valve looks to take advantage

[Phoenix86]

This thread is awesome, it's a pinata of stupid.

 

[CZroe]

I suppose it does seem a little counter-intuitive from that perspective. However, I do think it's exploitative to use your distribution platform to share community creations and make money off of them. I understand otherwise modders would make $0, but I find the business model backwards. How about you hire artists and actually generate content, rather than sitting on your ass and picking and choosing the very best content from modders and raking in cash from these essentially unpaid employees. That really is how Valve is operating.

They do. The games that are being modded are often their creations. They also make paid expansions and DLC for said games.Now they are letting the community get in on the action. Hell, they've even bought mods and hired their creators, like Team Fortress Classic (originally a Quake mod) and Narbacular Drop (became Portal).

 

[CZroe]

None because I do not give a fuck about that shit. However some do like that feature and Valve has gamified everything to take advantage of them to gain some cold hard cash.

$5 Steam purchase is still $5. The only way Valve is making cold hard cash is if you never would have made that $5 cash purchase, in which case, what gives you the right to complain about not getting access to unrelated free services/features? Even then, you still got that $5 game, so the extra services were still free.

 

[norseamd]

$5 Steam purchase is still $5. The only way Valve is making cold hard cash is if you never would have made that $5 cash purchase, in which case, what gives you the right to complain about not getting access to unrelated free services/features? Even then, you still got that $5 game, so the extra services were still free.

Look we can keep bickering all day and night over this but what is bothering me most about this is that they are basically preventing free to play players and also many foreign players from getting friends and using Steam chat and also posting on the Steam forum when they might have any problems especially technical or personal problems.

The other stuff is just minor because they are not central to the Steam platform. Many free to play games are socially designed or socially interactive by default so this is just causing huge problems for them.

 

[Belegost]

Which could be done every bit as well by bots, over proxies (which spammers are already used to using). Steam's anti-cheating tech is anything but foolproof, and game time has been worked around on numerous free MMOs. I'm sure easy games would get targeted, if they made that the requirement. I'm not defending Valve on this move specifically, at this stage. But, there is not a no-lose move, for the outcome they claim to want. For spammers with bots, $5/acct is fairly expensive, whereas virtual CPU time isn't.

This.

Previously the cost for 1000 fake votes/spam messages/etc. would be the overhead of some shady people running a bot(or 3rd world sweatshop) to register 1000 accounts and have them post false crap.

Now the cost will be that same overhead, plus $5000, which is probably an order of magnitude more than the overhead costs were. As for the CD key restriction - a shady developer who wanted to get fake votes could give keys to the spam operation for no real cost to the developer and bypass the restrictions.

As for the issue with a lot of poor players being pushed out of using these features - from the perspective of Valve those people are not paying customers. And registering a physical CD key in no way ensured any right to use any further Steam features than being able to access the downloadable media, which is not being restricted here. Nothing about these changes prevents anyone from accessing the F2P games on steam, or use the features inside those games for chatting or group organization.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Look we can keep bickering all day and night over this but what is bothering me most about this is that they are basically preventing free to play players and also many foreign players from getting friends and using Steam chat and also posting on the Steam forum when they might have any problems especially technical or personal problems.

The other stuff is just minor because they are not central to the Steam platform. Many free to play games are socially designed or socially interactive by default so this is just causing huge problems for them.

You still need to explain why Steam should offer chat and friends services to people who are not willing to give Steam a one-time $5 game purchase.

Those people outside the US can always use some other chat service, and a forum somewhere. Or give Steam $5 once, and use their services forever.

Servers cost money. Steam is a business not a charity or government-funded social program. They deserve the $5 game sale for their services.

 

[norseamd]

You still need to explain why Steam should offer chat and friends services to people who are not willing to give Steam a one-time $5 game purchase.

Those people outside the US can always use some other chat service, and a forum somewhere. Or give Steam $5 once, and use their services forever.

Servers cost money. Steam is a business not a charity or government-funded social program. They deserve the $5 game sale for their services.

Then you need to explain why they have hid that under the false pretenses of dealing with spammers.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Then you need to explain why they have hid that under the false pretenses of dealing with spammers.

