March Mayhem: Turbine, Zynga, and Valve; and an ethical question.

[Bat Vader]

I am not one for competitions like March Mayhem. I voted for the developers I like but I don't get into it like some people do. The way some members of The Escapist have been treating the Zynga voters is just wrong. I understand that they don't want Zynga to win but there is no need to insult them.

Most of the people that have voted for Zynga just write one message and leave. I just kinda wish that they were required to make an account to vote so that way they might want to stay since they took time to make an account. That way we could get new members. That is just my opinion though.

 

[jebussaves88]

The question that I pose to you then is this. Let's take a look at Valve, a developer for whom there is much love within the Escapist community. If Valve decided to send a message to every Steam user on login reqesting that they vote for Valve in the respective March Mayhem match up, would your response be the same as it currently is towards Zynga and/or Turbine?

The problem here is that Valve have bigger fish to fry, and have more professionalism. Pandering for votes in a contest on a site that many people haven't even heard of is not going to be very becoming. they could do it easy; a simple steam news update would have them all here. but Balve are better than that. They're better.

 

[Delusibeta]

The problem we have with Zynga is that they have a blatantly unfair advantage, and are serial spammers in general. I'm not convinced a Steam message will top Zynga spamming FarmVille every five minutes.

 

[Czech Woods]

If valve did this, nobody cared, because unlike Zynga, valve makes good games (they do make "games" to begin with). The big, big problem I have with the way Zynga is winning, is that their votes come (almost) exclusively from people who never encountered videogames beyond facebook-timesink, and are in for the offered benefits - if two "proper" developers, like say capcom and bethesda, would both rally everyone, and offer a little dlc-something to all their players if they won - I assume we would all be okay with it, because both companies have done something beyond scamming, that puts them in the position of earning a possible win.
(That's just my impression - "rallying the troops" is part of the fun, problem is Zynga isn't so much a game developer as it is impersonated evil. Imagine theres a proper writers contest, and than stephenie meyer, who can't write to save her life, shows up and ruins it for everybody, by flooding the contest with her twelve year old fanbase, who wouldn't know proper literature from toilet paper)
So no, sending in the fanbase is not ethically questionable - being in a contest where you shouldn't have been in to begin with, than sending in everything that can still walk, might however be "questionable".

i cannot answer the PO since i have really no idea what or who the developpers are you are talking about. i used to game in my youth, with a commodore 64. i used to play a few games after that: the flight simulator on a computer before PCs came up and afterwards on a PC like less than 5 - i used windows 3.1 then. after that i used the computer for work and chats and communities, until i discovered facebook, bayooom, here i am gaming again.

times are changing. the tamagochis and nintendo hand helds of my late teen years have become fb, with the exception that gamers there dont require any extra hardware, no extra knowledge or advanced skills. they simply need a flash player and some ram, and here we go.

facebook is the hype atm. z. understands to use a new franchise medium to its fullest. they are not the high end game developpers, they are not remotely anything alike the games that i have remotedly seen in malls. they attract not your every days gamer - as it used to be. they attract the usual fold, the mainstream. and they use the techniques provided to them through and for the mainstream.

morally wrong or unethical? i dont believe it

you could look at it from this side. these people care enough for a competition they take part in to get their fans involved. maybe the other studios dont give a sh!t for their fans. who is to say? why they would not use the media offered to take part in competitions they were nominated for, that is beyond me

 

[Czech Woods]

The problem we have with Zynga is that they have a blatantly unfair advantage, and are serial spammers in general. I'm not convinced a Steam message will top Zynga spamming FarmVille every five minutes.

farmville cannot spam you
go to your facebook settings and BLOCK the application. no more farmville on your wall.
if you however prefer to not block an application that is going on your nerves, that is purely your decission. but than, dont complain. you can do something about it.

 

[asdasdasdasda]

No, companies asking from support for their fans is not wrong at all, in any situation. That's the whole point of the competition. That said, the reason I hate Zynga is because:

a. They have a huge advantage in that their gaming platform is effectively integrated into the site. (Imagine being able to sign up on IWnet)
b. They only have cheap rehashes for games.
c. They're scammers. Plain and simple, this one is the worst, by far.

 

[Irridium]

I personally don't like Valve because they have only one above average game (Sequel is coming soon yay!) yet PC gamers rally behind them for no adequately explored reason.

Woah, woah, wait a second. Are you serious? Like, you're going to say that Half Life, Team Fortress and Counter Strike are, you know, moderately interesting and vaguely worth mentioning? Well, I'm sorry if your first computer was the ultimate gaming powerhouse of this decade and you missed on several games just because they would have insulted your HD screen. I'll give you and adequately explored reason why Valve games are awesome: SUBSTANCE. It's something that countless flashy and great looking games lack, that special something that makes the Half Life series, for instance, stand up in the crowd of shooter games. You really can't throw a pebble in the murky sea of nowadays games without hitting the same cliches and stereotypes repeated on and on, and this is a serious drag on enjoying a gaming experience. It's about setting standards and raising bars: not many have the guts to raise the stakes and top the performance of Valve in terms of gaming know-how...

Actually quite the opposite. My old gaming PC was behind for quite a while before I finally decided to give up repairing it. The problem is, their games are kind of dull.
I love how you immediately jump on the graphics assumption, as if it can't possibly be the average gameplay that serves as the main problem.

I'll try to answer your origional question then.

People here like Valve so much because they are one of the very few developers that actually care about their fans. Hell, Counter-Strike was origionally a mod, but Valve liked it so much they hired the modders, helped them polish the mod a lot, and released it as a game. They support their modding community with plenty of contests. They recently had one for Team Fortress 2 where they put in plenty of fan made items. And over 3/4 of the Team Fortess 2 maps were made by the community. And they continually support their games with patches and content thats free far longer than most companies.

