Valve could charge @ssholes more for games, give benefits to "good" players
polycounter lvl 10
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/110056-Valve-Discusses-Charging-Customers-Based-on-Popularity
Love the idea. Too often gaming communities are ruined by jerks and it costs companies real money. If they run with this I hope it works out for 'em, the ramifications of this could extend beyond gaming, but for now it's just an idea.
Love the idea. Too often gaming communities are ruined by jerks and it costs companies real money. If they run with this I hope it works out for 'em, the ramifications of this could extend beyond gaming, but for now it's just an idea.
Replies
They gave away their right to be treated fairly the second they start treating others badly.
I think this is an absolutely great idea, reward genuinely nice and cool players with a lower price for games and free merch and make everything horribly overpriced for trolls, causing them to not have any games on the platform and sending them elsewhere.
Heck, I hope it's implemented and that it leads to every abusive moron spending their game nights alone, without any games to play because they're too expensive.
there is no way that something like that can work and still having them gain money will a decent amount of people not being pissed off at them.
It's "fun" to try to be a better person when there are rewards involved. Very curious to see what they have in mind.
It's also important to keep in mind that valve is working on DOTA 2. The BIGGEST issue with this genera of gaming becoming even bigger than it is is the horrible community the competitive game fosters, there's a customer "ceiling" that exists because many gamers do not like being screamed at for weeks as they learn the basics of the game. I personally haven't played Heroes of Newerth in a very long time because of the community. League of Legends all the way and even that game is brutal if you're a "noob".
I have a very strongly negative reaction to people I regard as rude, or trolls or what have you, so this makes me ecstatic. Dealing with random/anonymous assholes on the internet fills me with a near murderous rage that really spoils my leisure time, which is why I stick to single player.
I may play multiplayer games again if this comes to pass.
Not that I like dealing with jerks, but the weapons you use against them could just as easily turned against "good" players if there's no higher instance who controls this.
If valve can somehow restrict this to genuine abuses (then again shouldn't you patch away those exploits?) or things which are against the TOS (rude behavior, verbal abuse) it could work. But just basing it on pure "cool ur my buddy I vote u up!" mechanics doesn't sound good to me.
I mean theres no reason why I or anyone else should bay more or less for THE SAME ammount of data.
Servers that host the online games should be responsible for deciding the types of behavior that are considered "Rude"
I've been banned for Swearing on a server, which to me makes no sense, but obviously I support the right of a server owner to decided what is/ is not allowed on his server.
I DO NOT however think that I should pay more for the same files than another guy who doesnt swear.
On the one hand, I have a lot of faith in Valve. Yeah, they've made some missteps with certain things in games like TF2, but so far they've never done anything that was outstandingly bad. At the worst, they've introduced some features into their games that I don't feel the need to interact with at all.
On the other hand, though, I can see a system like this backfiring unless it's handled extremely carefully. As many others have pointed out, people love to game systems. If there's a way for somebody to take advantage of a system, they'll do it. Because of how easily one could farm positive points or whatever system that might be used, I definitely see the potential for certain individuals to try and get rewards that they're simply not entitled to.
I think only time and testing will tell if this idea has any merit to it. We simply don't have much information to go on at this point. I'm definitely going to be watching DOTA2 veeeerrrry carefully in the coming months, though.
This^
I'm not sure if what valve propose is actually possible but if it is then the process needs to spread to other industries.....I would love to see higher car prices for people that drive like muppets
Any lets assume the article is an example (like $100 for mic is obviously just an example to make a point), if the biggest punishment is that you pay the full price for a game if you are a dick, and you get discounts if you are good, then it isn't really unfair, because it actually just rewards good players. So you only lose out if you are bad.
That's actually a really bad idea. You will punish people that actually just suck at the game and treat them like people who kill others for fun. Most of the team kills I make in games is because other people think it's a good plan to sit in front of my firing rifle or run to places I just announced to be an airstrike zone
I hope the idea works out for them though. People are cheap and they'll go a far way for discounts, so this might actually get people to play nicer and troll less. Trolling (in a negative way) is getting to popular these days. I'm fine with trolls joking around, but pissing people off for the "lulz" just bothers me.
I should have added that you will still have the "Forgive TK" option, so you won't get voted down if you make a apology. So its up to the killed person to accept it or not.
If they get a system in place that matches players to player level. Versus the free for all, then they could implement this system. Otherwise it would be worthless as n00bs would get mad at experienced for beating them or cussing them out for ruining the match. While experienced would get mad at the n00bs.
