Valve Discusses Charging Customers Based on Popularity

[Shakermaker]

The real question is, why would we want Valve to spend so much time and resource developing this when they should be focusing on making good games.

That is the beauty of a privately owned company: If you want to play around with alternative business models you can. Plus if you get mechanics like this right, they can help people enjoy multiplayer games a lot more. If Valve goes for a positive reinforcement model (i.e. rewarding things like participating in the TF2 mentoring program, making mods that get downloaded a lot, organizing tournaments, what have you) I don't see any problems with it.

 

[Krynn72]

How safe a driver is is much simpler and accurate to quantify. And people don't drive safe to get better insurance rates, they do it because they don't want to ****ing go through a windshield, or in a less extreme case, damage their vehicle.

That's for children, because they haven't developed a moral compass or sense of right and wrong to act on their own judgement. Completely irrelevant.


I still don't think there is an effective way of identifying all of the good players in a game. Whatever criteria Valve sets up is going to leave out some type of player. And there are different definitions of what a 'good' player is. What about players that are new to games and join servers and everyone gets mad at them because they're ****ing up their team by being noobs? Should those noobs be punished because they're making the other player's experience worse? Can we trust gamers to differentiate between a person who is intentionally ruining the game or just can't help it because they're inexperienced? That's the main problem, you're putting way too much faith in the general gamer public. What some people would say is ruining a game, others might enjoy. There is no solid definition of a 'good' player, so the idea of quantifying that is flawed from the start.

First off, you're absolutely wrong about the insurance discounts. People do drive slower and safer because their car is watching how they're driving all the time, and they know it. They know they will not get discounts if they drive like shitheads, and that does prevent a lot of people from acting like shitheads. The very reason insurance companies offer the discount is because it saves them money. How does it save them money? People who go for the discount get in fewer accidents which means fewer cases where the insurance company has to pay for. They wouldn't offer the discount if these same drivers would drive that safely anyways, they'd just be losing money they dont need to be.

As for your "that's for children" argument, thats complete hogwash. Ignoring the fact that children do play these games, you're suggesting that these adults are mature enough to behave on their own. Then why doesn't reality coincide with such a claim? Rewarding people for good behavior functions just as well on adults as it does on kids. You're still stuck on the idealistic notion that people will behave good because thats the right thing. That doesn't work in practice though, and thats what a system like this is trying to address because the consequences of people not behaving for the sake of being good is that the company's products are receiving elements of negative value stemming from such individuals. I mean, I'm right there with you in wanting people to be good folk just because its the right thing, and I think we should do something to promote that kind of thinking as well. But in terms of practicality, giving discounts for good behavior seems like a good way to go until we can accomplish the much larger social issue that is 'assholes on the internet'.

Finally, as for your last comment on whether or not we can trust people to not quit when they get a newb on their team, its a valid point. I'm sure there is a way to overcome such a minor obstacle though. The first thing that comes to mind is a weighting system, where people with fewer hours registered in the game receive only a fraction of "jerk points" and then ramp it up until eventually they're getting full points after having played enough hours to not suck. "But some people wont get good as fast as other people!" I hear you yell at your monitor. Sure, but again, this can be observed and quantified. Then apply the timer according to the average time it takes for someone to get up to speed in the game, and give a liberal amount of leeway, and that problem is all but solved.

My last point is just to remind you that this is discounting the price of games for good players, not increasing the price for bad players. Even if someone royally blows ass at the game and pisses everybody off, they'll still be paying the same amount as the vast majority of people. Its a reward for people being nice, friendly, and enjoyable to play with, nothing more.

Perhaps if you can only vote another player up?...

Positive rep systems are utter failures in every instance that they're used. Vegeta is spot on with why it wont work.

The only system that can counter abuse is one that happens behind-the-scenes. It's the same principle behind VAC's effectiveness. There can be no overt voting or ranking system that is player-controlled, or it will be subject to overt and organised gaming and abuse. It must be a system that provides incomplete information, if any, to the relevant players.

