Gabe Newell: Piracy is a “non-issue” to Valve

[Deleted_171835]

No one knows the PC market better than Valve, and in a recent interview with TCS, Gabe Newell explained why Valve is so successful. Recently it was reported how Ubisoft were shunning the PC market due to Piracy, and imposing heavy DRM on their customers, but according to Newell that’s not really the right way to go about it.

He said that there is a general misconception about piracy, and it’s not really the high cost that forces people to pirate. It’s about the delivery service and how convenient it is to people with purchasing power.

“In general, we think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem”, he said.

“For example, 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.”

Newell explained a lot more as to how they were providing better services and creating a sense of brand loyalty. He mentioned that piracy is basically a “non-issue” for Valve.

“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.”

He also gave a nifty example as to why this is the case.

“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,” he revealed.

If only Ubisoft and others could learn a thing or two from this man, the gaming industry would be in a much better position.

Source

God, I love Gabe. He is absolutely correct.

 

[OJClock]

Kudos to Valve for making Steam well-protected
I remember back in the day hl2 just came out you could easily crack the steam client to download it for free off of valve's servers

 

[Deleted-236924]

My opinion stands: Valve rules.

 

[Necron]

We need more guys like Gabe in the gamer industry.

 

[ZAFDeltaForce]

Steam is awesome. Nuff' said

 

[awssk8er]

I don't like a lot of Valve's games, but as a company their amazing. I'm in love with Steam.

 

[Forstride]

Well duh...You can't pirate hats.

 

[DeMoN]

Best way to stop piracy is to make the games online-only or online-heavy. Steam just happens to have many online multiplayer games, so it doesn't really feel the effects of piracy as much as other publishers.

 

[Deleted_171835]

Best way to stop piracy is to make the games online-only or online-heavy. Steam just happens to have many online multiplayer games, so it doesn't really feel the effects of piracy as much as other publishers.

Half Life, Half Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Portal and Portal 2.

 

[chris888222]

Even though I don't really like Valve games, I still must admit Valve is fantastic.

Spoiler

Unlike Ubisoft which provides shovelshit

 

[Rydian]

Yeah I brought up this sort of question here.

http://gbatemp.net/topic/312221-is-it-just-me-or-are-most-video-game-companies-stupid/

It's like... jesus fucking christ ubisoft. Open your eyes.

 

[4-leaf-clover]

And this is why i love Valve.

 

[Qtis]

As said before, make a good alternative for pirating without abnormally limiting DRM and you, sir, have a steady base for grow with average games. But no one can say that Piracy doesn't have some kind of effect on the larger scale. Not those 95% that Ubisoft & Co. use, but still something.


-Qtis

 

[bowser]

Real life example of what Gabe is talking about: Me.

I pirate all my PC games but I just bought Portal 2 for $10 on Steam

And I also bought Half-Life 2 and the Orange Box when they first came out.

 

[M[u]ddy]

Only bad developer and publisher complain about piracy.

 

[awssk8er]

Best way to stop piracy is to make the games online-only or online-heavy. Steam just happens to have many online multiplayer games, so it doesn't really feel the effects of piracy as much as other publishers.

Half Life, Half Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Portal and Portal 2.

For the record, I only paid for Portal 2 to play co-op.

 

[Jeff88]

Best way to stop piracy is to make the games online-only or online-heavy. Steam just happens to have many online multiplayer games, so it doesn't really feel the effects of piracy as much as other publishers.

Are you serious? Elder Scroll series, Half Life series, and not counting all those ported PC indie single player games that outsold their console version in less than a month are not not good enough?

 

[thedicemaster]

they also tend to have some very appealing deals.
like free games(portal)
or what they did with portal 2: buy the console version, get it for free on your PC.
thanks to steam i got both portal 1 and 2 on PC and PS3, and i only paid for the ps3 versions.

 

[Range-TE]

i actually stopped pirating alot of PC games since i got steam

 

[Arm73]

i actually stopped pirating alot of PC games since i got steam

Well that's the reason they are so successful.
I mean when you pirate a game, you have to deal with crappy torrents, possible fakes, DRM issues, some cracks working better or worse then others,then getting the game up and running without any official support it's also worth a headache, not counting that you don't get online ( official servers at least ) nor game UPDATES ( at least not as soon as they are released ).
With steam you have the convenience to download your game ( just like piracy but with a steady download rate ) it will work out of the box ( so to speak ) , and it's a legit copy which will be supported with updates and add ons as long as the developers want to,and it's guaranteed to work with your OS.
Oh and they have sweet, sweet deals all the time !
So definitely they know the industry, and they are taking all the right steps.
I couldn't agree more with them.