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Valve: Piracy Is More About Convenience Than Price
11–20 of 135 posts
Re: Valve: Piracy Is More About Convenience Than Price
#12Convenience of purchase or convenience of ownership/control? I am refusing to use Steam since I cannot be sure that I will be able to play when and however I like. In fact, I can be sure that at some point I would not be able to play my games because I lost internet access and Steam does not let me play (do not reply with "there is offline mode", that mode is a joke as you have to enable it whilst being online).
Just FYI, they fixed not being able to start directly into offline mode about a month or so ago.
Re: Valve: Piracy Is More About Convenience Than Price
#13
Re: Valve: Piracy Is More About Convenience Than Price
#14TLDR: "The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It’s by giving those people a service that’s better than what they’re receiving from the pirates," Gabe Newell said.
But it should be noted that Steam's pre-release anti-piracy has no yet been broken. So it's not like they don't do DRM... Having said that, the conclusion is pretty much in line with what many gamers and pirates have been saying: Stop screwing the customer and creating pirates of them. I'm lucky enough to live in an English-speaking country, but I'm sure that if I lived in a country that typically sees long delays be…
Steam certainly does use DRM, but they use it to provide a service that ends up being providing a better user experience than their competitors. It lets them safely let you do things like download games ahead of the release date or re-download a game from their servers whenever you want onto as many computers as you want.
Re: Valve: Piracy Is More About Convenience Than Price
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
But it should be noted that Steam's pre-release anti-piracy has no yet been broken. So it's not like they don't do DRM... Having said that, the conclusion is pretty much in line with what many gamers and pirates have been saying: Stop screwing the customer and creating pirates of them. I'm lucky enough to live in an English-speaking country, but I'm sure that if I lived in a country that typically sees long delays be…
EDIT: It was rightly pointed out that I directed my comments to music whereas the topic was games. My thoughts drifted due to the more common association with piracy. Everything I said still applies though. To have a fair discussion, we need to be clear on who is screwing whom and how. And we need to be clear on how they can stop, and whether it is actually within their power to stop. Original post follows: Who shoul…
There is no law against making your catalog widely available. Yes, currently they seem unable to do so. That isn't the consumers problem (quite literally). Very few things are so awesome that you'll have people begging you to take their money (and root access on their box, the right to revoke the product at any time, etc), so few in fact that the publishers should firmly assume they are not it. If they can't sort that out between themselves, tough shit - customers/pirates/in-betweens will not care. The ball is not in their court and it will be extremely hard to put it there by force.
Re: Valve: Piracy Is More About Convenience Than Price
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
But it should be noted that Steam's pre-release anti-piracy has no yet been broken. So it's not like they don't do DRM... Having said that, the conclusion is pretty much in line with what many gamers and pirates have been saying: Stop screwing the customer and creating pirates of them. I'm lucky enough to live in an English-speaking country, but I'm sure that if I lived in a country that typically sees long delays be…
EDIT: It was rightly pointed out that I directed my comments to music whereas the topic was games. My thoughts drifted due to the more common association with piracy. Everything I said still applies though. To have a fair discussion, we need to be clear on who is screwing whom and how. And we need to be clear on how they can stop, and whether it is actually within their power to stop. Original post follows: Who shoul…
But we're not talking about music piracy. :)
Steam is missing a few major titles (mostly from EA and Blizzard), but it's one of the most complete digital download services. It also seems to be rather indie friendly.
Re: Valve: Piracy Is More About Convenience Than Price
#17[deleted]
That is certainly has been known for centuries.
Re: Valve: Piracy Is More About Convenience Than Price
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
EDIT: It was rightly pointed out that I directed my comments to music whereas the topic was games. My thoughts drifted due to the more common association with piracy. Everything I said still applies though. To have a fair discussion, we need to be clear on who is screwing whom and how. And we need to be clear on how they can stop, and whether it is actually within their power to stop. Original post follows: Who shoul…
But we're not talking about music piracy. :) Steam is missing a few major titles (mostly from EA and Blizzard), but it's one of the most complete digital download services. It also seems to be rather indie friendly.
Thank you for pointing out my mental lapse. I've edited the post to clarify. I still think the questions are important though.
Re: Valve: Piracy Is More About Convenience Than Price
#19I know that I didn't buy games before Steam, or at least as much as I do now. But price is also a factor. I really have to think about it when a game costs more than $15, but Steam usually has good games on sale anyway. Steam and other digital distributors have made me more of a gamer.
I buy, play, then sell games. Steam does not let me do this; thus those games are more expensive to me. I do not buy Steam games.
In my area, the only reasonable way to buy and sell used games is online. But during the holidays, Steam sells a lot of games at a 75-90% discount. During those sales, I spend on Steam what I'd normally spend on postage.
I also get a lot of titles by smaller developers that are only available digitally, too.
Re: Valve: Piracy Is More About Convenience Than Price
#20I know that I didn't buy games before Steam, or at least as much as I do now. But price is also a factor. I really have to think about it when a game costs more than $15, but Steam usually has good games on sale anyway. Steam and other digital distributors have made me more of a gamer.
I buy, play, then sell games. Steam does not let me do this; thus those games are more expensive to me. I do not buy Steam games.
Unfortunately for you, the game's industry is slowly and inevitably moving towards personal subscription based purchases.
This is slowly driving down the price of games (which is a good thing), and hopefully it'll lead to higher revenues for publishers so (the good ones) can continue to make more and better games.
More money for publishers and cheaper games for individuals? I think it's pretty win-win. The second hand game market really short changes the publishers, and it's very expensive to make a top title!
Imagine how much Portal 2 cost Valve to make, was it worth it?