*SNIP*

I like the way you think. Clearly theres a ton of ways to go about this sort of thing, despite what Vegeta says.

EDIT:

The real question is, why would we want Valve to spend so much time and resource developing this when they should be focusing on making good games.

Wow, really? You're pulling the "they should be focusing on making games" argument? Haven't you yourself ripped on people for making this argument about Valve before?

 

[Vegeta897]

My last point is just to remind you that this is discounting the price of games for good players, not increasing the price for bad players.

Oh please, you know very well that's essentially the same thing. 'Bad' players are still paying more than the 'good' players. It doesn't matter that the bad player's price is the 'normal' price. That's totally arbitrary. 'Bad' players are still going to feel ripped off for having to pay more, regardless if it's not actually more than the 'normal' price.

they'll still be paying the same amount as the vast majority of people.

Oh? What makes you say that the vast majority of people are not going to be 'good' players? Honestly curious here, because based on the criteria you've mentioned so far, the 'bad' players seem like they'll be in the minority.

Its a reward for people being nice, friendly, and enjoyable to play with, nothing more.

No, it's a reward for people who exploit whatever criteria they need to to get the discounts. Sure there will be 'honest' players who are not intentionally trying to work the system, but the problem is that those 'honest' people are going to be getting less reward than those who are just interested in getting discounts and will do whatever it takes.

Positive rep systems are utter failures in every instance that they're used. Vegeta is spot on with why it wont work.

Thank you. But I think that the logic on why it won't work could be applied to a negative rep system as well.

Wow, really? You're pulling the "they should be focusing on making games" argument? Haven't you yourself ripped on people for making this argument about Valve before?

I like a lot of Valve's unique ideas that aren't actual games. The bio-feedback thing for example. And there are things I don't care for, like incorporating facebook into their games. This to me is in the same category as that.

I just don't see the demand for this kind of thing. Is the multiplayer community really that bad? I know there's annoying people sometimes in servers, but that has never been enough to turn me off of a game, let alone feel like I've wasted my money. Having these discounts isn't going to change the nature of people. In fact I might be more annoyed being surrounded by people only pretending to be good so they can get discounts.

EDIT:

It's also a big problem that you're choosing who to reward based on who doesn't deserve the rewards. This would encourage people to make new steam accounts just so they can have a fresh start. That would be supremely annoying to have to do.

The quality control is just impossible to maintain. You're going to end up with people feeling screwed out of discounts when all their friends got them. And they won't even know why. What can they do, complain to Valve? This is just an unfathomably difficult system to get in place that doesn't result in problems.

 

[Krynn72]

Oh please, you know very well that's essentially the same thing. 'Bad' players are still paying more than the 'good' players. It doesn't matter that the bad player's price is the 'normal' price. That's totally arbitrary. 'Bad' players are still going to feel ripped off for having to pay more, regardless if it's not actually more than the 'normal' price.

No doubt some, possibly many would see it that way. But there hasn't been much of a backlash to insurance companies doing it on a much larger scale, so I doubt there would be many people crying out beyond your typical internet-rager. I personally don't interpret people getting discounts as me having to pay more, and I suspect (but have no evidence of) that being the case for the majority of people.

Oh? What makes you say that the vast majority of people are not going to be 'good' players? Honestly curious here, because based on the criteria you've mentioned so far, the 'bad' players seem like they'll be in the minority.

Like I said, you'd compare them to the average. Bad players would be in the minority, as would good players on the other end of the spectrum. There would have to be a threshold set by the company that a person would have to break in order to get the discount. Just in case you're saying to yourself "that would be arbitrary bullshit," I will say that where the threshold lies in between the absolute average and the absolute best players would be up to the company to decide after they examine all the factors in involved.

No, it's a reward for people who exploit whatever criteria they need to to get the discounts. Sure there will be 'honest' players who are not intentionally trying to work the system, but the problem is that those 'honest' people are going to be getting less reward than those who are just interested in getting discounts and will do whatever it takes.

