12 ms·
The most downvoted comment in Reddit's history
- jameskilton 9y agoPrevious discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15685405 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15685405
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- zeveb 9y agoI wonder if EA will need to get a new user account.
- edem 9y agoI think comments get diminishing returns. If you check the user profile it is still in positive.
- jasonkostempski 9y agoI don't know what reddit gold does but could they have given themselves those 12 to counteract the downvotes?
- shepardrtc 9y agoNo, its just some flair given to your post (and you) by someone donating money to reddit. In this context I imagine its meant as a small bit of snark.
- ifoundthetao 9y agoThey can give themselves gold if they want. I'm not sure how it affects the downvotes, or if it does.
- DonHopkins 9y agoEA just posted the most downvoted comment in history of the universe, by orders of magnitude. https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattlefront/comments/7cff0b/seriously_i_paid_80_to_have_vader_locked/dppum98/ https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattlefront/comments/7cff0b... People are actually "hate guilding": paying real money for reddit gold in order to send "fuck you" messages to EA that they can't ignore or mute in a locked thread. We may be witnessing the birth of a new business model. EACommunityTeam -652k points 1 day ago [gold star] x67 The intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different heroes. As for cost, we selected initial values based upon data from the Open Beta and other adjustments made to milestone rewards before launch. Among other things, we're looking at average per-player credit earn rates on a daily basis, and we'll be making constant adjustments to ensure that players have challenges that are compelling, rewarding, and of course attainable via gameplay. We appreciate the candid feedback, and the passion the community has put forth around the current topics here on Reddit, our forums and across numerous social media outlets. Our team will continue to make changes and monitor community feedback and update everyone as soon and as often as we can.
- poizan42 9y agoThe amount of karma you can lose from a single comment is limited to a quite small number
- executesorder66 9y agosource?
- poizan42 9y agoIt's part of the anti-spam/anti-cheat system so the exact details are kept secret, but you can find a few places where people have done some experiments such as [0]. The exact behavior is not completely clear though, it might be a hard cutoff or it might be diminishing returns, possibly a combination, but at least people don't seem to lose even 100 karma even after 10Ks of downvotes. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/18r63h/does_reddit_protect_your_karma_totals_from_mass https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/18r63h/does...
- therealmarv 9y agonow I downvoted too
- amyjess 9y agoOnly 19 hours old, too. One thing to keep in mind is that Reddit used to normalize votes until about a year ago or so, such that it was exceedingly rare for a post to get beyond triple digits (both positive and negative). I wonder how many older unpopular comments would have made it into the negative six figures if vote totals had been uncapped sooner.
- teraflop 9y agoAccording to the admins, the scores on older posts were recalculated after the scoring was changed.
- Prometheus1981 9y agoI'm not sure, but let's try and just talk about Rampart ok?
- malikNF 9y agoLooks like everything they are posting is getting down-voted. https://www.reddit.com/user/EACommunityTeam https://www.reddit.com/user/EACommunityTeam
- executesorder66 9y agoAnd yet they still have positive karma. Most upvoted comment: +318 Most downvoted comment: -377k Somehow this results in 7,438 comment karma for the user. What the hell reddit? edit: and no, the sum of the rest of their comments does not add up anywhere near 377k.
- atrus 9y agoReddit limits how much a single comment can effect your overall karma score. This was done to slow down negative karma trolls.
- louhike 9y agoEven though I hate the business model, this is going crazy with people sending death threats to employees. They never hid their intent, the business model for the game has been discussed for a long time.
- ryanmarsh 9y agoThe most brigaded comment in Reddit’s history FTFY
- danso 9y agoWow that's some incredible brigading. One of the most upvoted comments (it might be the most upvoted one, don't know) is at a mere 98.6K: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5h7gq8/i_was_goofy_at_walt_disney_world_for_over_20/day38fu/ https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5h7gq8/i_was_goofy_at... The most upvoted post is 283K: https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/5gn8ru/guardians_of_the_front_page/ https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/5gn8ru/guardians_of_... Considering how upvoted-items get more and more visible, and thus more and more upvotes, it's a huge achievement for a downvoted comment to have that much engagement. edit: via r/subredditdrama, the most downvoted comments noted so far: https://www.reddit.com/r/ListOfComments/wiki/downvoted https://www.reddit.com/r/ListOfComments/wiki/downvoted https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/7cicb7/users_turn_to_the_salty_side_in/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/7cicb7/user...
