Jump to content

Valve's Newell: “Piracy Is Basically A Non-Issue for Our Company”


beer

Recommended Posts

steam-logo_1.jpg

“If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24/7, 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. Most DRM solutions diminish the value of the product by either directly restricting a customers use or by creating uncertainty,” Valve's Gabe Newell explained to The Cambridge Student.

“Our goal is to create greater service value than pirates, and this has been successful enough for us that piracy is basically a non-issue for our company. For example, 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 our largest market in Europe.”

Convenience? Excellent service? Value? Oh, well this is just fantastic! We've discovered another bullet point for our list of piracy avoidance schemes: “Don't be Origin.”

Our goal is to create greater service value than pirates...

Applause and Cheers to Valve for their take on piracy :clap: :cheers:
Link to comment
Share on other sites


  • Replies 11
  • Views 1.4k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Our goal is to create greater service value than pirates...

How do they 'create greater service value than pirates'...I don't quite understand that part. :s

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Our goal is to create greater service value than pirates...

How do they 'create greater service value than pirates'...I don't quite understand that part. :s

There is a few I can think of:

  • Support Forums & Staff: If you ever have an issue with any STEAM games, they have forums and support staff that can provide individual attention to help you resolve them. At pirated sites there are limited help and if the problem is with a cracks, keygen, or technical hardware issues then... good luck
  • Cloud-base gaming: Play anywhere & anytime with all your settings saved on Steam Cloud
  • Unlimited Game Downloads: You can download/re-download any of your games anywhere, anytime, and don't have to worry about being sued.. Pirated files either expire after a certain period or gets monitored by RIAA who is ready to rape you if you download.
  • VAC Anti-Cheat: anti-cheat service eliminate/reduce hackers and cheaters that ruin multiplayer experience . Pirated games can't even go online or play multiplayer (most of the time).
  • Virus/Trojan-Free Games: Every games is guaranteed to be legit and you don't need to worry about trojans or viruses when you install steam games.

There is probably more to add to the list but I think they are some good services I have found with Steam over the years.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Not to mention great deals, I mean they sometimes have games so cheaply that people buy tons of games they never play. lol. Also the convenience of knowing you never need to burn discs or carry your games with you on vacation because you can just sign on steam and download your games on any computer. The gift system is also great because you can buy multiple copies of games on sale and send those games as gifts to your friends.

The anti cheat system sucks though, not effective enough. If you search on the internet for call of duty cheating multiplayer you will see what I mean.

I have accepted the fact that after 5 years I'm basically done with a game, I don't care where it ends up. I have my entire Blizzard collection of boxed Original games and they are packed away and I never play them again. The only exception to the 5 year rule was that I player starcraft for about 8 years and I played dota on the frozen throne from since 2003 I think. On steam my games are safe on their cloud. I no longer worry about if they go out of business because by then I would either be too old for games or dead, either way I won't care.

Life is short, I spend money to enjoy life.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


but...

you also have to worry about all the stuff steam uploads from your computer every time you access their site. There have been multiple reports of steam taking personal information from peoples PC's (websites visited).

I'll stick with other mediums vs. steam

Link to comment
Share on other sites


but...

you also have to worry about all the stuff steam uploads from your computer every time you access their site. There have been multiple reports of steam taking personal information from peoples PC's (websites visited).

I'll stick with other mediums vs. steam

I was not aware that steam uploads stuff from your PC when you visiting their site. And I thought sending data can be opt'ed out via Steam option settings. Do you have website or source handy?

Link to comment
Share on other sites


but...

you also have to worry about all the stuff steam uploads from your computer every time you access their site. There have been multiple reports of steam taking personal information from peoples PC's (websites visited).

I'll stick with other mediums vs. steam

There is no official proof of this anywhere, no substantial evidence at all. In fact the last time I did a survey on steam they specifically told me that they would be taking specs info of my pc, nothing personal, just the specs, and I had the choice to submit this data or not. And this was for a survey that I chose to do, it wasn't forced on me or anything. They always ask you before taking any data from you, and never in my experience have they ever taken personal information.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


I think nuthut is probably thinking of Origin. Not too long ago I was looking for a sandboxie solution to circumvent Origin and saw a posting testing spying activities of both Origin and Steam. Test results for Steam show that it doesn't access outside of its installation folder and if I remember correctly Origin scans the ProgramDATA and AppData folders. I don't have the link right now, but I'll post it when I find it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Origin is massive crap, plus they ban legitimate players for nonsensical reasons. I hope Origin and EA die a sad and bankrupt death. It's services like Origin that cause and encourage piracy. Imagine EA permanently bans their customers for posting honest reviews on their forums. if you post a game review on EA forums and you put anything negative about their games well be prepared to be banned for life and lose all your games on your account with them. Wouldn't that just force you to have to pirate the games? I'm telling you if that ever happened to me not only would I pirate every game by EA but I would also seed and release at every opportunity till those idiots go out of business.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


remember EA started the code needed to play online sports games with th consoles. ei kill the use game market

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...