Exploitation of mechanics that are hidden from users is very, very hard to do. But an asshole who pretends to be nice is still a better situation for most people than an asshole being an asshole. Any system can be gamed, but that doesn't negate any positive results from the system.

Thank you. But I think that the logic on why it won't work could be applied to a negative rep system as well.

Most of it can be applied, sure. Like I said, I think a negative rep system could, and would be abused. I don't think it would work, and only brought it up as it was the first thought that popped into my head when I started thinking about this.

I like a lot of Valve's unique ideas that aren't actual games. The bio-feedback thing for example.

I just don't see the demand for this kind of thing. Is the multiplayer community really that bad? I know there's annoying people sometimes in servers, but that has never been enough to turn me off of a game. Having these discounts isn't going to change the nature of people. In fact I might be more annoyed being surrounded by people only pretending to be good so they can get discounts.

I see the demand for it. Its one of the reasons I hate playing multiplayer in general. Whenever I played COD:MW2 with my brother, 1 out of 3 games would have an absolute prick screaming shit into his mic. We'd see team killers and jerkoffs running around all over the place. If you can honestly look at the COD community, or the CS communtiy, or the Halo community and not see a problem with it, then I don't know what to say. Your PM to me on steam seems to suggest that you do see these issues, and kind of contradicts this last part of your post. Also, in regard to your message to me on steam, I think the system can be manageable despite the large number of variables, if a company's employees were given enough time to study the subject and test the various aspects of such a system. A trait Valve has proven time and time again to have.

 

[Vegeta897]

If you don't think a negative rep or a positive rep system would work, then how could it work? Are you saying it shouldn't be user-controlled at all? Then what other method is left?

Also see the edit in my previous post.

 

[Stylo]

I see Vegeta's point. I'm not entirely warm to the idea either. I'd be more sceptical about it being left to "the community" and for players to judge each other because like the OP says, it's likely to be open to abuse.

I'm not going to sit and say that it's terrible and won't work because we haven't seen a final system for it worked out but it does seem like there are a hell of a lot of flaws in it. Also, like Vegeta says, what exactly will define you as a good member of the community and not a good one? It might be unfair for players who are good but don't play online much so they don't have as many nice boy points to get their discount. I assume that you will have to earn your stripes somehow as the games aren't going to be free for everyone until they do something that classifies them as bad.

I dunno. Maybe I have it wrong but it seems like it might end up penalising people without good reason and being an unfair system...

 

[Krynn72]

If you don't think a negative rep or a positive rep system would work, then how could it work? Are you saying it shouldn't be user-controlled at all? Then what other method is left?

Also see the edit in my previous post.

Wait... what? I think we've been arguing different things. The negative rep system wasn't a part of the system I was talking about the for last few posts. I was talking about a behind the scenes data collection algorithm that let valve compare statistics of people to the averages. No user input whatsoever, beyond maybe a "I left the server because of a douche" button. The user-based rep system was just the initial thought, and I proposed it as a completely different idea, unrelated to the data collection.

So let me just make it clear, the system I've been talking about has been one that the user cannot directly interact with, and cannot see the results of until they do or don't get a discount when they buy the next game. Thats why I was arguing that it would be extremely difficult (though not impossible) to game the system.

 

[Vegeta897]

Even without the ability to exploit the system, it's going to leave certain types of good people excluded, with not even an explanation why. I think it would cause too much trouble and anger for the benefit of some.

 

[Stigmata]

That's pretty much the only way to escape things like Tyranny of the Majority and popularity contests.

 

[Viperidae]

all this nonsense about algorithms

Um. Or, you know, you could just have a user-generated report feature, that saves the game's logs/voice and sends it to a valve employee to look over. 100% accuracy, no gimping the system, and you get punished for false reports.

And hey, guess what! It cost less than $20000 to pay that employee to look it over!

 

[Stigmata]

Then you have a $20,000 point of total potential integrity failure.

