An interesting short article on Piracy (with Gabe Newell quote)

[Wolfram23]

Article: Where's my 21st-century television? [http://techreport.com/discussions.x/22134]

I just read this and I think it is a very honest assesment of the issue. The full article is pretty short and worth reading over, but here is what Gabe Newell had to say:

In general, we think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. 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. Most DRM solutions diminish the value of the product by either directly restricting a customers use or by creating uncertainty.

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.

Now of course we're in the gaming section, but the article highlights what is probably getting far more piracy than games - TV shows. Now, fortunately for us Canadians, the law still allows us to download P2P movies/tv shows/music as long as we don't upload or crack anything. Therefore, I do admit to downloading the latest episodes of about 4 shows I watch. I have Netflix, but I do not have Cable TV anymore so basically I don't have many other options if I want to watch these shows.

Anyway, I just think this article is worth reading and highlights what the real issue is behind piracy and how to combat it. I know it's been said around here many, many times before, but it seems like developers just aren't getting the picture: Make it easy for your consumers to purchase and play your games!!!!!

 

[Lilani]

I think Gaben has a very valid point. Developers have been so busy whining and trying to make themselves the victims, they've used the fundamental concept of "they're doing illegal stuff, we're not" as a way to legitimize not giving their customers any more reasons to buy from them. All they're doing is making things harder, more frustrating, and more expensive, which only hurts their both present and future business. And it looks like he's even got the numbers to prove it--when you make getting the products legitimately as pirating them (if not easier, as the worry of getting in trouble isn't there), customers are more likely to give you their service.

 

[Borania]

I have seen this point made before. it is a very good point and while it won't solve the problem the change in attitude will go a long way

 

[Epona]

Piracy has always been here and it always will be. I used to hook two VCR's together...well, we won't go there and that was 25 years ago.

Anyway, fighting piracy is a waste of time, money and effort. Piracy was here as the industry grew and I don't believe for a second that piracy is a huge threat to the industry. If it were, the industry would not be as big as it is now. Fighting piracy comes down to greed, chasing the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that you can never reach.

Piracy is also the scapegoat to pull bullshit that would never be ok otherwise, like disabling features of a console.

Steam does it right, it's far easier to download and maintain a game BOUGHT from Steam than to get one via a torrent. While it's easier to get a game from a torrent than to buy the physical copy and fight with Securom every time you want to install or play the game.

For example, I reinstalled a Monopoly game called Monopoly 2008 a few days ago. The securom refuses to acknowledge the disc most of the time and claims I am using a backup disc. You just have to keep trying until finally the disc is recognized. Did I download a NoCD crack? I'll never say but I will say that I would be justified in doing so. I bought it and I shouldn't have to fight with securom everytime I want to play it.

 

[Comando96]

I think Gabe has an excellent point DRM... whats... the fucking... point...

Adding it encourages... my friends... to pirate games where performance is effected.

I'm lucky that no games I have were performance effected by DRM... well there was the Witcher 2 but they removed the DRM from that with a patch.

-----------------

That one comment about Digital Sales killing reused sales... I'd quite like that >

But keep a system open whereby we can trade shit You know, like the one on Steam.

Cut the bullshitty middle man profiteering off of sales and keep money in peoples pockets.

Who wants my copy of Civilization 5? Got anything good for it?

 

[XMark]

In Canada there are several TV shows that I'd gladly stream through a paid subscription service if they'd only actually make it available here. But they're not available so I hit the torrents.