@hassun: What are our options as you see them?

Either Valve has carte blanch, or
the Developer does, or
some nameless third party does

I can't see why any one of those options is inherently better or worse than the others. All have their own biases and agendas, as well as access to and lack of information. Since there's literally 0 to be gained by way of profit, it'll never be a third party as far as I can see.

All of the reporting systems in the world can be broken one way or the other by dedicated users if they want to spam erroneous reports. At least Dev Control makes some sense by way of this idea: If you are a jerk in one game, it makes sense you can't play that online; but you should be able to play your other games online. That's why Valve being responsible seems weird to me. The idea of policing your own game is very logical.

What everyone seems to be asking for is some perfect Proof System. The best you'll ever get I think is timed bans. That way when you get banned at least it's only a week/month/year, etc. Add to that maybe some recompense for those who are wrongly banned and a system for those banned to appeal through either Valve, the developer, or publisher. That's in the realm of realistic but still problematic.

And all that said, considering that real, true-blue laws are already vague and problematic and the state of justice systems around the world, I feel it's safe to say to that there's no such thing as captial A Accountability. People are wrongly imprisoned, much less wrongly banned. At the sake of veering off topic, all cut out here, but I think it's good to keep in mind there is no perfect justice.

ONLY INJUSTICE GODS BANS AMONG US

@geraltitude: We all know there is no such thing as perfection.

I would fully support this system if there was an added layer of accountability or control. If someone gets banned from playing a game (online) I simply want proof to be provided.

cheaters will always cheat

@gruff182: Agreed wholeheartedly. The more tools to stop people from ruining an online community, the better.

@hassun: I myself don't fully support this system as it exists today, but I see it as a step in the right direction, and like all Valve systems, I know it will evolve over time. Rome wasn't built in a day or whatever, right? Time, I hope, will bring us the further features this system needs to be "as good as possible".

@billymaysrip:Okay, yeah, that makes sense.

@456nto: No, we pretty much exclusively play on invite-only sessions in GTA Online, password-locked servers in Just Cause 2, and group up in anything else we're going to play together. When those options aren't available, like say in APB, then we just jump into a regular-ass, 100-player GTA-Online-before-GTA-Online-was-a-thing open world server and have fun, just like everyone else in that server, whether they want to do PvP missions, open-world side-quests, go bounty hunting, or not do anything tied to progression, like just race and pull off stunts. That's not griefing. That's not being a dick. That's not bad behaviour. That's just playing a game.

You have to know what you're getting into. If you launch Just Cause 2 Multiplayer, you know fully well that anyone can kill you and vice versa. If you load up Dota 2, you know that the players tend to not exactly be the most friendly toward new players. Stuff like that. If you don't want to accept that, either don't play them, or, like I mentioned, only play with people that you don't know want do that stuff, like friends and clanmates.

APB racing even became a community-held event, with rooftop races organized on the forums, and the devs even mentioned opening a racing district. Yeah, that's really being a dick, eh?

It seems that potential abuse doesn't bother most in this thread because it could never apply to them. Sure. That's what everyone says.

I'm all for banning people who cheat, people who harass or stalk or whatever the popular term for it is nowadays. The vague wording of "disruptive" is bothersome, however. Giving this kind of power to developers or to Valve or whatever is fine, but it needs clear and distinct boundaries and, as it is in real life, the burden of proof should lie with the accuser. I'm not comfortable giving a stranger complete, sweeping power to do as they see fit since human nature is what it is. Something something absolute power something something corrupts something.

1. Having your account banned for writing a negative review would be such an internet blowup you would likely increase your readership by 10000%
2. And if it's a bad game from a bad developer then why do you want to keep playing it?

i don't know- i think this is pretty straight-forward. first- don't kid yourself- despite valve's predilection for consumer-driven "solutions" (see user reviews, greenlight, etc.), steam is their kingdom. it's valve's house, and therefore their rules. the power is THEIRS to dole out, and in this case i think they've actually done the right thing by allowing a more direct line of communication between the creators and the consumers. but make no mistake- you agree to play by valve and the devs rules- if they find you "disruptive" (however they choose to interpret that)- they fully reserve the right to give you the boot. this is nothing new.

now there certainly is potential for abuse- but in that case you make an appeal, or you sue. but don't conflate the way a court of law operates with valve- because this would never be a civil liberties issue. think about it- if you're a jerk on these boards, you're effectively "censored" (as you should be) by being moderated. prime example- the mods just shut down a potential GG thread (thank god). in the steam case, devs are effectively 'moderating' you out of their game.

i'll say it again: play nice. don't be a jerk, and you'll be fine. or if you do want to write a negative review- be constructive, not vitriolic.

Basically every multiplayer game has a negative atmosphere. What you've just said is "if you don't like people being dicks in online games, don't play them". This is the exact same excuse people use for any bad shit they do on the internet - "if you don't want me to call you an extremely racist slur, don't come to this website". Or "if you don't want to get sexist hate mail, don't be an internet personality".

People have extremely pessimistic attitudes about online gaming nowadays. You're really not helping. Hopefully this ban will.

@crembaw said:

I'm trying to figure out where people picked up the idea of "old fashioned trolling" as a "those we're the good old days, we'd joke around with some guy and everyone would have a laugh about it" kind of memory. My experience lines up with yours; lots of autopsy photos and videos of crews scraping bits of kids off of mangled car wrecks.

Not exactly the "ha ha we all had fun" kind of stuff that people seem to wistfully look back on.

People have extremely pessimistic attitudes for legitimate business reasons like Season Passes/DLC/Preorder culture stripping customers of their rights, but that's a whole other story. How am I not helping? If there is a problem and you know there is a problem, avoid the problem. That's not exactly a difficult proposition. And if the problem is people annoying you online, you have a pletheora of options available to you; you just need to make the most of them (report, mute, play in another server, etc.). For this Game Ban idea to do what you seem to thing it will do, it will require people to use the same tools available to them right now: report players and submit evidence of what they're doing wrong, be it screenshots with the chatbox visible and/or video of them talking mess over mic.

All of which takes place already, as games already have systems in place to report players, which results in suspensions and bannings, all without Valve getting involved. I still don't see the reason for this Game Ban system to exist. Games just need easier ways to report dudes and the staff to review the reports, and it doesn't seem like this is the solution to that, since devs have to reach out to Valve after the fact for a banning, I think.

To be fair, if you wrote a negative review about a game, implying you don't like it, and then the dick head dev banned you for it (which is that even possible? Wouldn't one have to be in game at the time to get a ban? Or am I wrong? I'm probably wrong) is that really a game you wanted to keep playing?

Also from the FAQ:

Will Valve review developer requests for banning in any way?

Developers must be approved to use this system, and Valve reserves the right to revoke access to the system if the developer abuses it.

So if someone is abusing it then Valve can counter act that behavior.

Also I see a lot of debate about 'behavior' more then cheating, I didn't see a lot of language in the FAQ related to banning people for being dicks, most just for cheating, I think the wording is making people think this is a bigger deal then it is.

However with that being said, I would love to see a world where more people got banned for being obnoxious assholes, I think it is such a shame that people get turned off of playing online games, or participating in text/voice chat in games because someone will act up and say something rude and not have something done.
If you were watching the latest movie at the theater, Avengers for instance, if some jerk shouted homosexual slurs at one of the male characters and sexist slurs at one of the female characters or any other amount of buffoonery, they would get kicked out of the fuckingtheater. In every way possible I wish that was the same for games.