A digital distribution service owned by Valve Corporation. Originally created to distribute Valve's own games, Steam has since become the de facto standard for digital distribution of PC games.
@SeriouslyNow: Does it matter if they're of equal cost? The concept remains the same, just on a smaller scale. But you can ignore the idea, sure. You're right, bro. I'm nuts for knowing a bit of econ.
His idea of varying prices isn't based on race, religion, gender, etc... so I don't think discrimination can be accused.
Of course it can, while this process isn't racist, theist or sexist it certainly is discriminatory. Discrimination just means that you prefer X over Y or A before B via any delineation you see fit. What he's saying is that purchase price is determined via popularity. Selling products IS NOT a popularity contest and he's trying to model the process as if it will be in the future. In other words he's commercialising discrimination. Fuck that. Gabe, stop trolling.
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Yeah, when banks check a person's credit history, they're discriminating against people who are bad at repaying loans. Fuck them.
Before you say that analogy doesn't work, let me make it clearer. There are people who, when they play online, exhibit negative externalities (griefing, being a dick, etc). That person is causing the company a loss by creating a worse online environment. When a person has a history of not repaying loans, they get a higher interest rate to make up for the risk the bank takes on when giving the person that loan. When a person is a dick all the time online, that company would ideally like to recuperate those losses.
Eh what? You're actually comparing the cost of bad credit with online gaming? You're fucking nuts.
I'd equate it more to a retailer's right to deny services or selling of products to anyone, which is fully protected by law except on the grounds of religion, ethnicity, gender, etc. (which is how US law describes discrimination).
His idea of varying prices isn't based on race, religion, gender, etc... so I don't think discrimination can be accused.
But it is based on arbitrary personality traits, from what it seems. Why do I feel like Gabe Newell wants to be Anthony Fremont?
This is the first sentence from the Wikipedia synopsis: Six-year-old Anthony Fremont looks like any other little boy, but looks can be deceiving: He is a monster, a mutant with godlike mental powers.
Gabe's idea sounds absolutely....horrible, people would just abuse the system by falsely praising each other so they could get cheaper games.
Basically. The other side of the coin is that some poor bastards will have the rep trashed by other people who don't agree with their opinions, just as it's attempted here and other rep-system based communities. What Gabe is proposing is to take the high school popularity test mentality and apply it to spending your money because VALVe wins no matter who loses. It might be good business, but it is definitely discrimination.
@ThatFrood said:
@SeriouslyNow: Does it matter if they're of equal cost? The concept remains the same, just on a smaller scale. But you can ignore the idea, sure. You're right, bro. I'm nuts for knowing a bit of econ.
No, you're nuts for proposing that privately owned businesses who stand to profit even more from this kind of discrimination are costing the US tax payer the same as people with bad credit. They aren't and you are nuts if you think anyone would agree with you. Knowing 'a bit of econ' doesn't equate with having a rational point of view. I know a bit of game development theory but in no way would I say that my knowledge allows me comment directly on the state of the industry as a whole.
His idea of varying prices isn't based on race, religion, gender, etc... so I don't think discrimination can be accused.
Of course it can, while this process isn't racist, theist or sexist it certainly is discriminatory. Discrimination just means that you prefer X over Y or A before B via any delineation you see fit. What he's saying is that purchase price is determined via popularity. Selling products IS NOT a popularity contest and he's trying to model the process as if it will be in the future. In other words he's commercialising discrimination. Fuck that. Gabe, stop trolling.
:\
Yeah, when banks check a person's credit history, they're discriminating against people who are bad at repaying loans. Fuck them.
Before you say that analogy doesn't work, let me make it clearer. There are people who, when they play online, exhibit negative externalities (griefing, being a dick, etc). That person is causing the company a loss by creating a worse online environment. When a person has a history of not repaying loans, they get a higher interest rate to make up for the risk the bank takes on when giving the person that loan. When a person is a dick all the time online, that company would ideally like to recuperate those losses.
Eh what? You're actually comparing the cost of bad credit with online gaming? You're fucking nuts.
