I play a multiplayer shooter game on private servers. You don't really own anything other than your equipment, which you can customize and trade etc. Anyhow, there was a HUGE discussion about a year or less ago about making the servers more "friendly" and less toxic because people were complaining on Reddit about the smacktalking. The server admins were talking about instituting bans on ... well a lot of stuff but mostly it was about language. The admins felt like they were missing out on revenue because people on Reddit said they weren't going to come play on these servers because of the toxicity.
You can play on their servers for free but if you pay a small amount, you get some really fun perks. You get a guaranteed slot on a full server but other than that, you don't get anything more substantial. Most of the egregious talking and demands were done by people who weren't paying.
The main reason that most people play on these servers is their incredibly strict no cheating policy. Steam already has an anti-cheat code and the server has a private anti-cheat thing too. If you get caught cheating, you get banned. They
never unban you, unless you can absolutely prove it was a mistake. I've been playing on them for a decade and I can count on one hand the amount of people who have been unbanned. They also consistently update their hardware and software, they are as transparent as they can be and they communicate with their playerbase.
They ban for "hate" speech. They ban for all the other cheating stuff too but that one ... they give you three chances to not be a racist/homophobic/xenophobic/insertyourphobichere jerk. It's usually like a day, then a week then a month then you're permabanned. The "toxicity" people were talking about had nothing to do with that ... it was stuff like being called a bad player or some players telling others to play a different class or move their weapons or whatever.
Online gaming IS harsh. I found the whole conversation about banning people because they called someone a name ridiculous. I think, in the end, the admins decided to take a wait and see approach because a lot of their contributors said they weren't going to pay or play if this went through because there were some other issues that needed to be addressed first. Most of THOSE issues involved actual gameplay issues (like "friendlying" ... where you hang out with players from the other team and just mess around. You take up slots but don't actually work towards the goals of the games). That type of thing was from mostly non-contributing players.
A lot of the comments were that people needed to suck it up and stop getting butt hurt over a game. A GAME.
Any time you get a bunch of people together, with some level of anonymity, someone will act out. You just can't regulate human behavior. What you can do is mitigate how it effects other players if you feel like it's negatively affecting your bottom line. Because while it's a game to us ... it's a business for them and that should be their focus. How can we continue to grow our playerbase and our profit at the same time? That should be the question IMO.
I think
@Stinky Pete is right ... being a customer doesn't give you more input, it just gives you access. If you don't like the game, then don't access it and spend your money elsewhere. Just because you chose to spend your money to subscribe to UO or to buy something from the UO store or gold/items from a broker ... that doesn't mean your gameplay is any more important than anyone else's.
I just want to have fun. If I'm not having fun ... I'll go play something else or go offline completely (which I find myself doing more and more lately). If I'm mad at someone in-game, I'll just log off and go do something else until I'm not. This isn't a linear, every player goes through the game this way and only this way type of game. I don't like the way a lot of people interact in UO. A lot of people don't like the way I interact in UO. *shrugs* But, I think what will eventually be the death of UO is the unavailability of opportunities to get the things needed to play the game at the level most people want to play it. I think
@Lore is right too ... the level of customer service needs to be higher. I'm looking for an experience, not just stuff.
