresee some really hardcore trolls with a nasty sense of entitlement (and too much money).
-It would be very difficult to implement well in multiplayer games that require heavy cooperation, like Left 4 Dead. New players, even ones with good intentions who are eager to learn, tend to get bailed on by the more experienced. It would be a terrible idea to penalize someone -- intentionally or not -- for being new to gaming or a particular game by hiking their prices. Not exactly an incentive to keep playing.
-People will spam friend requests like it's life or death. I already get more than I want as it is.

I like the idea of having some sort of built-in feedback loop to promote civility, but this just isn't the way to do it.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

So, being a person who doesn't care for online play, I'd have to pay more because of it?

No, the idea is you just wouldn't get to pay less than usual like the people who would play online and are liked by most of the community but you also wouldn't have to pay more than usual like the people who play online but are disliked by the community.

That still seems unfair to me. They get games cheaper because they play one or two online a lot?

 

[Shinkada]

-Unpopular opinions
-New/unskilled players
-Experienced/highly skilled players
-People who just happen to have annoying voices
-Using overpowered strategies or weapons
-Using underpowered strategies or weapons

Here are just SOME of the things that can get you paying more for your next game! Such a cool idea, Gabe. I suppose next you'll implement voice modulators to make everyone sound the same, then we can just start fining people for voicing opinions and we can all have that happy padded-walls world where nobody's feelings ever get hurt! You can eat those twinkies without fear of social whiplash.

Hey, here's an even BETTER idea! How about we change a game's price based on how long it's been in development? I mean, when one company comes out with a 20 hour shooter in two years, they've obviously worked very hard and deserve full retail price. But when another company takes five years to release a 10 hour long shooter, well, they've obviously been gigantic idiots and should be penalized.

Even as a joke this is idiotic. Maybe instead of making dumb jokes Valve should try doing their jobs. The amount of delays is something I would expect from a group handling 20 projects, not Valve and their four IPs. You can point out their low staff number but there's a solution to that called HIRE MORE STAFF. Except Newell doesn't want to because that would cut into his snacks funding.

 

[InsaneFool]

I think this is a really interesting theoretical pricing model, but it is not very practical.

I can see this system being broken very easily - just like the achievement farming servers - a whole bunch of assholes will get together and boost each other's popularity rating in order to get lower prices, all the while complaining against people they don't like (read: people who aren't assholes) so that the people who are supposed to be getting rewarded are the ones being penalized.

 

[LTK_70]

In this thread, many people condemn a system that doesn't even exist yet on their unbased assumptions of how it would work. Have a little faith, guys. What's described here is little more than hypotheticals at this point, so neither Valve nor we can make any meaningful predictions about its effects and success. And if anyone is able to make it work, it's Valve.