Write an ebook on how to make money on Amazon, sell it for $297, and post a Show HN about it.
(Buying reviews might actually be illegal though, so that's a strong argument to not do it.)
Specifically the chapter "Introducing... the Scrub" discusses exactly this sentiment.
http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/introducingthe-scrub
> In Street Fighter, the scrub labels a wide variety of tactics and situations “cheap.” This “cheapness” is truly the mantra of the scrub. Performing a throw on someone is often called cheap. A throw is a special kind of move that grabs an opponent and damages him, even when the opponent is defending against all other kinds of attacks. The entire purpose of the throw is to be able to damage an opponent who sits and blocks and doesn’t attack. As far as the game is concerned, throwing is an integral part of the design—it’s meant to be there—yet the scrub has constructed his own set of principles in his mind that state he should be totally impervious to all attacks while blocking. The scrub thinks of blocking as a kind of magic shield that will protect him indefinitely.
(Luigi Barzini mentions an Italian book on card-playing--written, I think, by a clergyman--that begins "Always try to see your opponents' cards." He was trying to point out the light value to that Italians assign to official rules.)
Having that "arbitrary" throw mechanic in the game was done intentionally to make the game more balanced and enjoyable for the customer. The only people complaining about it are very very early beginners, who don't realize that removing that mechanic would completely break the game balance and make it unplayable. It is an advertised feature, not a bug, in this specific scenario.
I don't think that we can say the same about paid reviews on Amazon. It isn't a rule (i.e., Amazon doesn't require every seller to offer gift cards in exchange for 5-star reviews), and it doesn't exist to increase the value that Amazon marketplace provides to their customers, it does the opposite.
P.S. I actually agree with what you said completely. It just that the comment that brought up the videogame analogy didn't realize how completely different the situation there was, so it ended up derailing the further chain of arguments.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...
A charitable view would be that Amazon is trying to create a system that rewards fair sellers and provides unbiased reviews to consumers, while unscrupulous actors attempt to defeat that by engaging in new forms of grift. If the unscrupulous actors are 10% less effective because of Amazon's efforts, does that mean the "purpose" of the system has shifted 10% away from honest dealing? If Amazon all but eliminates dishonesty, does that mean the "purpose" of the system is to have an ever present, tiny baseline of fraud? At that point, better to use a different word.
It's because of strategic equivocation between the "actor" being implied in the "purpose." The implication is that Amazon creates the system and this is their purpose, but the cybernetician's definition of purpose is more like "the role this system plays in the overall society in light of all the infinite restrictions on everyone's behavior."
I would agree with that until something like this happens, where Amazon prevents people from letting other people know that the reviews are paid.
> If the unscrupulous actors are 10% less effective because of Amazon's efforts, does that mean the "purpose" of the system has shifted 10% away from honest dealing? If Amazon all but eliminates dishonesty, does that mean the "purpose" of the system is to have an ever present, tiny baseline of fraud? At that point, better to use a different word.
I'll think on your point. I'm not sure how to quantify purposefulness.
> It's because of strategic equivocation between the "actor" being implied in the "purpose." The implication is that Amazon creates the system and this is their purpose, but the cybernetician's definition of purpose is more like "the role this system plays in the overall society in light of all the infinite restrictions on everyone's behavior."
Point taken.
> If you have two actors within a system that are at odds, using the term "purpose" to refer to the system is either mostly incoherent, or (in most cases) trying to import the connotation of "purpose" into a conversation.
I think that one can still imagine that the point of a competitive endeavor is separate from the purpose of the competitors involved in the system.
Thanks for the reply, I'll consider your ideas.
It's very hard to balance a game to be fun both for most players and for the e-sports players.
Note also that the "average" player, the one that is average in the sense of being randomly picked among the players playing at any specific time, is likely to spend a lot of time in the game, and therefore is also likely to be exceptionally good - for instance the "most played" games have a median gameplay time of only ~30 hours!
I am with you on this one. Not in the least part, because I don't think that the analogy the parent comment brought up is valid here at all (and I am saying that as someone who actually read that book they mentioned).
In the example the parent comment brought up, it even says "[...]throwing is an integral part of the design - it's meant to be there[...]". That throwing mechanic was an intentional addition to the game, to counter-balance people who constantly block. The only people complaining about it are those who don't understand the game well or early beginners (we are talking someone who never played any fighting games before at all). Every single person playing competitively understands that without throws, the balance would be completely off, and the game would become unplayable competitively. In fact, it would become a completely different kind of game altogether. And throws aren't some hidden feature, it is featured prominently in tutorials and all.
While with gift cards in exchange for amazon reviews, it isn't an intentional mechanic advertised as a feature of the service. Amazon doesn't come out and say "this is one of our core features, without it our service would go down the drain and become unusable." It is still against the rules, and I cannot think of any logical reason it is helpful for buyers in terms of making Amazon.com a better marketplace (aside from the cash gain to the customer writing the paid review, but that's just a personal gain and doesn't make the marketplace better).
They can patch the glitch to restore what people considered the normal, designed, and balanced gameplay, or they can state that's just how the system works now and people need to choose whether to accept that or not and play something else.
Amazon can fix (or attempt to at least) the problem and make it harder for sellers to get 5 star reviews and lower reviews averages for some big selling items, or they can choose to do nothing, and some people will decide to leave and shop elsewhere because they can't trust the site and reviews.
