Valve considers "Cheaper games for non-douchebags" policy

[Kerensky287]

Link

Originally Posted by the article

One of Gabe Newell's theoretical Steam payment methods would charge more for players that are awful people.

There are a few standard payment models for videogames today that include retail, monthly fees, and microtransactions. Valve boss Gabe Newell recently called these models "broken," revealing that the company is looking into new ways of charging customers based on the customers themselves.

In a lengthy interview with Develop, Newell said: "The industry has this broken model, which is one price for everyone. That's actually a bug, and it's something that we want to solve through our philosophy of how we create entertainment products."

Rather than pricing a product based purely on what that product is worth, Newell talks about pricing a product based on what the customer is worth as well. "Some people, when they join a server, a ton of people will run with them," Newell continued. "Other people, when they join a server, will cause others to leave."

"So, in practice, a really likable person in our community should get DotA 2 for free, because of past behavior in Team Fortress 2," Newell added. "Now, a real jerk that annoys everyone, they can still play, but a game is full price and they have to pay an extra hundred dollars if they want voice."

Newell also went over how Valve is already charging high-value customers "negative" amounts, such as those that were paid royalties for creating Team Fortress 2 items. "Their cost for Team Fortress 2 is negative $20,000 per week," he said. "You're never going to see that in a retail store ... It's people who make hats get paid. People who are really popular play for less, or free."

Could this be a method that actually reduces the number of people whose internet anonymity causes them to spout an endless number of obscenities and racially motivated comments just because they were gunned down by a sniper? It seems like it might. Not that internet jerks would disappear overnight, but money could be a strong motivator to make someone pat a fellow player on the back instead of tea-bagging him.

Now, don't get me wrong - I love this idea in theory.

But in practice, they're taking the people who would be least happy with this style and giving them the power to ruin it for everyone else. I mean, if you're a white-knight paragon of gaming mannerisms, then that's all well and good, and a bunch of people might rep you, so to speak. But I could just as easily see some asshole giving you anti-rep just because you ended his killstreak.

There are too many people playing for them to effectively monitor this, either, so I don't know how they'd deal with abuse. I could see servers showing up just for people who want to circlejerk their rep points, too, resulting in people who cheat getting much more of a bonus than people who deserve it.

[Bells]

it would eventually turn into Elitism and "trickle-down" gaming rep. There is indeed too many people to keep track of. As such, they will likely opt by let the community moderate itself. Right there you have a problem with International players. Already breaking down into smaller communities. And also casual players, or just the larger base of players that are just fine and regular good people but simply don't get noticed, so they will eventually fall down into this "abyss" where they are worth a lot, but never get recognized for it.

[Osterbaum]

It's a pretty dangerous road to go down on. I don't think this would really be all that great.

[Aerozord]

I have to agree, rep based economy can only function in a system of full disclosure and on a small enough scale that people will notice something is up. Individual servers and clans have this and it works well because effort can be made to verify the claims. Automating the oversight is asking for trouble.

Though they might not leave it up to the players to judge naughty or nice. Like players suggest someone is good or bad, but before actual rewards are issued someone checks to make sure its valid.

The other issue I see is that this is a purely reward system. That has a slight flaw. This forum for example has a rep system where you can only add to it. However no one gets repped for being nice and polite, sure if you aren't you wont get any but everyone views not being a flaming dick as something to be expected and assumed. You get rep for adding contributing in some way to the forum. Make a particularly entertaining post, help someone solve a problem, make a good point in a discussion.

In a game you would get rep for being a good player more then anything. In and of itself that is good especially in team fortress 2 where good player means being a good teammate. Problem is simply being nice or a douche wont factor in much. People are willing to forgive alot of annoying tendencies if you can single handedly down half the other team

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Yes, because this is clearly a proven system that has been working across the world for thousands of years of human trading and is in fact, how all modern business is conducted
/rolleyes

Eugh, no Valve, just, no.

[Kerensky287]

I don't know the full extent that they're trying this, to be honest. Like, is it the sort of thing where they'll reward people that they HEAR of? Newell was being a little vague.

I mean, yeah, game devs want good communities, and the best way to achieve that is to reward people for good behavior. I don't think that a scholarship-like situation is the way to pull it off though.

[Bells]

they are already trying this on us... didn't TF2 got a "Tutor" or something like that system just recently? Well, be a Good Tutor and Valve will know if good apprentices become good tutors... it's one way to evaluate who well behaved is your player base

[Loyal]

Somehow I doubt he's being entirely serious. Even ignoring the problems of trying to implement this, it seems like an excellent system if you want to hemmorhage cash ridiculously fast.

[PhoenixFlame]

After screaming hysterically and jamming a pair of nails in my eyes, I sat down and thought about this logically, and not even from the player's perspective. From the buyer's perspective it's pretty easy. Either you're getting a discount or some jackass is charging you an arbitrary fee over some nebulously catalogued vaguely definable information.

... Which probably means you'll never buy something from them again.

Maybe they want that? I don't know, that sort of sounds like what the goal is. Still, think of it from a business perspective. How do you adjucate this? How much money do you spend adjucating this? Don't you already /have/ this?

I mean, if you play an online game on VALVE ANTI-CHEAT (VAC/TM) secured servers(TM) via your steam(TM) handle that must run in the background to play your game, you can already get banned if you act like an asshole, thus making you buy the game again (and possibly all of your other games again too) if you want to continue playing or, failing that, achieves the 'you don't play' result in my previous paragraph.

... Why do this to yourself, Gabe? Do you like pain? As much as I do? Oh god, my eyes!

[Bells]

i think the only way they could reward players via their actions would be to Install a bunch of Achievements geared towards that spirit and track those. Of course, even that is somewhat easy to bypass, but still. Provide reward for those who work harder to get them