- amyjess 9y agoLooking at the Totes comment, I can see why: https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattlefront/comments/7cff0b/seriously_i_paid_80_to_have_vader_locked/dppvmao/ https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattlefront/comments/7cff0b... That's a lot of linked subreddits, plus you've got people from HN and probably other places going to check out "the most downvoted comment in Reddit's history".
- kronos29296 9y agoI did my part by upvoting the post and downvoting the game. EA is one he of a moneygrubber. Would even make the guys who buy games pirate it.
- kbenson 9y agoI would bet a lot of HN users that might not play Battlefront, or possibly not that many games at all anymore, still remember past EA shenanigans, and the EA wives stuff, so are willing to believe the accusations and vote accordingly. I count myself in the group somewhat (I'm playing games again recently, but not EA so much).
- Raphmedia 9y ago
- CoolGuySteve 9y agoIt's weird, the Cluetrain Manifesto is old enough to drive now but companies still don't talk like human beings. I'm not sure what EA's social media group is trying to accomplish by engaging in such a clumsy way. http://www.cluetrain.com http://www.cluetrain.com
- cirgue 9y agoI had completely forgotten about this. It makes me sad to read, because it seems like the culture of the tech industry has gone whole-hog on "sterile happytalk that insults the intelligence of markets". Machine learning on the blockchain, anyone?
- bunderbunder 9y agoI'm continually fascinated by the gaming community's relationship with EA. It's like, "Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me 37 times. . . ahh, what the hey, let's throw another 60 quid in this hole. I'm sure this time it'll be different."
- arkh 9y agoThe gaming community get new fools to pay for this kind of things every day. Fool me once shame on me. Fool my neighbor's teenager then.
- jasode 9y agoThe "new fools" theory sounds plausible but then I see that EA releases new games far faster than the replacement birthrate for gullible teens. E.g. I count 13 games from 2016: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Electronic_Arts_games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Electronic_Arts_games Therefore, there has to be a significant quantity of repeat buyers who were already burned by EA. (E.g. EA can't wait ~20 years to fool the Millenials after milking the GenX buyers.)
- kbenson 9y ago> I count 13 games from 2016 Well, there are a lot of market segments to exploit, and some might not overlap that much. Also, there's 6 games listed for 2017, but each is targeted at multiple platforms so shows up 2-6 times. Finally, with the sports titles, in some cases if you want to play with a roster of real players you don't have a choice but to go with EA.
- avar 9y agoEverything is like this, just earlier today there was a "Air Travelers Resisting the ‘Incredible Shrinking Airline Seat’" thread[1] here where if the comments are to be believed a huge number of people simply don't travel anymore because the seats are so horrible. Surely nobody would want to fly anymore! Meanwhile the airline industry has been growing consistently for decades. Similarly, surely nobody would ever pay $80 for some in-game feature in an EA game. If you aren't selling EA stock now in anticipation of their inevitable demise you're a fool! Stated preferences are very different from revealed preferences. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15684552 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15684552
- Pigo 9y agoIf people hate EA so much, why do they keep buying their games? It's not like Time Warner, with a monopoly you can't avoid.
- pavel_lishin 9y agoIn a way, it is - who else is making a Star Wars game like this?
- kazagistar 9y agoEvery copyright is a monopoly on a very specific niche. People arent looking for just some game, they want "that experience they loved from the first game, set in their favorite science fantasy universe" or whatever. They can't get it elsewhere, and thus the publisher can do some pretty abusive things to extract money from the fans. In this case, trying to push people gambling addictions they can exploit for profit.
- crankylinuxuser 9y agoIts sounding like youre trying to start opening a line of debate of: "If content is part of the national identity or popular outside its initial entertainment function, there should be limitations on the governmental exclusivity(copyright) so that others may use."
- cestith 9y agoThis is why copyright used to be for a reasonably limited term.
- baby 9y agoThey happen to make good games.
- rtkwe 9y agoIf you want to play a sim sports game (not a sports management sim though there's tons of those) or a Star Wars game EA is pretty much the only option because they have the licenses.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- kazagistar 9y agoOf course it would be an informative comment that pepole don't like.
- marcelluspye 9y agoIt's only informative if you take what they said at face value.
- kvark 9y agoI don't understand the rage here. EA is a busyness, kindly explaining the reasoning behind their product decisions in the open. We should be thankful, not angry.