Actually, there's a third option, which is that they can say they are doing everything they can to fix the problem while not doing much, therefore maximizing both reviews/profit as well as customer satisfaction in the short term. If they actually start fixing the problem before too long, it might be the maximal solution for them, but if they take too long their reputation will suffer even more (and it may give competitors a toe-hold). I suspect Amazon is doing this. I have no idea if they can go longer, are at the point they need to change, or are too late, but as a customer it sucks right now.
Playing To Win is about people who refuse to learn the rules of a game. That's not what's happening here. What's happening here is that people who understand the rules very well are pointing out that they have holes in them.
Scrub statement: "throws are cheap". Informed statement: "the way SF2 tick throw setups work biases the gameplay too far in favor of the player with offensive agency." You'll note that the latter makes no mistake about the purpose of the rules and makes no judgments about players using the tools provided. Instead it focuses on system interactions and their net result. You'll note that almost every big fighting game in the 20 years since the end of the SF2 series has reduced the power of tick throws by means of frame data or broader system changes. Players generally decided that getting the first knockdown should not have that much influence over a match.
Scrub statement: "I hate people who get upset at review purchasing." Informed statement: "Review purchasing makes the buying process worse for everyone by creating incentives to deceive buyers, increasing costs for sellers that purchase reviews and reducing sales to sellers who do not. It shifts the Nash equilibrium towards paying more for lower-quality products." Again, the latter examines the system interactions and emergent behavior rather than making moral judgments about the participants.
Second, I have the same disagreement with you as I do with the other chains. Which is that, de facto paying for reviews is currently a rule in the system. I can tell it's a rule because it's happening, and there's no rules or punishment appearing stop it. In video games, the rules are explicitly coded and nothing beyond that code is permitted. This is why bugs vs intended behaviour becomes a conversation of intent, because the code is obviously allowing it and the code is the ruleset.
But that's not true in real life. And that's the part that all responses like yours are missing. There's a game being played at Amazon, where boosting your review stats correlated with boosting your sales stats. Except the permitted ruleset is everything not explicitly prohibited and punished by Amazon. Complaining about people buying reviews is just being a scrub not understanding the rules. The correct conversation to be having is the same as when an apparent bug is found in a game: Is this intended behaviour from Amazon's perspective, and if not what active action are they going to do about it?
The less money I have, the more incentive I have to take advantage of these schemes. For me, the effort of earning 20$ this way would make this a few hundred dollars net loss (compared to working my job instead). So yeah, give me a 1000$ coupon and I am game!
For the same reason, I rarely return items I buy if they are in the under 50$ category, or write negative reviews for products that suck. It's just a waste of time, considering time is the most precious resource, and it is also money. I often write positive reviews for products that amaze me (doesn't happen too often), but here the product gave me so much value that I am willing to spend my time for this.
At a deeper level, that people won't "exploit the brokenness for their own gain" is key to a functioning society. Just as the promise of laying out rules in detail (expert systems) failed to capture the complexity required to get high-functioning AI, societies can not function by formal rules (laws and regulations) alone. There are sorts of complexities about norms, mores, and moral codes that are important to keep societies and organizations running. What is expected behavior when everyone is queued up to buy tickets at an event, but there is no formal sign saying "please queue here"? I mean you could audiciously walk up, stand next to the person in front of the line, and then walk up to the windows when they say "next please" and not be breaking any written rule, but everyone sure would be angry, and if everyone did it you'd have near total anarachy where the pushiest or strongest always got to the front of the line first.
One of the biggest problems with internet scale is that its pretty easy to start running into individuals who ARE ok with exploiting the rules, or just ignoring them. This can be because they are from societies with different norms than the one they are encountering online, or just because they are in the small minority of people who just don't care. This effect is aided and abetted by the relative anonymity online. If you cut in line, people who you can see and here are going to yell at you right now. Break the social norm (or actual policy) of not paying for reviews and you'll most likely just get a strongly worded letter and possible ban on selling (which is easy enough to get around).
In short though, not exploiting a broken rule or system just because its broken isn't silly. Its the a huge part of having a functioning society.
Again, the above presupposes intentional design, or judgement that emergent behavior nonetheless keeps gameplay in balance..
I guess my viewpoint assumes that gameplay is legitimately & deliberately balanced. I suppose this is much harder in videogames with game characters having different skill sets. It's much harder to evaluate whether or not there is balance between them than, say, Monopoly: Everyone starts the same there-- the dog isn't any better off than the thimble. (Though I usually play as the dog, and pretend the thimble is a fire hydrant as I pass it by & do what dogs do... I may not be very mature for my age. It makes my kids laugh though)
What's more, changing a rule can make a game fundamentally different experience that appeals to a new audience. Simple rules (no sniper in counter strike for example) lead to a different game that a subset of the addressable audience finds more enjoyable.
I'll finish with taking a quibble with the statement that "winning is not meant to be equally divided among players." That is true to a degree, but it also should not be overly concentrated among just a few. It is not fun to be consistently dominated and a game where a feeling of success or enjoyment is only accessible to a select few is unlikely to attract much of an audience.
In the long term, someone will exploit that brokenness. The key to a functioning society is repairing those broken places imo.
Doing something which is technically legal, benefits you, but causes other players to “hate playing” is not a good long term strategy. This normally ends with either the person being rejected, or, if the rest of people are nice, the group itself disbanding.
Nothing silly about this.