As it is currently. Except neither is held against the other.
On the other hand, I used to get quite upset myself when I died in CS from the same flippin campers again and again all those years ago, so I guess I couldn't blame them for being upset.
Point of the matter is that I think it would be a bad idea. Yeah, there are some bad mannered players out there but it would be close to impossible to seperate them from the normal players who would get reported as well.
I guess its just about finding the right combination and solution to how and when you can vote.
The internet / games are full of dicks, but they still deserve to pay the same price as everyone else imo :S
I dont think any sort of rating system would work though. Its needs to be a sort of self regulating system. I mean its not hard to spot the trolls and disrupters. You dont need some sort of gamey rating system to deal with them.
Punishment for TKing is a silly idea. Repeat offenders should be kicked/banned from servers, thats enough punishment imo. No need to charge people more for doing it.
Mic spammers. Maybe they could be permanently muted. Take away the right to chat.
either way. I dont see how it could be policed. I can see people exploiting it and innocent people getting punished either because they are noobs or because griefers will find a way to get others punished.
They're partially looking to not only reward people for playing nice, but have a reward for people that are able to increase their revenue, like people who play really nicely and bring more customers to the game.
Or people who make hats for them.
At the worst if you're a pulsating dickbag you'll pay regular price for the game, but to really benefit from this kind of theoretical deal you'd prove your worth.
It happens in a way today even, popular youtubers and bloggers are given games for free to talk about them, or make videos about them.
Still, it's very interesting how they're trying to defeat the biggest problem of the dota style games, the harshest multiplayer community known to man, the whole dotacommuntiy-scenario is so anti-valve it's not even funny. New players get torn apart in those games.
They are implementing some coaching-system for Dota 2, and this might even tie in with that, be a good coach to random new players and you'll be rewarded.
In gametrailers you see people giving negative points to good people, and just because they used a word in spanish!
btw, if you don't want to hear mic users, just disable the mic option in the game. In L4D2, i have it disabled, and i don't hear some idiots XD
And what happens with the good steam customers?
That's what I'm thinking... What better way to grief someone than to actually exact a financial loss on them :poly122:
I'm all for people being held accountable for their actions, tho. I would love to see something of this nature implemented, but as most have already said, i think it would be tough to pull off.
W/e. I always feel content when I mute the punk, knowing he goes on screaming into dead space to no avail
Even if I was acting like a jerk to someone, who's there to say that the other person wasn't the one who started it? Is Valve gonna act as a judge to all these incidents?
No thanks!
"People can sell their own hats in tf2? how are they gonna control that!"
In valve's only example they said that the bad guy had to pay full price, that's the normal price, the same price we pay for a game today.
Everyone is already there, you can't grief a higher price on someone.
I'm highly guessing any system they'll have in place would be moderated, much like how hat-making is.
They're not ever going to have a system in place that just rewards random people depending on votes, they'll have a system in place where they can doublecheck that the guy they're going to reward will have actually brought them revenue in terms of new sales or a happier community.
I think their voice-chat price was a bit too random to be taken serious at this point.
Me and my friends just use skype, or more recently i have a mumble server running and we all use that.
I rarely play with randoms anymore, mostly because of the issue valve is addressing. If there isn't someone I know playing, its not worth hopping online to me.
Although I'm very much a social gamer, always have been. So I'm sure that shapes my opinion much differently from the get-go.
Maybe it could be a set of variables hard lined into the system itself?
Whats your steam id Rob? :P
I read this as something else initially.
Thats why I suggested you could only rate your own team mates.
I still think this is a great idea, and if anyone can take on the design challenge of making this nigh impossible to abuse, it's Valve.
Leaving anything up to users never works, so Valve would have to monitor it and recognize patterns.
Such as if they notice that player X joins a server, 20 other people join him and this repeats again and again, then they monitor some of that players games to make sure he isn't a dick or whatnot.
I dunno, they'll find a way. I still want a world where greifers and trolls sit at home cutting themselves, forever alone.
I stolled ur voice, gimmie 100 bucks and I give it back. k thx buy.
I like the idea of giving perks to good contributors, but I'd need to know more on how that system would work before I sign off on it.
But what if instead of punishing bad behaviour they just incentivised good behaviour. Say you cant vote anyone down, but you can vote them up. So all the people whom get very few votes are bad or dont contribute much.