- whamlastxmas 9y agoThe beatings will continue until morale improves
- kazagistar 9y agoWell, now you know why PR ie so notoriously tight lipped and why so few companies offer to explain unpopular things. As long as they don't speak, the explanations are all just hypotheticals.
- CaptSpify 9y agoEA has 3 choices: 1) The Truth: "We are greedy, and you are willing to pay for it" 2) Lie: "The intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different heroes." 3) Say nothing Personally I think 3 was the best option, and 2 was the worst option. But they went with 2 anyway.
- kvark 9y agoThe "me" beating goal is to turn me against EA? I'm way past that point, so the effort is wasted:) I just don't understand how people expect EA to do anything other than maximizing the profits.
- ddingus 9y agoThey failed.
- pavel_lishin 9y agoIf a scorpion stings me, I can still be upset about it, despite the scorpion's nature.
- falcolas 9y agoI left this comment in the previous edition of this post, reproducing here for some context around the "why": There was another post on Reddit which “did the math” a few days ago: unlocking a hero would take around 40 hours of play, modulo a few challenges and other purchases. There was concern about loot boxes and micro transactions affecting gameplay; I feel it’s safe to say those concerns were justified.
- fixermark 9y ago... at which point a person can calculate their 40 hours of play * what the time is worth to them, and decide if $80 to just buy the thing is worth it.
- deanclatworthy 9y agoNothing is going to change in the gaming community unless people stop buying these kinds of games. I am on my way to sell COD:WWII as I type this comment as the multiplayer maps are so monotonous and yet they expect me to pay the price of the game again to unlock all the other maps in the next few months (season pass). I’ll probably never buy another COD game after this.
- 4c2383f5c88e911 9y agoSo, nothing will change then? "Vote with your wallet" doesn't work, and never has.
- yathern 9y agoWhy would it not work? It's just that you need enough people to vote :) I do believe in this case it's not going to work - I don't imagine among gamers there will be a nearly enough boycotters.
- floofyfloofer 9y agoIt could work, but it's a lopsided feedback system: EA can't count the number of people who didn't buy their game, they can only count the number of actual purchases. So, voting with your wallet leads to underperforming sales numbers, which they'll rationalize to be based on anything but the insulting ways they try to extract additional money from their players, or the myriad of ways they treat their fan base like idiots. They learn the wrong lessons, assuming the franchise must be at fault, not the mechanics that make the game loathsome.
- joemi 9y agoSelling your copy of the game isn’t doing anything to stop people from buying these types of games.
- guiomie 9y agoNot are they monotonous, the game is constantly broken. And they seems to have learnt from that South Park episode about micropayments by putting rewards and sound effects when you get the rewards to trigger the addiction part of your brain.
- jordigh 9y agoWow, modern gaming is serious business. I wish we devoted this much energy into more, ahem, important things. I'm not sure even movies, books, TV series or other kinds of entertainment would produce such a reaction from people.
- Wimpzilla 9y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15685405 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15685405 Was already posted, dunno why double the news!
- asveikau 9y agoOf all the things in humanity to show outrage about, even limiting oneself to considering outrageous topics that made it to reddit posts, this seems very small. I would figure the most downvoted comment in history would show something grotesque.
- floofyfloofer 9y agoUnbridled greed is pretty grotesque.
- asveikau 9y agoOf all things you can do to a person, I think mis-pricing something in a video game and a subsequent PR blunder is very small potatoes. Even if we restrict to your phrase "unbridled greed" and exclude more serious topics like physical harm and abuse, there is a lot more of that going on that is worse than this.
- OpenDrapery 9y agoI really want [thing] but cannot afford [thing] at the current price point. Rage! Kick! Scream! Doesn't this sentiment have to be nearly as old as markets themselves? What makes you more angry, the fact that you cannot get the thing you want? Or the harsh realization that there is a class of people who can afford it, and you are not in that class? Pricing is science, with a little art thrown in. EA is a publicly traded company whose stock has climbed from $12 to $120 in the last five years. Their imperative is to maximize shareholder value, not appease gamers. The grown up thing to do is to focus on the things that you enjoy + can afford.