I'd equate it more to a retailer's right to deny services or selling of products to anyone, which is fully protected by law except on the grounds of religion, ethnicity, gender, etc. (which is how US law describes discrimination).
That's actually not a law. It's a highly debateable set of practices which often ends in privately settled disputes. Many judges throw out cases based on those terms of services, citing them as capricious and arbitrary and I imagine the same would happen here because Gabe is citing the potential for VALVe to charge extra to unlock basic features like voice. Discounting and charging extra are two mutually exclusive realities in retail and can't be determined based on discriminatory contexts by which you value or disavow your customers. He's trying to engage in a practice whereby VALVe maximises profits at the expense of its own customers. Fuck that.
@SeriouslyNow: My mistake - you seem definitely right on that end. The only out for Valve I would see then is how they approached valuing their customers. There is legal protection against being refused rights, but what about gaining "privileges?" Sort of a rewards program.
Oh sure, it's a nice idea on paper, but enforcing this would be logistically impossible. You couldn't do a community review process because without oversight then people would just be voting down people they didn't personally like. And trying to keep tabs on hundreds of thousands of players yourself would be a nightmare. A pipe dream if you ask me: a noble one, but a pipe dream nonetheless.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I remember seeing that thread the first time around and just bailing around page 1, what a mistake that was! Holy shit, that's hilarious.
This kind of system wouldn't be fair. For instance, look at the XBL reputation system. My reputation has me at %50 preferred and %50 avoided. Most of the reasons picked for people avoiding me were "unsportsman like conduct" with a little "trash talking". The thing is that I never do any of these things. I am always polite and will even send GGs to people that impressively kick my ass in Street Fighter 4.
But what DOES happen is that when I beat people (mostly in SF4) I get shitty messages accusing me of being "cheap" or "being really shitty for as many points as I have", etc. When people do that I fucking tear them a new one. I am very good at slinging shit when I'm attacked. I verbally shut them down, and they obviously retaliate by giving me negative reviews.
A system like this will just get abused by the assholes and it will hurt everybody.
Oh sure, it's a nice idea on paper, but enforcing this would be logistically impossible. You couldn't do a community review process because without oversight then people would just be voting down people they didn't personally like. And trying to keep tabs on hundreds of thousands of players yourself would be a nightmare. A pipe dream if you ask me: a noble one, but a pipe dream nonetheless.
Oh please, all this really is is Gabe's way to earn more money and to put down his critics in the same breath. It's an egomaniac's dream, not one of the pipe.
Oh sure, it's a nice idea on paper, but enforcing this would be logistically impossible. You couldn't do a community review process because without oversight then people would just be voting down people they didn't personally like. And trying to keep tabs on hundreds of thousands of players yourself would be a nightmare. A pipe dream if you ask me: a noble one, but a pipe dream nonetheless.
Oh please, all this really is is Gabe's way to earn more money and to put down his critics in the same breath. It's an egomaniac's dream, not one of the pipe.
Let's pretend for a moment that this has already been implemented. It's a couple of years out. The system isn't perfect, but all the jerks who hack and cheat and don't play fair have moved on to other systems or have just adapted and accepted, leaving only those who play fair. How, exactly, would this earn him more money in the long run? When, let's say, 80% of the Steam community is reviving high marks or golden stars or whatever for good behavior, wouldn't that mean the majority of Steam is spending less on games, meaning people are earning less money? The majority of them are buying brand new games for $20 or maybe less instead of the usual $50 or $60? I'm not seeing how this will earn him more money, and I'm not seeing how it's egotistical that he wants to create this perfect utopia of good players.
If this is done well (and I don't pretend I know how it would be done well) it would be a pretty awesome idea.
In not stretch of the imagination I could see this as being descimination. You can't just do a rating system because that would be too easy to abuse, but since steam is their system and they can track a ton of stuff we dont even know about I'm sure they can build some sort of system that is not easy (or not at all) to abuse.
I remember Gabe talking about this in an interview with a group of students in a school ... everyone should actually watch that, it's really interesting. That payment system is only one thing he talks about, others are the Microtransaction stuff in TF2 or the general philosophy of valve towards their employees and customers.
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