 

[Bad^Hat]

This is ****ing stupid for most every reason Vegeta has put forth. If it's user-controlled, it'll be abused. If it's transparent and behind-the-scenes, it'll be exclusionary to other good players for no obvious reason. Either way, people will attempt to game the system if you dangle discounted prices in front of them, and that in itself is enough reason to scrap the idea in my opinion. I don't care how many bad apples I encounter, it beats playing with a bunch of eggshell-walking sycophants who just want to act nice to save money. How the **** is that a desirable outcome?

Also, you're ignoring much of the complexity of what actually happens in these instances when you talk about algorithms. How many times have you encountered a trollish player on a server and let yourself become a little angry? Maybe you said a few swears or acted outside the confines of what could be considered a "good player" in order to force him to leave in the absence of an admin? Are we to take it that this system would employ the "turn the other cheek" motto, to the exclusion of players who are actually playing at the time? Once a troll realises he isn't going to get his discount, do you really think he'll just leave it at that and not try to affect other's chances? It's easy to think that some simply won't care about the discount to begin with. What about good players who happen to be connected to a lot of servers right when a "bad" player joins and other people leave? Should they be punished for their unwillingness to leave along with the rest? You might say these cases will be rare, fine, but you yourself said that the good players who receive a discount would be in the minority, that they would have to reach a certain "threshold" of pure behaviour. What about the innocent players it effects, who are trying to be good but must repeatedly leave servers to avoid incurring this penalty? Disregarding all that, how many times have you just felt like being a bit of a dick for the sake of it? What if the majority of people in the server found it entertaining and it therefore added to the overall value of the game? How could you possibly measure that without some level of user input?

I say again, this is completely pointless and impossible to measure accurately without encountering innumerable "what ifs."

 

[Krynn72]

Also, you're ignoring much of the complexity of what actually happens in these instances when you talk about algorithms. How many times have you encountered a trollish player on a server and let yourself become a little angry? Maybe you said a few swears or acted outside the confines of what could be considered a "good player" in order to force him to leave in the absence of an admin? Are we to take it that this system would employ the "turn the other cheek" motto, to the exclusion of players who are actually playing at the time? Once a troll realises he isn't going to get his discount, do you really think he'll just leave it at that and not try to affect other's chances? It's easy to think that some simply won't care about the discount to begin with. What about good players who happen to be connected to a lot of servers right when a "bad" player joins and other people leave? Should they be punished for their unwillingness to leave along with the rest? You might say these cases will be rare, fine, but you yourself said that the good players who receive a discount would be in the minority, that they would have to reach a certain "threshold" of pure behaviour. What about the innocent players it effects, who are trying to be good but must repeatedly leave servers to avoid incurring this penalty? Disregarding all that, how many times have you just felt like being a bit of a dick for the sake of it? What if the majority of people in the server found it entertaining and it therefore added to the overall value of the game? How could you possibly measure that without some level of user input?

I say again, this is completely pointless and impossible to measure accurately without encountering innumerable "what ifs."

Ok, I think you've misunderstood some key points of my argument. I don't know how you got the idea that good players must leave servers when a bad player joins, but thats not at all what I said. Like, seriously, where did I suggest people be punished for not leaving? And your "what if" about people finding someone being an asshole to be entertaining, well then those people would tend to stay in the server, thus contributing brownie points to the asshole. Frankly, the good guy / bad guy concept is just an abstraction of the real issue that is positive or negative value. The system would award people for adding value to the game. Whether it be by being a hilarious dickbutt, or by being a genuinely awesome person. Defining it as good/bad people confuses the issue, and I shouldn't have been saying it that way.

