Can a PlayStation Plus Voting System Make Gamers Happy?

PSLS - With the recent rumor surrounding an upcoming feature that will allow PlayStation Plus subscribers to vote on which title they would like to have added to the list of free games for that month, Daily Reaction is going to discuss what this could mean for gamers, as well as talk about what features we would like to see added to the service and our general thoughts on how it has performed over the last five years.

[Majin-vegeta]

You can never make everyone happy.Someone will always find something to cry about.

[the_dark_one]

exactly. in this case now it would be like, voting in a game that you wanted but at the end of the voting its a different that gets more votes and you are left with the game you kinda didnt want, and thats where people will come to complain

[Nitrowolf2]

I see this as a big Double edge TBH. On one plus, we get to decide what's free, but on the down it's Sony choosing on those titles we get to decide on. SO, while I've enjoyed my plus subscription, many out there have voiced their opinion and I think the general public wants more AAA titles to be featured. So if this doesn't improve that, I expect to see more complaining on forums and such when the monthly voting goes up

[freshslicepizza]

it's a dumb move because the other two games people will not buy because they will eventually come to plus. why not just release all three for free or have a better selection to choose from than just three games.

[AngeliclceDiamond]

This should make everyone happy

[admiralvic]

Honestly, I'm sort of depressed people are asking this question in the first place.

Will someone complain? Yes.
Will people walk away unhappy? Yes.
Is it possible to make a perfect system? Theoretically yes, but no perfect system will ever be feasible.
Is this an improvement? Without a doubt.
Should we be happy that our odds of getting games we enjoy more has increased? I don't see why not.

I swear. Some people are so caught up in the negative, like hypothetical arguments or questioning if this will be enough, but ultimately it's an improvement and more than we could have hoped for. Now instead of getting a game you may or may not enjoy or have we have the chance to pick one that better suits your needs. Maybe it won't, maybe you'll get screwed, but in the end I rather have the chance of getting something I might enjoy more than Sony just picking one of them, which you know would have been free, than not having the choice.

[IamTylerDurden1]

You are absolutely correct, there is no reason anyone should be saying anything negative. If you don't like the quality of the plus lineup then that's fine, but that has nothing to do with this.

This gives you SOME say, where as before you had NONE.

Articles like this are part of the problem, they somehow attempt to twist an exceedingly positive thing into a potentially negative thing.

[FallenAngel1984]

The only negative I honestly see is that certain games will be passed over. Titles offered in the past like Vanquish and Binary Domain are great games that were overlooked at retail. Without a chance to shine on PS+ these type of games would continue to go overlooked with a voting system in place that ensures popular games have top propriety,

[Aenea]

They said that they would offer up 3 game titles to vote for and that the ones not chosen will for sale at a discount afterwards. This tells me that the second game we usually get with PS+ is decided completely by Sony.

[lelo2play]

It all depends of the games offered with the voting system. What's the point of inserting 3 games to choose from if all of them are crap?

[IamTylerDurden1]

You are wrong, even if u had a choice between 3 "crap" things wouldn't you want to at least choose the least crappy among them? If you are choosing between 3 indies wouldn't prefer to pick the 1 you like the best?

Some months you may not like the choices, some months you may love them, either way it's nice to choose.

[BigGamersSmallTalk]

Voting between 3 indie games doesn't make a difference to me. Unless they start offering some big AAA titles on PSN+ for the PS4 I won't even bother to vote. And if they put a AAA game up to vote against 2 indies...obviously the AAA game will win...so this is kinda pointless IMO.

[DualWielding]

no because getting to choice between 3 indies won't make up for the lack of AAA... and I'm pretty sure they'll never gave us a choice of 3 AAA games

[22CobraKing]

You know it's not up to them to just pick out any AAA game and say we're going to put it on ps plus. I could see 2 indies and maybe Knack for a choice down the line. I don't think they'll put 3 triple a games but maybe just 1 with indies as a choice once a while.

[Ramser12]

It really depends I can see myself being unhappy if the game I want isn't chosen, but other than that I think it's a great thing

[uth11]

I think the PS+ whiners are a vocal minority. You can tell from the number of disagrees they get and the mocking they get from other sites.

More reasonable people realize they won't enjoy every PS+ game, but it still offers enough real gems that it's a great value.

