Valve's Gabe Newell Says Piracy Is a Service Problem
- Thread starter Greg Tito
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I recognize myself in this. If I am going to pirate a game I am at risk of getting a virus when using the crack, spyware when entering the site to download and I risk losing internet privileges for a month on my first warning for it.
I can purchase my games from Amazon.co.uk and I get awesome prices, free shipping and the games will be here in a week.
I can get my games from Steam and I will pay almost twice what I pay on Amazon, but most games will be downloaded within 3 hours since I get 10mb/s on a good day. I also don't need to bother with discs or registering product codes. It's convenient, but not my cheapest option, yet I pick that option all the time.
I can purchase my games from Amazon.co.uk and I get awesome prices, free shipping and the games will be here in a week.
I can get my games from Steam and I will pay almost twice what I pay on Amazon, but most games will be downloaded within 3 hours since I get 10mb/s on a good day. I also don't need to bother with discs or registering product codes. It's convenient, but not my cheapest option, yet I pick that option all the time.
Finally a man with common sense. The truth is scary for everyone else, it would be this sort of honesty that would damage Origin, Ubisoft and a lot of others accusing piracy of being the problem when in reality it appears to be a symptom of a failing system.
I think you need to read my post again. I said Steam cost more, but would let me get the game within a few hours, while Amazon offered cheaper games. Also because I import from England I don't have to pay VAT so that reduces the price with 20%.bahumat42 said:
Cheaper, but I prefer not dealing with discs, I know Amazon offers digital copies, but I like my games gathered in a Steam library.
Even with VAT games are often really cheap on Amazon compared to Steam, though I must admit I don't know how the prices on Steam are if you're from the UK. However take Batman Arkham City, on Steam it costs 50 euro or 42 quid, on Amazon it costs 25 quid, though with the sweet pre-order deal I only had to pay 40 (34) for it.bahumat42 said:
I agree that it's mostly a service issue that drives people to piracy- but I disagree that it's not really a price issue.
Games are expensive, people don't want to pay for them. Thankfully, Steam also addresses that issue with its many generous sales.
Games are expensive, people don't want to pay for them. Thankfully, Steam also addresses that issue with its many generous sales.
I love the way that everyone is anticipating Half Life 3/Episode 3 SO much now that even NO news of it is actually news.
What baffles me is the number of developers and publishers who can't seem to figure this out already. It's been a while since people first started drawing this conclusion, and yet still.
It's like an amusement park where the paying customers are forced to undergo body scans and wear GPS trackers because some people thought it'd be fun to just crawl over the fence, when instead they could just encourage people to pay for entry and make the fence-crawlers feel like they're missing out on something. Actually, the more I think of that analogy, the weirder it gets.
It's like an amusement park where the paying customers are forced to undergo body scans and wear GPS trackers because some people thought it'd be fun to just crawl over the fence, when instead they could just encourage people to pay for entry and make the fence-crawlers feel like they're missing out on something. Actually, the more I think of that analogy, the weirder it gets.
There's no need t convince me anymore Gabe, you're already my hero.
Now to play games. TO STEAM!
Now to play games. TO STEAM!
I came here for the Half Life 3 news! I... I think I just got trolled.
As long as I'm here, I think that Gabe has the right approach to Piracy. People are never, ever going to stop pirating games, no matter what measures a company takes. There are tens of thousands of people working to crack the DRM as soon as a new game comes out, and the more Draconian DRM tactics lead to players resenting the company (see Ubisoft for a perfect example).
Providing incentive to purchase the game legally is a great solution, and it shows why Valve is one of the best game companies out there.
As long as I'm here, I think that Gabe has the right approach to Piracy. People are never, ever going to stop pirating games, no matter what measures a company takes. There are tens of thousands of people working to crack the DRM as soon as a new game comes out, and the more Draconian DRM tactics lead to players resenting the company (see Ubisoft for a perfect example).
Providing incentive to purchase the game legally is a great solution, and it shows why Valve is one of the best game companies out there.
Yeah. Sure. Nice speech...but where is action, dear Gabe? IT's not like hell lot of games on Steam have arbitrary region-locks, release dates tied to single time-zone and messed up cross-currency pricing.
Oh but of course. You will say "But it's the publishers forcing all those bad things on us", but what stops You from negotiating with them? Why not at least try to convince them, rather than just talking about stuff in interviews?
Guys from GOG somehow managed to convince some copyright holders and publishers to let them release games DRM free, for sake of improving the "service" part of game industry. Waiting for Valve step now.
As long as I have to pay 30% more for game on Steam than I would pay at a brick and mortar shop near me, with some of games showing up as "Unavailable in my region" despite being sold in said b&m shop, and have to wait several hours to install a game I have a hard copy of because Steam release date is late evening my time I remain unimpressed.
Oh but of course. You will say "But it's the publishers forcing all those bad things on us", but what stops You from negotiating with them? Why not at least try to convince them, rather than just talking about stuff in interviews?
Guys from GOG somehow managed to convince some copyright holders and publishers to let them release games DRM free, for sake of improving the "service" part of game industry. Waiting for Valve step now.
As long as I have to pay 30% more for game on Steam than I would pay at a brick and mortar shop near me, with some of games showing up as "Unavailable in my region" despite being sold in said b&m shop, and have to wait several hours to install a game I have a hard copy of because Steam release date is late evening my time I remain unimpressed.
Front page of this site reads "New details on Half Life 3" this is not April 1st and that was not funny!Greg Tito said:Valve's Gabe Newell Says Piracy Is a Service Problem
In a wide-ranging interview, Gabe Newell dishes about Steam, piracy and Half-Life 3.
The CEO and cofounder of Valve is never short on opinions. As the creator of some of the most beloved games titles (Team Fortress 2, Portal, Half-Life) and owner of the most pervasive online gaming portal for the PC platform, Gabe Newell has earned the right to express them. In an interview for the University of Cambridge's school newspaper, Newell said that the way to end piracy is to provide a service that's more complete than cracked software, and that restrictive DRM only encourages more piracy.
"We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem," he said. "If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable."
The proof is in the proverbial pudding. "Prior to entering the Russian market, we were told that Russia was a waste of time because everyone would pirate our products. Russia is now about to become [Steam's] largest market in Europe," Newell said.
The purpose of Steam is to provide as much value not only to the customer but also to other game publishers. "Our success comes from making sure that both customers and partners (e.g. Activision, Take 2, Ubisoft...) feel like they get a lot of value from those services, and that they can trust us not to take advantage of the relationship that we have with them."
While Newell offered candid observations on the risks of releasing Portal and the support Valve has provided with 150 updates to TF2 since 2007, he was not so loquacious when it came to questions about long-delayed Episode 3 of Half-Life 2. When asked whether it was a mistake to release episodic content for HL2, he merely said, "Not yet."
Oh, and Gabe? When is Half-Life 3 coming out?
"I don't know," he said.
Source: The Cambridge Student [http://www.tcs.cam.ac.uk/story_type/site_trail_story/interview-gabe-newell/]
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Jerks.