This whole notion about people getting butthurt over not getting a discount when other people do seems ridiculous to me. Name me some examples you have where rewards for certain customers has resulted in outrage that ruined the company's good name and provided no value for their product. I can't think of any. Insurance companies do it and people are happy with it. Credit card companies do it for people who are consistently in good standing, and people are happy with it. F*cking EVE Online already does it with waived subscription fees for good players and people are happy with it. This isn't exactly breaking new ground here. Frankly, I think this notion stems from the alarmist nature of the OP's article where its like "wtf valve considering charging people MORE MONEY for a game?!?!?" Its hyperbolic bullshit as always, and I think you guys are greatly overstating the potential outrage surrounding such a system.

 

[Stigmata]

This whole notion about people getting butthurt over not getting a discount when other people do seems ridiculous to me. Name me some examples you have where rewards for certain customers has resulted in outrage that ruined the company's good name and provided no value for their product. I can't think of any. Insurance companies do it and people are happy with it. Credit card companies do it for people who are consistently in good standing, and people are happy with it. F*cking EVE Online already does it with waived subscription fees for good players and people are happy with it. This isn't exactly breaking new ground here. Frankly, I think this notion stems from the alarmist nature of the OP's article where its like "wtf valve considering charging people MORE MONEY for a game?!?!?" Its hyperbolic bullshit as always, and I think you guys are greatly overstating the potential outrage surrounding such a system.

I mostly agree, but I don't think your examples directly compare. Credit card financing and insurance payments are a closed communications between the client and the provider. There's no "community of insurance claimants" the way there is a "community of <game> players", and if there were, I think we would see a lot of outrage over uneven treatment of equal clients. EVE is a better one, but that too doesn't quite line up, because the ceilings of skill and time-investment that must be reached are enormously prohibitive.

I completely agree that there's way too much hyperbolic bullshit in this thread.

 

[Paulaner]

Because you're essentially monetizing human behavior.

Exactly. That could result in discrimination, and such a method is not acceptable. Also, in my country that would go against the National Constitution about human rights. I'm not exaggerating here: you can't run a business if you break those basic rules.

 

[ríomhaire]

In any case I think Gabe just threw out the first idea that came into his head with regards to a new model. I don't think he was making any new business decisions for the company. In any case TF2 already has several systems that reward certain players. The most obvious being community modellers and mappers which as he mentioned in the interview get lots of money (though unfairly the modellers get a lot more than the mappers).

There's also the wiki-cap which is a little hat which the admins of the official TF2 wiki get to give out to people who contribute a lot of time to the upkeep of the wiki. That system is not actually controlled by Valve; the wiki is run by volunteers. It's not inconceivable they could set up similar systems for other things. In fact, they give out "community weapons" to anyone who helps the game or community. Glenn has one. It's not inconceivable that if TF3 came out under what Gabe is talking about everyone who had a wiki cap or community weapon could get a free or discounted copy.

You can now upload videos to Youtube from within TF2 and it'll track your views (there are achievements for getting X number of views). Perhaps if a player gets several million views they could get a prize for promoting TF2 on the internet. There's also the coaching system which was added. It'll be in Dota 2 as well and they mentioned the idea of being able to write reviews for your coach and the coach being rewarded for being reputable. They mentioned that when Dota 2 was first announced.

So please stop latching onto to the one damn example he gave that he probably made up on the spot and explore the actual implications of what he's talking about.

 

[Bad^Hat]

Ok, I think you've misunderstood some key points of my argument. I don't know how you got the idea that good players must leave servers when a bad player joins, but thats not at all what I said. Like, seriously, where did I suggest people be punished for not leaving? And your "what if" about people finding someone being an asshole to be entertaining, well then those people would tend to stay in the server, thus contributing brownie points to the asshole. Frankly, the good guy / bad guy concept is just an abstraction of the real issue that is positive or negative value. The system would award people for adding value to the game. Whether it be by being a hilarious dickbutt, or by being a genuinely awesome person. Defining it as good/bad people confuses the issue, and I shouldn't have been saying it that way.