Voting will add an interesting dynamic. It remains to be seen if it's better

[IamTylerDurden1]

Agreed with everything except the last sentence, having a say is better than not having a say. Allowing fans to pick from the pool instead of some executive is a good thing. Plus imo it makes it exciting and more interesting.

Ppl will never be satisfied, but this is a step in the right direction. Plus we will know much earlier the potential games we are getting.

The runners up being on sale is a good move as well. I dig this.

[uth11]

Well you know what they say about democracy- it's two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner :)

If you get outvoted every month, you will feel like you don't really have a say. Not saying it will happen, hopefully it works as intended

[IamTylerDurden1]

At least u had a chance though, more of a chance than u had before. For the 1 month that your vote wins it will have been worth it, where as before u had 0 votes and no choices.

[TheNemesis501]

this more to stop giving players free games they dont want, now sony will know what to invest money into and want to skip

[22CobraKing]

Instead of just voting one you should be able to pick 2 and those 2 would be the games for the month. It will make it more fair an example is if theirs Knack, a very good indie, and an ok indie most will choose Knack but others that really want the very good indie.

[admiralvic]

"most will choose Knack but others that really want the very good indie."

A while back I had a group project in my classes where we had to go to a real company, ask them for a problem they wanted to solve and then come up with a solution. My group ended up going with a bakery that specialized in wedding cakes and they wanted to make more wedding cake sales.

One of the first things we did was come up with a survey. Among the seven questions we asked was something like "which of the following is most important to you?" with the choices being something like look, taste, size and cost. This question was later revised to "rank the following" because my teammates figured cost was guaranteed to win and they didn't like the idea of removing it as an option.

In the end we did the survey, something like 50 people took it and cost was ranked third, with a mere one or two percent lead over the item ranked fourth.

TL;DR The point being. Just because you're certain XYZ event is going to happen, doesn't mean XYZ event will happen.

[Hold_It]

When it's not a bunch of sub-par indie games, yes.
Maybe we can get a vote to make PSN a more stable network capable of delivering better download and upload across the US.

[StormLegend]

People are always crying for AAA games, what happend to buying them? I swear you can find some of these games for $10

[Hold_It]

People are always going on and on about indie games, but really it's the same formula over and over again that looks and feels like a stiff SNES game.

[jmc8888]

Yes and no. People will appreciate the ability to have a say in selecting it. But of course if the three games they have in there are what they plan, it's going to ring hollow with a good portion of gamers.

People want some more AA/AAA games, not just indies. So if they just let you select between three indies, well, that will piss people off as it will be a bit of a tease and sort of a bait and switch pretending that you have better control in getting what you want. To actually do that they would need to make it more like a vote of 10-15 games and include all genres and development type cost (indie/AA/AAA).

You might say how do I know this, simple. Because not only are these the factors, I've participated in every vote of every steam sale since they started having voting.

Lots of people get mad because it goes like this.
1. It's a vote of three games that don't interest players
2. Inevitably, some will be pissed off because the game they voted for doesn't win.
3. It becomes sort of a game where people vote for 'the thing that hasn't been on sale', and that could easily extend to PS4 games which haven't been part of a flash sale or what not.
4. Based off of #3, people will use it as a political voting booth in the sense that if any 'hated' companies, so if a game from EA,Activision, or whatever company may be in the bad graces of gamer, might be avoided to not 'reward' them.
5. People who don't care, will just vote for anything, or follow some herd that may be calling for one game or another, which means their vote doesn't really reflect what they want, and thus upsetting people who voted who actually want what they voted for.

So yeah, it's good and bad. It gives somewhat more control, but not alot, and it opens up a few cans of worms that never existed before.

Ultimately it's a hype train to help keep and grow mindshare by keeping people more engaged with and taking time to talk about Sony and PS+.

[GamerGT]

They should base their titles to vote upon based on PSN top 10 sales. Top 10 AAA. Top 10 Indie. Top 10 digital only. Top 10 vita and PS3 and a simple top 10 wish list and vote on those from stats of the previous month. Not including the game that is currently free. This will include new Game and old. Have an algorithm in place to analyze what categories of games are at the forefront of the players minds. And at best your second game you wished most for could receive a good discount.