Fuckwad Theory Analysis

Apreche

There's a great article on Gamasutra about how people being fuckwads online is hurting online gaming.

It really sheds a different light on maybe why Nintendo does their online gaming the way they do. Maybe it's not just that they want to avoid the bad PR story of child predators using the Wii and DS, but mostly they don't want to turn casual gamers away from online gaming because of fuckwads. I personally agree with the article that there are social and game design decisions that could be implemented to reduce fuckwaddery, but I still think Nintendo went too far. Maybe though we should lay some criticism on XBoX Live and Steam for not going far enough.

Li_Akahi

I played one game on Xbox live at a friend's house. We were playing Gears of War and every time I would spawn, my "teammates" would instantly turn around and chainsaw me. I would then proceed to wait for the next round to start and listen to the 13 year olds we were playing against call each other every possible curse and use every insult known to man. It was not an enjoyable experience.

Dkong

Nintendo indeed went too far.

I think the best way to handle online gaming would be to have xbox live, but only some servers or rooms have voice chat. I mean really, taking voice chat out of the picture, the amount of douchebaggery encountered on xbox live is cut down drastically.

Andrew

I find the PC Gaming online community to be made of win. It's much better than Xbox Live IMHO.

Apreche

I find the PC Gaming online community to be made of win. It's much better than Xbox Live IMHO.

I watched some videos yesterday with some Smash Bros. "professionals". They had one good point in that the competitive Smash Bros. community is more tight-knight than communities for other games because the people only meet in person, and the online play is basically non-existent.

With PC gaming I find the community depends a lot on the game. Older, more difficult, or less popular games are more likely to have better communities because the only people playing them are probably serious about it.

HMTKSteve

Older PC gaming groups tend to be better because the knowledge level required to get online and connect for gaming back then was much higher than it is now.

It's like so many social groups. When the barrier to entry is high only those who really want to enjoy the experience are likely to take the time to join the group. When the entry barrier drops more and more undesirables show up. In that way Nintendo is doing a good thing, if only they had stopped at Wii console codes.

Apreche

It's like so many social groups. When the barrier to entry is high only those who really want to enjoy the experience are likely to take the time to join the group. When the entry barrier drops more and more undesirables show up. In that way Nintendo is doing a good thing, if only they had stopped at Wii console codes.

The thing is you want the lower the barrier to entry, to sell more games, but simultaneously have the high quality community.

HMTKSteve

The thing is you want the lower the barrier to entry, to sell more games, but simultaneously have the high quality community.

The easiest way to do that is for the publisher to provide the server software for their games for free when you buy the game. That way you can get a bunch of like-minded folks together and share the cost of a dedicated game server for your gaming pleasure. The undesirables can continue to use the "free" servers for gaming while you stick to the private servers.

Apreche

The easiest way to do that is for the publisher to provide the server software for their games for free when you buy the game. That way you can get a bunch of like-minded folks together and share the cost of a dedicated game server for your gaming pleasure. The undesirables can continue to use the "free" servers for gaming while you stick to the private servers.

You're still thinking from the standpoint of the player. Think like the publisher trying to sell the game. Letting people run their own servers is a solution that allows the hardcore players to guarantee they have a nice experience. That's well and good, but do you set it up so the casual players can have the nice experience? Don't tell me they are going to run their own servers.

HMTKSteve

You have a few options:

1) Servers with rules that prevent fragging within 15 seconds of respawning.
2) Servers that do not allow chatting.
3) Servers that you can only access if you spend less than X amount of time playing the game per week.
4) Build a ranking system that not only tracks kills but also undesirable behavior (varies by game).

Because you know someone will find ways to exploit or hack your game I would add in some bits of code that would create achievements or awards that can not actually be acquired in regular game play. If someone is found to sport one of these achievements than you know they be hacking. (You also have to publish a wordpress.com blog with screenshots showing how you achieved the achievement so hackers will think the achievement is legit. The blog post would have to be convincing enough while leaving out key details so players can't quickly figure out that you are scamming them.)

I have a somewhat similar problem on my Pokemon site. We have a Gym Leader program for the ultra-competitive players but what about the people who don't have the time to play the game 24/7 and re-breed for IV points? We run monthly "Breeder's Cup" events where all the Pokemon have to be hatched within a certain time frame and be level 1 only. We further limit things so that only a small selection of Pokemon are available for use. Know what the end result has been? All our top battlers have gotten their assess kicked because the skill required to battle with level 1 Pokemon is very different from that used to battle with high level Pokemon.

Now I grant you that even in this case the players we have in our tournaments are not exactly casual players because they have to know how to breed. I would instead call them "occasional" players. In fact, I would be willing to bet that a good percentage of the casual online gamer market is made up of occasional players.