Steam coin

[User137773]

I've been thinking about a new type of reward, called Steam coin. Let me explain:

# CDN servers

When we download games, there are many servers available to choose. Steam chooses the one that is nearest to us, so that we can get faster download speed. These servers are called CDN servers. Steam need money to build these servers, so these money are part of the game price.


# P2P download

There is an alternative way to get faster download speed. Instead of download games from server, we download games from other steam user's computer. This type of download is called P2P (peer to peer) download. The program behind P2P network can find nearest steam user for us, so like CDN, we can get better speed.


# No reward of P2P download

It's a function that is already in steam, so why not just use the P2P download? Because there is no reward for uploaders. Uploaders contribute their net speed, electricity, CPU, hard drive, and get nothing back. So everyone either disable this function, or make the upload speed super low.


# Steam coin, reward for uploaders

Now let me introduce Steam Coin. Steam users who upload their games to other users, get steam coins. The more they contribute, the faster they upload, the more coins they get. Steam coins can be used to buy games, and can be sold to other steam users. Steam company cut their money spent on CDN servers, and accept steam coins to buy games on steam. Also as an organizer, Steam company makes rules about how these coins can be made and spent, and ensure these coins are safe and transparent, no one can cheat.


# Who can benefit from Steam coin

Everyone except who work for CDN providers.

[Winged One]

No,

Nobody is going to give you free games or credit towards them.. get a job, save up some cash, and then buy one

[Seretti]

^This. And doesn't Steam already use your max download speed?

[76561198001062896]

the thread really comes off as another veiled "gimme free stuff" post

[Jerry]

I can't imagine your Stemule model to work. If files coming from a user were corrupted or even worse infected, Valve would be fully responsible. And no matter how well you design checksums and similar measures, this will happen sooner or later.

[demo]

Steam rewarding users for allowing this for game updates, is as unlikely as Microsoft rewarding windows users for allowing the same with windows updates. (i.e. its more likely Steam would just implement it quietly...).


Microsoft already use p2p and unless you have turned the feature off in your settings, p2p is how you get your windows updates.

Edit:- and you SHOULD turn it off, especially if you have a cap on your monthly download.

{ if you`re curious, Its under "updates and security" - "Advanced options" - "Delivery Optimization" - "Allow downloads from other PC`s", & the default setting is On. - (PC`s on my local network, and PC`s on the internet").}

[Washell]

Originally posted by blackChef:

Steam need money to build these servers

Steam is a service, Valve is the company that needs the money. Valve doesn't buy or build servers, they rent storage and bandwidth from Akamai[en.wikipedia.org]. Paying a user less per GB than what they pay Akamai will make every user go "Well that's not worth the hassle... What a cheapskates!"

It's not a commercially viable idea.

Originally posted by blackChef:

The program behind P2P network can find nearest steam user for us, so like CDN, we can get better speed.

Downloads are only tangentially affected by distance.

Originally posted by blackChef:

we can get better speed.

If you're not getting full speed now, try a different region. As said, distance is barely relevant.

You seem to know just enough about Valve, Steam, networking and data transfers to get everything horribly wrong.

Originally posted by demo:

Microsoft already use p2p and unless you have turned the feature off in your settings, p2p is how you get your windows updates.

{ if you`re curious, Its under "updates and security" - "Advanced options" - "Delivery Optimization" - "Allow downloads from other PC`s", & the default setting is On. - (PC`s on my local network, and PC`s on the internet").}

It wass turned off for me by default, might be the difference between Pro vs Home.

[Tito Shivan]

Originally posted by demo:

Steam rewarding users for allowing this for game updates, is as unlikely as Microsoft rewarding windows users for allowing the same with windows updates. (its more likely Steam would just implement it quietly...).


Microsoft already use p2p and unless you have turned the feature off in your settings, p2p is how you get your windows updates.

And this feature is globally loathed and disabled massively due to the strain on the system and local network and many ISPs throttling or forbidding P2P traffic, along to the service chewing bandwith data on those customers who are on a limited plan.

Besides from an economic standpoint, there's no difference between paying the CDNs for their service and paying the customers (those games you'd buy with 'Steam coins' still have to be paid to the developer) for the same (in reality a far less quality) service. There's also a degradation of the service provided, since part of your content providing network would depend on the goodwill of users delivering content without a proper Q&A. CDNs provide a reliable, constant service, whereas P2P can't reliablily provide the same level of service Q&A wise.

TLDR: Steam isn't struggling for paying their CDNs and the problems of dropping a percentage of that volume in a set of users delivering said content from a series of unreliable and slow networks isn't worth the saved money.

[demo]

Originally posted by Washell:

It wass turned off for me by default, might be the difference between Pro vs Home.

I`m guessing It`s likely that its default is now off then, because of the outcry when people realised the implications and complained. I do remember having to disable it when I first installed W10.