Samizdata have a post up about how all this bitching about the iPhone 4 is a good thing, as it puts pressure on Apple to fix the little bastards, and compared this to public services and what they do when they cock up. It’s all true, even the comments.
Then I read this over and NXTGamer, and realized just how often this is shown to be true.
Proving once again why they are loved by so many, Valve have unbanned and compensated 12,000 gamers who were incorrectly and unfairly banned for cheating in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Not only removing them from their VACuum (sorry) of despair, Valve have awarded the disgruntled players two copies of Left 4 Dead 2 for their lost hours of shooting people in the face. That’s right, two- one to play and one to gift. Because killing zombies is so much more fun with a friend.
That totals a whopping 24,000 games handed out for the mistake, sure to put a smile on some of the (now un) banned player’s faces. The glitch that caused the mass-bannage was down to a bug in Valve’s VAC anti-cheating system that tricked the system into identifying harmless players as filthy, cheating good-for-nothing fun-fiddlers. Valve originally took no responsibility for the bans, but later realised it was their fault after all after some digging around in the system.
Valve head Gabe Newell sent out a personal message to the affected players, admitting; “This was our mistake, and I apologize for any frustration or angst it may have caused you. We have given you a free copy of Left 4 Dead 2 to give as a gift on Steam, plus a free copy for yourself if you didn’t already own the game.”
Wow. 24,000 copies of Left 4 Dead, given away, to make up for what they admit was their incompetence. But the government can’t even give the smack down to a murderous cop.
There really is this sense of arrogance around public services. It’s because they have no real way of linking the services the provide to how they’re paid for, meaning there’s no sense of In private, voluntary dealings (or, in our corporatist mess of a mixed economy, those deals which have some semblance of voluntaryism left in them), the only reason deals go ahead is because there’s a mutual benefit; people don’t enter deals unless they feel there’s some upside to doing so (this upside needn’t even be personal profit, despite the cries of the anti-market loonies. Although, there’s nothing wrong with making profits through voluntary dealings), and this means both sides are thankful for the deal.
In comes the government: It’s here, whether you like it or not. You’re paying for it, whether you like it or not. And, if you are to believe what it says, it has to be there, like it or not (it doesn’t). What incentive does it have to keep costs down, when they’re not the ones paying them? None. What reason does it have to keep customer service happy, when it’s a monopoly provider of many of its services? You tell me; if Microsoft became a genuine monopoly tomorrow (helped by the State, as all monopolies are), how much more crap would Windows become? Exactly.
Now, what if Steam and Call of Duty were run by the government, how would the above cock-up play out?
First, there’d be a 3 month waiting list to join a game of Call of Duty, it’d be incredibly laggy, and noone would be allowed the really cool gun attachments to prevent inequality. Care packages get delivered to the most needy players every 5 seconds, but they’d just waste it all shooting up teammates. Respawning would take longer than Jesus took (3 days) and every match would be interrupted by health and safety inspectors before every round was fired.
Then, some guy at the Department for Computer Entertainment cocks up and you find yourself banned, as happened to the 12,000 kids above. You’d probably expect to be banned for at least a good few months, before, if you’re lucky, finally being unbanned without as much as an apology, save for some minister giving a half-hearted promise to find the cause of the problem, for which, ultimately, not one bureaucrat will lose his job. Oh, and you’d probably still be listed as “Banned” on some incredibly expensive database somewhere, causing problems later on because no one bothered to update the database. You’re going to be tracked for life, all because you were falsely put on a database for the crime of cheating, which you never committed.
And, this being a “free” government service you’re being fucked over by, any suggestion to improve it by handing it over to Valve would be met with cries of “Neoliberal!” and “You don’t care about the poor, how will they pwn n00bs? You should be grateful for what you get for free!” You’ll be decried as unpatriotic for suggesting that some organization other than a colossal bureaucracy completely unsuited to providing a service should deliver that service. Nevermind that you’re all getting shit services at inflated prices, Call of Duty is a BRITISH INSTITUTION! It’s a Human Right! It solves inequality!
It also costs you all £28 a month in tax, but you don’t notice that part because it’s taken out of your meager pay cheque before you notice you have it, as opposed to a one off £40 from Valve. Everybody knows Valve’s private Call of Duty is better, cheaper, and more fun (with added blood, which the government took out of their version in case if offends hemophiliacs), but that’s a privilege for the rich, you capitalist pig. And don’t you go expecting free Left 4 Dead, be grateful for what you’ve got from the government.
At least our healthcare, roads, and protection services aren’t run like this.
Oh, shi-
*chuckle*
It’s funny, because it’s true!