- fixermark 9y agoPeople, perhaps, get upset about this sort of thing because game content isn't "real," in the sense that an employee could spend mere seconds (assuming a script was already cooked for them to do it) to give this art asset to players for free. The $80 pricepoint (or 40 hours of game interaction) seems a very artificial thing. It doesn't take $80 worth of work to produce and distribute the Vader art asset, so why should one be compelled to pay $80 for it? ... but this is a misunderstanding of the nature of digital content and monopoly. The old rules of supply and demand still apply---even if satisfying demand is relatively trivial after the archetype has been created---when one party has a monopoly on supply, as EA does here. And when the archetype still takes several dozens or hundreds of person-hours to fabricate, there is still cost to EA to be offset. But even if there weren't cost to EA to offset: they have a monopoly on the product, they can charge what they will, the amount of markup they can generate is immaterial.
- guiomie 9y agoAhah, not surprised. That game felt like a beta when it was released, I could not comprehend how they could release something like this. I only started getting back into gaming recently, and to my surprise, the issue of launching broken games seems to be industry practice. Battlefield 1 had so many issues, the new CoD:WW2 has so many issues. I stopped gaming a few years ago (last game was CoD:2), and I am shocked that the community endures this... but what is the alternative? Stop gaming?
- megaman22 9y agoI've already got hundreds of games in my Steam back-catalog. Unless I go on funemployment and turn into the troll from Make Love, not Warcraft, I can't even begin to get through those. Especially when there are Total War and Paradox games in that stack.
- mastax 9y agoBattlefront 2 (the new one) isn't released until the 17.
- guiomie 9y agoI thought they had changed Battlefront 1.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- simook 9y agoThis is why I've stopped buying new games. At 31 years old, I've realized that learning new things is more important than paying to entertain myself.
- dmitriid 9y agoI'm only going for indie games these days.
- metalliqaz 9y agoWait, which is it? When you say "this is why" it implies you stopped because of unbounded greed on the part of large gaming publishers. However, then you explain it as growing out of gaming and a shift in your interests to learning. Also, in my opinion, learning and entertainment don't have to be mutually exclusive. You sound like an I-don't-watch-TV snob right now, to be honest.
- eduren 9y agoAgree. As much as I love HN, I think it suffers from too much snobbery at times... Which is why I've decided recently (since turning 27 and a half) to transition away from online forums and focus on building pen-pal relationships with fellow hackers through physical mail. Really makes me feel like I'm improving myself
- tytytytytytytyt 9y agoMaybe it's both?
- runeks 9y agoCan anyone explain what this is about, for non-gamers like myself? Am I understanding it right, in that he paid $80 for a game in which he needs to pay even more to get access to the Darth Vader character? Is there a price list somewhere for what it costs to purchase various in-game things?
- always_good 9y agoI think people have an issue with the fact that you can skip the lootbox grind if you pay money. Else it would also be 'unfair' for a game to make you beat levels 1-99 before you can play that sweet level 100 boss battle. "I paid $40 for this game, I want to play level 100 without the grind" would be fairly weak criticism. This issue is just a stone's throw from reeking of the hot air of entitlement. Mixed in with the anger that people can pay money to skip the grind are lamer abstract arguments like "a Star Wars game should let me play with the main characters on day one!"
- minimaxir 9y agoGood summary of the issue: https://reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/7cddyo/_/dpqoy26/?context=1 https://reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/7cddyo/_/dpqoy26/...
- chengiz 9y agoThat has too much jargon to be a good summary to a non-gamer IMO. To wit- "While some games might offer loot boxes for cosmetic options, Battlefront II is using loot crates as their primary form of progression through the multiplayer content, via Star Cards."
- seren 9y agoMost game now have "micro transactions". I have not followed closely but I guess that your start the game without all the characters unlocked, so you need to play X hours of time to unlock that character, or buy it in addition to the base game to unlock it immediately. Which might be a bit steep after you've just spent $80. edit: so after reading minimaxir links it seems you can not pay to unlock a new character, but since you have to effectively chose spending your credits (i.e time spent playing) either on improvement like weapons or new characters, it greatly incentivizes you buy in-game currency.
- bigtunacan 9y agoApparently the huge response had some impact as EA is now dropping the price of some of these characters. http://m.ign.com/articles/2017/11/13/ea-to-reduce-star-wars-battlefront-2-hero-costs-by-75-percent http://m.ign.com/articles/2017/11/13/ea-to-reduce-star-wars-...
- DonHopkins 9y agoRumor has it that The Sims 5 will come with only pay toilets, and require an in-app purchase to kill a character.