No, the example you gave was that players would be penalized for being in the same server as someone who was causing a lot of people to leave. The penalty must apply to everyone in there, because you specified they wouldn't be able to blame the player that caused them to leave in order to avoid user input abuse. Therefore, they're penalized merely for staying in the server instead of leaving in frustration with the rest. Maybe I'm missing some of the intricacies of how this algorithm works, but it seems like someone could simply be around for many of these instances and accrue a negative rating sufficient enough to exclude them from the discount through no fault of their own. The issue isn't whether or not people would whine about not getting the discount - it's whether or not they'd be justified in whining. You seem to think most people would be okay with others receiving the discount instead of them, but why should they if the criteria for it isn't entirely fair?

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

Everyone should read this:

In any case I think Gabe just threw out the first idea that came into his head with regards to a new model. I don't think he was making any new business decisions for the company. In any case TF2 already has several systems that reward certain players. The most obvious being community modellers and mappers which as he mentioned in the interview get lots of money (though unfairly the modellers get a lot more than the mappers).

There's also the wiki-cap which is a little hat which the admins of the official TF2 wiki get to give out to people who contribute a lot of time to the upkeep of the wiki. That system is not actually controlled by Valve; the wiki is run by volunteers. It's not inconceivable they could set up similar systems for other things. In fact, they give out "community weapons" to anyone who helps the game or community. Glenn has one. It's not inconceivable that if TF3 came out under what Gabe is talking about everyone who had a wiki cap or community weapon could get a free or discounted copy.

You can now upload videos to Youtube from within TF2 and it'll track your views (there are achievements for getting X number of views). Perhaps if a player gets several million views they could get a prize for promoting TF2 on the internet. There's also the coaching system which was added. It'll be in Dota 2 as well and they mentioned the idea of being able to write reviews for your coach and the coach being rewarded for being reputable. They mentioned that when Dota 2 was first announced.

So please stop latching onto to the one damn example he gave that he probably made up on the spot and explore the actual implications of what he's talking about.

This man speaks truth.

 

[Dan]

The real question is, why would we want Valve to spend so much time and resource developing this when they should be focusing on making good games.

Part of a good multiplayer game is a good community.

 

[Krynn72]

No, the example you gave was that players would be penalized

Ohhhh... I think I finally see what you're saying. But thats not really a valid concern because averages solve it. A good player who happens to be in some servers when a bad player joins, will be in much more servers where that doesn't happen. It will average out over time, and the difference that being in a server with a bad player will be quite negligible.

You seem to think most people would be okay with others receiving the discount instead of them, but why should they if the criteria for it isn't entirely fair?

Its the same way for almost every reward system in anything. People would like absolute fairness but nobody expects it. As long as its as fair as can be (which this system would be given enough time and data) then I really, really doubt people will be any more upset than we are over unfairness in any other reward system.

 

[Bad^Hat]

Yeah but I asked you about players who happened to be around enough bad players to be effected by their penalty. You said the threshold for the discount would be high so as to keep them in the minority, so isn't it possible for people to be negatively effected by events beyond their control, such that they'd be excluded from the discount?

Also, re: your clarification on how it would be determined by people's reaction, regardless of whether your behaviour was trollish/dickish/whatever - then isn't that entirely subjective? If two players can do the exact same thing on separate occasions, and only one of them is punished because of the reaction of the people who happened to be in their server at the time, in what way is that fair? I'm not talking about it being "fair enough," I'm saying, shit, how is this even remotely fair?

Edit: Also, Rim's right of course, and I have no problem with the other methods of reward Valve have actually put forth. The helper program in DotA 2 is a notable exception, where you're not being judged for how "valuable" you are as a player, but rewarded directly for being helpful. Even then, it'll probably only be cosmetic stuff, which is how it should be.

 

[Krynn72]

where you're not being judged for how "valuable" you are as a player, but rewarded directly for being helpful.

uh...

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

Because Gabe is a self made rich n**ga. Like Ludacris.

 

[ríomhaire]

Look another system for rewarding players:

(given to community members who help translate stuff)


Edit: It's quite possible this is fake actually. We'll see...