And the cheaper/free games for viral players is borrowed from the surge of "social games" on facebook. In the social game space we value a viral player more highly then a monetizing player.
If player A recruits friends B and C to play the game then I can justify giving player A the game for free and he has already paid for himself twice over by getting two friends to buy the game.
Steam has a friends list, all they'd have to do is negate these people's votes. Really we have no idea what they have planned so we can't really knock it yet.
What we do know is valve was planning a "mentorship" program where skilled players can observe other RANDOM players and give them tips as they play. This is an example of where players can gain bonus points, if someone enjoys helping others and tutors hundreds of new players giving them sound advice and encouragement as they learn the ropes. There are a multitude of systems that could be put into place to prevent abuse of the system, and in the end it could be very profitable.
Take starcraft 2 as an example, players who abuse the game with map hacks are permanently banned, forced to buy another copy of starcraft 2, extra money. Players who abuse social systems could be reprimanded in a similar fasion bringing in extra money for the extra resources required to police the community.
Again, we just don't know what's planned but it's a very exciting idea.
A recruitment bonus would be cool too pseudo. Imagine if every person you "reffered" could say you got them to play the game by simply inputing your steamID after they install, and suddenly you get like 10% of the money they spent on the game in game points that you could buy more games with. Now players have tangible reasons to help sell your game. Industrious kids at schools and any number of places could score tons of extra money pushing games. Could this be "exploited"? Sure could, people would refer people who didn't help them buy the game just to capatalize on the system, but this will build excitement for the system at the same time, in the long run the system would likely pay for itself many times over.
I'm sure they'll work out the details, and iron out the kinks.
League of Legends bans players, and they just end up making new accounts, and raging on new players. thus new players then start raging on other players etc. etc. etc. the cycle continues, and grows.
I'm sure they'll figure out a system that gets supervised reports so players cant take advantage of it. And once that rating goes down the prices will decrease (I imagine). Whatever they do I'm sure they'll think it through.
I have heard that DOTA is the worst of the MOBAs for player raging, and the terrible community.
For everyone that thinks its bad, and will lose sales.... you have to play one of these games and see for yourself how bad the online behavior is. At least 3/5 games I play has someone throwing out every name in the book at another player, for the entirety of the game. Swearings not the issue, verbal harassment is.
Further more they let they're attitude affect the game play. So saying you need to 'toughen up' doesn't work when your playing a team dependent game and a team mate refuses to work with another team mate because they're "****** ****** ***** NOOB!" It creates a terrible experience for the other 9 people in the game.
IMO more players quit because of the community then anything else.
If valve can create a great, friendlier community with this I'm sure they will be seeing a lot of the players from LOL and HON go to DOTA 2, only for the better community.
The only realistic why of judging it would be from other players, but players give you bad rep and report you etc out of spite.
A prime example is me playing Street Fighter 4.
I'm good at Street Fighter, probably better than any other game, and I beat the majority of people online. I'm also friendly enough, and often send GG messages etc.
Yet I would CONSTANTLY get booted from lobbies, and got about 75% negative rep, for no other reason than winning, or dominating people with Pink T Hawk.
They just lie too, most of them would neg rep me and say I was being aggressive, or sending abusive messages etc
So in an ideal world it would be a nice idea to weed out annoying, disruptive players, rage quitters etc, in practice it wouldn't work, because it would be nigh on impossible to get a fair assessment of players.
Maybe pull from other stats like every time someone mutes a player a stat is logged. Or if someone is booted from a server, log it. However that does give admins a lot of power to abuse their players and really no recourse for players that wonder onto servers and get worked over by people who set up such servers just to abuse people.
At the end of the day if its based off of player feedback especially if they can give negative black marks to each other then its going to get nasty fast. People like talking to people who don't talk. People like playing games with people they can beat.
Back when I played CS tons of people where accused and booted out of games and off servers for "cheating". Normally the cheats where super easy to spot if you just followed them around for a while in spectator. Most of the time, people where railroaded for being good. "I could own this server if that guy would just leave, I'll make a fuss" or "FU man I so shoot you 400 times in the face and you shot me once in the foot and I died!?"
If they just watch someone for a while and decide they like their play style or what they contribute and give them a bonus then awesome I'm all for it. If its a negative based system then its just a race to the bottom. People try to shove others down instead of build themselves up.
Then lets go from there.
Now in reality? Valve would have to implement an extremely well thought out and exploit-proof system. I would venture to guess they'd take very small steps at a time figuring out how to expand it based on experience.