If only broadcast media organisations would take this on board. If a movie or an episode of a popular show is released even one day later via convenient streaming media channels than it is through other traditional mediums, it'll be pirated. Piracy is an international issue and will never ever be solved, or at least reduced significantly, until these companies accept the internet for what it is -- a ubiquitous global distribution channel -- and release content everywhere simultaneously.
Valve: Piracy Is More About Convenience Than Price
51–60 of 135 posts
Re: Valve: Piracy Is More About Convenience Than Price
#52Nowadays if a game isn't on Steam I just won't buy it. Mainly because keeping game CDs around is too much a hassle. When I buy something on Steam, I know I have that game for life and can re-install it quickly on any computer.
> I have that game for life Not for life, but rather for the life of Steam as a platform. I don't see Valve going away anytime soon, but you never know...
Rumor has it that if Valve went under and Steam was shut down, they'd release a patch to allow their games to continue to function.
Re: Valve: Piracy Is More About Convenience Than Price
#53[deleted]
Re: Valve: Piracy Is More About Convenience Than Price
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The second hand game market really short changes the publishers, and it's very expensive to make a top title! No, it doesn't. "The second hand car market really short changes the auto manufacturers."
A better analogy is "the second hand book market really short changes the book publishers (or authors)".
If you're comparing the experience of playing a video game to a physical good, yes, but really you're paying for the right of use to interactive content. Comparing 'owning' a video game to owning a car is fallacious.
I think you'll find that when you look at car ownership rights and digital content ownership rights there is completely different legislation and laws for both, and with good reason.
The physical media distribution of a game has merely been a cost effective delivery method. If publishers could distribute their games directly to your device over the internet or whatever they'd have done that as a first option.
If the contract of sale determines that your license is non-transferrable then, well, that's that, if the publisher can enforce it. It's the way things are going for digital content, get used to it!
Re: Valve: Piracy Is More About Convenience Than Price
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this is one of the things that good DRM can provide the end-user that has been largely ignored by everyone. I mostly blame the industry for ignoring the possibilities, but they're exciting. You could "loan" games to people without physical contact, you can securely transfer ownership of the digital item, you can play your games from anywhere, etc. There's a lot of potential in having strong digital copy prote…
Well... you can do all these things when there's no DRM at all. It's like counting up all the things you can do in a new modern prison, but it's still a prison.
I'm skeptical that rental business models can work without DRM; the temptation is just too great.
Re: Valve: Piracy Is More About Convenience Than Price
#56Earlier 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…
Who should stop screwing the customer? I thought I was clear on that.
When 90% of the world gets the game in January, and you get the game in July, you feel pretty screwed. Everyone has already explored and spoiled everything. There's very few people left to have a discussion about anything, because they already know. You get to watch everyone else play the game, wishing you could.
That's assuming the game EVER comes to your country. It might not.
And you'll probably pay more for the privilege, even though the game is worth less, for the reasons stated above.
That is, unless you pirate it.
Re: Valve: Piracy Is More About Convenience Than Price
#57There are plenty of people who pay between $10 and $100 a month to have access to a dedicated seedbox in order to maintain ratio requirements on private torrent trackers. These people are a clear example of existing willingness to pay for access to content. Whenever content providers figure this out and can provide a service that has similar selection, availability, portability, and quality, they'll be sitting on a goldmine.
Resistance to change can be blinding. I have my doubts that such a service will exist anytime soon, however much sense it might make for their bottom line.
EDIT: this is in reference to TV/Movie industries, where this is much less of a solved problem than games and music.
Re: Valve: Piracy Is More About Convenience Than Price
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Who buys used PC games? Why should I trust you not to have copied the CD key? This is a reasonable enough argument for not buying digital titles on a console, but seems irrelevant in regards to the topic at hand, which is PC gaming.
Here's a stack exchange question about retail boxed games with Steam activation:
(http://gaming.stackexchange.com/q/30550/11676)
>I finished both games and I was thinking of reselling them or giving them to a friend to play. However, these are both Steam activated games that had a required Steam registration code I had to enter -- and validate on Steam -- as part of the installation.
Here's the website for CEX - a UK shop - with second hand PC games:
(http://uk.webuy.com/product.php?sortOn=sellprice_desc&mo...)
Re: Valve: Piracy Is More About Convenience Than Price
#59TLDR: "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.
so, you need to give them everything for free at the fastest bandwidth possible.
The only way to stop piracy is:
1) give all of your stuff out for free 2) have a service that can't be pirated
The reason big companies don't want piracy to become mainstream is because at a certain point, it becomes part of culture and "normal" to just pirate something, which means they won't be able to charge money for it (everyone will expect it for free). This is exactly what is starting to happen.
Back in 1999, there was no antipiracy technology, yet piracy was just as rampant as it is today. We have: Last.fm, Pandora, Youtube, Grooveshark, etc,etc. Yet, people still pirate music.
It's funny because back when Napster first started, everyone said that the artists weren't getting treated right, so that's why they were downloading music. Now that any artist can pretty music start a website with no record label, those reasons have changed.
I don't think it has anything to do with any of those reasons. Nobody wants to spend their hard-earned money on something they can just as easily get for free.
This parallels many of the people protesting wall street: Just as investing in an education doesn't mean you are guaranteed a good job, investing your time and effort in software, music, and movies doesn't mean you are guaranteed a profit.
Re: Valve: Piracy Is More About Convenience Than Price
#60Piracy has never been more convenient in gaming than the traditional route, even with DRM. How convenient is it to download 4GB, follow cryptic instructions, apply a crack, be banned from online play, be unable to update patches, etc. I'm sure a small few pirate games due to DRM reasons but price is the main reason.