They are also one of the very, very few devs that develope for the PC and don't release shoddy PC ports of games.

Thats what I gathered anyway. I may be wrong. Hope that answeres your question.

Oh, and before I forget, they have done their fair share of wrongs. Giving console players of their games the shaft is one of these.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Valve doing this would piss me off as much as Zynga doing this. It doesn't matter who is advertising as advertising March Madness outside of the escapist is cheating simple as.

 

[Czech Woods]

i hope you all will find peace in this: your mantra of how unfair it is that zynga gamers vote for their team in here has been no fun at all. good bye

 

[Czech Woods]

I am not one for competitions like March Mayhem. I voted for the developers I like but I don't get into it like some people do. The way some members of The Escapist have been treating the Zynga voters is just wrong. I understand that they don't want Zynga to win but there is no need to insult them.

Most of the people that have voted for Zynga just write one message and leave. I just kinda wish that they were required to make an account to vote so that way they might want to stay since they took time to make an account. That way we could get new members. That is just my opinion though.

i made an account even earned some badges. 95% of what i get is hate.

people claim zyngas methods were unfair. thats open to debate. the way people are treating me for simply liking a different kind of game than the majority isnt fair either. i hope zynga wins. just to piss those people of who have shown disgustingly how they treat opposing oppinions

 

[Bat Vader]

I am not one for competitions like March Mayhem. I voted for the developers I like but I don't get into it like some people do. The way some members of The Escapist have been treating the Zynga voters is just wrong. I understand that they don't want Zynga to win but there is no need to insult them.

Most of the people that have voted for Zynga just write one message and leave. I just kinda wish that they were required to make an account to vote so that way they might want to stay since they took time to make an account. That way we could get new members. That is just my opinion though.

i made an account even earned some badges. 95% of what i get is hate.

people claim zyngas methods were unfair. thats open to debate. the way people are treating me for simply liking a different kind of game than the majority isnt fair either. i hope zynga wins. just to piss those people of who have shown disgustingly how they treat opposing oppinions

Some people are like that. There are also people here who accept people have different opinions and don't hate them for it. I am one of them.

After March Mayhem is over with the hate will die down, I am pretty sure of it. Also, you can report the people who insult you.

 

[ModReap]

If Valve decided to send a message to every Steam user on login reqesting that they vote for Valve in the respective March Mayhem match up, would your response be the same as it currently is towards Zynga and/or Turbine?

Yes.

 

[TechNoFear]

This is the ad Valve used in it's launcher against Zynga.

[/quote]

 

[Sev72]

Valve did do this. The first page on my steam update page yesterday was a background of some of their characters from game they have made, and something to the effect of "Vote for Valve in the Escapists March Mayhem *link*" So, this is a bit of a moot point because no one seems to have done anything about it.

Edit:The guy above beat me to it, and he had a picture. I can't top that. Curse you ninjaing.

 

[Hawk Barbieri]

One thing I am curious about. I did a search on this web site and the only mention of Zynga previous to this contest are about Zynga Sued Over Deceptive Advertising and Zynga CEO Admits to Being a Scammer.

Seeing how the title is about ethics, what ethical decision could be made to allow a company who is known only for scamming and deception into the contest in the first place?

 

[Deleric]

In a contest like this, it's not about who makes the best games. It's about who has the bigger fanbase of sheep. Zynga wins because they have shitloads of casual players who don't even know what Valve is. Valve has a dedicated fanbase of real (and not so real) gamers, but to be a fan of Valve is pretty much to be a fan of games. To be a fan of Zynga is to be a fan of an internet connection.

The act of reaching out to your fanbase is part of the contest. Therefor, it's not bullshit if anybody uses it. Not Valve, not Zynga, and not Turbine.

 

[brumby]

If zynga won. I think I would have given up on gaming.. Next year i say its only games that are actually released for windows/mac/console. none of this web browser game bullshit.

 

[Riobux]

Competitions like these have always been, and always will be popularity contests. I figure Zynga advertising for itself is the same as putting up flyers around your school for someone running for student council.

Too be honest, a lot of things are. Even down to who runs the country, it's a popularity contest which is increasingly turning into a "who looks the best when deceiving their country". So it's only fair to find out who is the most popular developer within a selected community, instead of across selected fan-bases.

However, I think it would be a somewhat ethical problem to tell people to vote as they log in as then you're not asking The Escapist any more what their favourite developer is, but now you're just asking The Escapist and X developer's fan base what their favourite developer is, which for obvious reasons isn't a true reflection of the most popular and well liked developer. Sure the developer can advertise on their forum and tell people to vote for them at a competition, but everyone's doing it so it's fine, plus it's more of an off-hand thing than "GO VOTE NOW, AND MAKE SURE IT'S FOR US!". It's only if they start forcing people to vote for them that ethical boundaries are being broken.

 

[Uszi]

I personally don't like Valve because they have only one above average game (Sequel is coming soon yay!) yet PC gamers rally behind them for no adequately explored reason.

snip

Actually quite the opposite. My old gaming PC was behind for quite a while before I finally decided to give up repairing it. The problem is, their games are kind of dull.
I love how you immediately jump on the graphics assumption, as if it can't possibly be the average gameplay that serves as the main problem.

How can you say they only had one above average game? And if you had to say only a single game was "above average," why not the original Counter Strike, which was THE competitive shooter prior to all the halo nonsense, and continued to be THE competitive shooter until recently. Why not CS:S which is still one of the biggest competitive shooters.

Their game play is "average" because they are emulated by everyone else.

Well, IMHO, I guess.