In that level where the buttons are deep into a maze, I punished jerks who wouldn't do their part by clicking the button until it reaches 1, but no more. For a good 30s, there was a group at the gate drawing hateful messages to me. I'd been there for a good 5 min helping people out, and letting others through. The ones that were waiting had not travelled anywhere close to a button, they'd only been waiting at the gate for others to sacrifice themselves for them. Then one of them eventually gave up and came to replace me. What a bunch of assholes.
That's not everybody of course, but the later in the levels you go, the higher the proportion of jerks you'd meet. This, I guess, because the ones who aren't jerks take more time to move forward in the levels, while jerks move faster.
So while jerks can't reach the next level without the presence of good-doers, there still less and less good-doers as you progress forward. There's also attrition in good-doers along the way from:
- Connections timing out or otherwise erroring.
- People giving up.
And the further you move in the levels, the higher the jerk proportion so the longer it takes a good-doer to move forward, increasing the probability that one of the two attrition causes occur.
So it's possible that good-doers never make it to the end of the game (and thus nobody). In fact, if the game has enough levels, I'd be surprised if anyone ever managed to finish it without deliberate coordination by a group of good-doers.
All that to say, this game is really interesting.