14 DAY TRIAL // Gabe Newell, one of the best-known video game developers in the world, has said that the industry as a whole has a big problem about how it sets price points and has suggested that in the future gamers who are interested and fun to play with might be getting discounts while those who are jerks might have to pay more for their favorite games.
Speaking to Develop Gabe Newell, who is the leader of Valve, has stated, “What you really want to do is create the optimal pricing service for each customer and see what's best for them. We need to give customers, all of them, a robust set of options regarding how they pay for their content.”
He added, “An example is – and this is something as an industry we should be doing better – is charging customers based on how much fun they are to play with. Some people, when they join a server, a ton of people will run with them. Other people, when they join a server, will cause others to leave.”
Newell believes that the current model, with a price set for all potential customers that only changes when the company decides that a promotion or drop is needed to attract more players, is broken.
Charging more for those who are “jerks,” as the Valve executive puts it, would also lead to better environments and to an overall more civilized experience for those who love one fine gaming experience.
The logistics needed to track player behavior across multiple games to decide who should get a discount and who should be charged more are probably beyond the possibilities of gaming companies at the moment.
Still, it's not hard to think of a future when Valve introduces behavior tracking in Steamworks and then makes subtle changes to pricing depending on past history for all players.