It's not a false pretense. Making spammers pay $5 too is a great way to cut down on spam.

The change is fair to paying customers, and only hurts spammers and those who pay nothing. Neither of those groups "deserve" free chat services, neither has any "inalienable right" to chat using Steam.

 

[waffleironhead]

Then you need to explain why they have hid that under the false pretenses of dealing with spammers.

Nothing is being hidden and there are no false pretenses. There does seem to be quite a few false assumptions, and a lot of entitlement in the response though.

 

[Drako]

This thread is awesome, it's a pinata of stupid.

Every time I read a Namd post, it's like taking a shot of whiskey. I can feel my it killing my brain cells. It's still entertaining though.

 

[waffleironhead]

This thread is awesome, it's a pinata of stupid.

Yeah, but without that satisfying WHACK of hitting the object that the stupid comes out of. :awe:

 

[norseamd]

Does many earn you the right to entitlement?

 

[DaveSimmons]

Does many earn you the right to entitlement?

Spending money entitles you to goods and services in return. Services like Steam Chat.

Perhaps we need a foreign aid program to subsidize Steam Chat in developing countries?

 

[waffleironhead]

Does many earn you the right to entitlement?

Does many? Does many what? Does many what entitlement?

 

[Homerboy]

I keep coming back every couple of hours and am always rewarded.

Backfire of the year!!

 

[norseamd]

Funny I was going to write money but I think that works also.

 

[Homerboy]

Funny I was going to write money but I think that works also.

No. money doesn't earn you entitlement.
Money DOES earn you the right to use goods and services provided by a business though.

If you want to use Steam's goods and services, then you will need to provide them with money.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Funny I was going to write money but I think that works also.

Cripes, I read it as money. I'm starting to understand norse-speak

 

[norseamd]

Spending money entitles you to goods and services in return.

Entitles you or gives you? If all Valve promises us is some type of service without any guarantees about how good of service and how long of service regardless of how much money you spend with Valve are we wrong to think about if that is fair to us? Because if Valve holds all the cards when it comes to power and decisions then I guess we need say they have the right to do whatever they want and no criticism or dissent is valid at all?

 

[Ichinisan]

Derp

Derp.

Derp Derp.

Duueeeeeerrrrrrrp.

Derp.

 

[zephyrprime]

If they haven't made any money off you, why should they provide any services at all? There is not unfairness here.

 

[norseamd]

Time and again you guys are willing to be ignorant on the real concern about that shit. This might as well get moved to P&N because it already has the same type of attitudes and chatter as P&N has for substance.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Entitles you or gives you? If all Valve promises us is some type of service without any guarantees about how good of service and how long of service regardless of how much money you spend with Valve are we wrong to think about if that is fair to us? Because if Valve holds all the cards when it comes to power and decisions then I guess we need say they have the right to do whatever they want and no criticism or dissent is valid at all?

Isn't this all over spending $5 on Steam EVER? Like EVER ever? Jesus if I can get away with just spending $5 on Steam in a MONTH they had some crappy deals.

Sorry if we don't share your concern, but most of us expect as long as we continue to pay they will let us play. Heck why aren't you raging at Microsoft and Sony? Their online platforms cost money JUST TO CONNECT. Steam is the cheapest option of the three since its free with a purchase.

 

[destrekor]

Time and again you guys are willing to be ignorant on the real concern about that shit. This might as well get moved to P&N because it already has the same type of attitudes and chatter as P&N has for substance.

What is the issue, seriously? You can't expect free shit in life. If it wasn't this, it would be a slew of ads for things outside of their own store. Do you want pop-up ads for virus scanners and items you've looked at on Amazon?

Ads are how other free services typically provide the service. That, or you trade a ton of tracking on you so they can sell info to ad services.

They can run the service just fine due to the store income, but, why should you get a free service when others have paid to support it? So, they could offer you an ad-based service for you, or have you pay into their store to keep the free service. I think they've chosen the best route, because it also hurts spammers.

 

[norseamd]

Heck why aren't you raging at Microsoft and Sony?

Whose says I never do?

Anyways why would you ever rage against a Microsoft executive?