Valve Discusses Charging Customers Based on Popularity

[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.

 

[Anthan]

This does seem like an idea in need of a few re-drafts.

It wouldn't work for start, someone playing to win would recieve bad votes from someone playing to have fun and vice versa.

Gabe Newell is a really intelegent person. He wouldn't throw out an idea as reckless as this unless it really is just a theory which 'could' be possible with a better safety plan.

---

Then there's people like EvilDaedelus on YouTube, he's a notorious 'polite' griefer who brings laughter to everyone who sees his videos as well as most people on the servers he plays on, (everyone except the people he annoys).

People's opinions on other people differ to much to make this viable for now.

 

[ShoryukenDude]

I'm one of those crazy 'nice guys' you run into online, so if this turns out to be true and works as it should, I have no problem with this.

But I'd still bet $10 this is going to turn out to be a joke sometime down the line. This is Gabe Newell we're talking about here.

 

[zad1212]

Though I like the idea, its going to be greifed. It would need a system so people can't just spam report, or just say your being an awful person.

 

[Reishadowen]

...OH. MY. GOD. This man is INSANE. Seriously, I am willing to bet that this guy is literally, clinically INSANE to some degree. I agree that people being jerks to you online is a creating a bad image for us gamers, but I mean come on. This is just lunacy.

How could you possibly even make that work? And even if you did, it doesn't seem fair to someone to have to pay more because people online think you're a jerk. Last I checked, that's discrimination, and that's a no-no in our market. What's to keep people from leaving when your game gets too expensive? Don't think you're some sort of great gaming god that people will pay no matter what you charge. That's a Sony train of thought, and last I checked, that train jumped the rails YEARS ago.

Besides, it would just turn the game into a popularity contest. Some people (like me) play games online because it does not require the kind of interaction with people as in real life, at which we tend to kind of suck at. Games are an escape, and we don't want our little island of paradise judging us.

 

[Marik Bentusi]

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.

Alternatively, he's talking about extreme cases.

So it won't matter if you're a helpful Medic in TF2 or teabag noobs in CS, but it will matter if you write scripts and programs to bypass security measurements or contribute content or big bugfixes etc, much like private people make money from their hats in the item store and massively contributing to the wiki gets you a hat, or you get shiny items for helping polish the game (translations, pointing out text errors, writing trivia for loading screens, making new default avatars, etc).

This sort of contribution would be much easier to fake (either way) than the alternative, which would be that everyone can rate everyone and every user gets a score from that system that determines pricing on his/her future games (which as I pointed out in my own post in this thread, is a system screaming to be abused).

 

[numbersix1979]

While chucking the douchebags out of online gaming sounds like something to be championed, I'm worried that a system like this would be both a colossal failure and fundamentally unfair.

I don't really see how the current system of pricing games is 'broken'. It means video games are priced the same as pretty much everything else in the current economic system besides produce bought by the pound. Not to mention, how will this system be maintained? Popular vote? So jerks will be voting which other jerks to kick off the servers? Or will moderators do it, moderators who time and time again prove to be vastly out of touch with the hoi-paloi under their purview? Also, sounds like a good way to cyber-bully someone. Get everyone at school to vote down someone's reputation, so they have to pay for their next game.

Valve shows once again they are willing to discuss pretty much anything in interviews and board meetings, with the possible exception of Half-Life 2, Episode 3.

 

[Allan Foe]

What's all the hubbub about?
"You contribute to the community? Have some of our stuff for free!" seems like a mighty fine system to me. Gabe seems like a smart enough man not to go for the community rating system that would be abusable by griefers, and it's an interesting social experiment (which is, honestly, all that matters for me, personally).

Go Team Gabe!

 

[Galletea]

It wouldn't work and would cost more to implement and regulate than it's worth. It looks like Valve are just saying "Hey, we're still here. Remember we think about the fans" When what they should be doing is making half-life 3 instead of buying fans off with this bullshit.
That is just how I see it, anyway.