Gabe Newell has spoken about piracy before and, as you’d expect made a whole lot of sense. Now, speaking to student website The Cambridge Student, Gabe reiterated some of his previous points, and expanded on others. His major point? Provide a better service than pirates, and you will be successful.
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.
Incredibly Gabe Newell seems to have struck on something — treat consumers with the respect they deserve and you’ll ultimately reap the benefits. Who knew?!
Interview: Gabe Newell [The Cambridge Student]
Toasty Fresh
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 11:02 AMYou’re a good bloke, Gabe. Keep it up.
Lucas
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 11:28 AMI’ve been saying this for ages, and am glad that finally its backed up by someone credible. :P
Wolfhammer
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 11:28 AMSomeone needs to forward this to Ubisoft…
NotoriousR
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 11:36 AMThis is someone who understands the industry, and treats customers like customers, instead of treating them like toilet paper and shitting all over them.
blaze0041
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 11:38 AMAside from Activision, Ubisoft and EA to some extent, are there other companies treating their customers like shit?
giort08
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 11:43 AMCapcom
C.S
Sunday, November 27, 2011 at 12:14 AMCapcom don’t treat there customers with much respect at all if you ask me.
They are trying to squeeze every cent from you with every single game the re-release.
RocK_M
Monday, November 28, 2011 at 10:33 PMErmm.. that was kinda the point why Capcom was mentioned
Oh Namco Bandai to the list please! =D For the
“Hey Guys! we has a new JRPG for you complete and utterly exclusive to this console… oh what? references to characters not present? excessively buggy release to the point of unplayable?.. nah your just imagining things!” routine xD
Sam
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 11:44 AMMicrosoft and to a lesser extent Sony.
mic
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 1:24 PMNintendo as well.
Average
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 10:07 PMAside from the PSN crash, not really Sony at all. Everyone just THINKS they’re shitting people over.
Excelsior
Monday, November 28, 2011 at 10:35 AMIsn’t Capcom the same company that made a game where you can only ever have one save file which is not re-writable or deletable?
That seems pretty anal if you ask me.
I’m not against DRM, but there’s gotta be more subtle ways of achieving it than that.
Loopy
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 11:37 AMI completely agree with him on the service aspect. I haven’t pirated a game for years now that I get most of my games through steam, it’s nice to not be shafted by Australian release schedules by publishers who don’t really care.
Greg
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 7:39 PMIts been years since I played a pirated PC game and I have a mountain of stuff on steam. They do a really good job of highlighting older games with their specials, so many games that I missed first time around that I’ve picked up during their sales.
The companies screwing Australian customers over are a hassle but I have friends and family in the US on steam so Paypal and gifting is a simple way around that.
Ezkaton
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 11:37 AMWith a release schedule/timeframe like Valve’s, I’m not surprised… Hah.
m
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 11:41 AMThis isn’t STILL news, is it?
He’s been expressing his opinion on piracy for years now. Nothing new here.
Toasty Fresh
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 11:59 AMPeople are still utilising stupid DRM so it obviously still needs to be considered news so people can realise their mistakes.
D.C.
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 11:43 AMBatman for PC has Securom, GfW and Steamworks. Three DRMs for the price of one. I wonder if that’s going something to do with how terrible it’s playing. :(
nicholasmc1
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 11:45 AMYep….after I discovered steam I stopped pirating games, though I don’t think we can through pricing out of the equation, I still feel dirty when I pick up a game for more than 50 bucks AU these days, thanks to the standard set up by steam, I dont expect to pay 100% more just for a physical copy.
weresmurf
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 2:22 PMSame. Ashamedly DE:HR is the ONLY pirated game on my pc. All others are steambound and totally legal. Now its on sale on Steam, Im buying it totally legit. Steam is my sole purchasing venue for games now on the PC. Love love love love it :D
THANKS GABEN!!!!
Lazarus
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 6:32 PMUh oh, you confessed: now Adam Jensen is going to sneak out of a vent and tranquilise you…
Richard James
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 9:37 PMHe didn’t ask for this.
Jupiter
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 12:09 PMPiracy would be even less of an issue if they would push publishers to have the same price for game of steam, instead of the outdated region-pricing model.
Me0wgrAvy
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 12:11 PMCertainly a fat bugger lol
weresmurf
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 2:23 PMOk Mr Universe wheres your picture?
Dumbest fucking comment of the week award right here folks…
Pakka
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 3:09 PMWeight is a ‘non-issue’ as well for Valve it seems.
But he makes a great point. I think this is why Origin will struggle to compete directly with Steam. I look at from the perspective that Valve was and IS a developer first, I believe. Steam came after Valve and they’ve remained a private company without the nagging, selfish and greedy shareholders.
Origin has been designed by a publisher, who in the eyes of a lot of gamers are the evil of the video game industry. Valve, digitally speaking, has stuck with self-publishing and distributing their games. Retail lately goes to EA but they have no real control over the product.
I just feel dev’s are more in touch with gamers than the selfish publishers and I reckon that will reflect when comparing the two services of Origin and Steam, which could also relate to how publishers deal with privacy, exactly how Gabe himself has said it.
mchaza
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 5:57 PMhe will always be smarter, richer, more popular and respected than you will ever be thats for sure.
Cerberus
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 12:40 PMI like how Gabe used Russia as an example but I’m sure that the RU is the largest seller of games due to the fact most games are ridiculously cheap so those that want to save some money and are fairly savvy can just spoof IP’s to buy their Steam games from Russia or just import a CD key.
Virus__
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 12:45 PMI was reading keys that are bought in Russia and throughout a few of the Asian countries where pirating is big, it’s the only place you can activate the keys. Makes sense to me, stops people using a 3rd party site to buy the key then activate it in their region.
Underworld
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 2:39 PMHe makes sense. But no matter how good the service is, there’ll always be pirates who are just cheap bastards.
On another note. Why do most PC gamers buy only through Steam? I buy all my games at game shops. I love going there and picking up some deals. It’s part of the experience of being a gamer for me. I love it. Plus I like the staff.
Don’t you miss it?
Thom
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 2:49 PMPrice and convenience. Steam sales are insanely cheap. I bought Mass Effect 1 and 2 this week for $5 a piece.
Convenience: I already own them both on X-Box, but I may move OS next year. Won’t take them with me. I’m facing the same problem with my CD/record collection (about 600 albums). Just too many to move around, so I’ve moved to MP3′s.
Nyquist
Sunday, November 27, 2011 at 4:35 AMAnd do you have the the express written permission of the publisher and/or artist to make digitally reencoded versions of those CDs?
Hah, flashback. Remember when cassette piracy was an actual thing? And it was illegal to record cassette to cassette? Same shit, different century.
spizzaza
Sunday, November 27, 2011 at 2:13 PMI like the fact that I can have a universal system where I can have all my games. I can chat and join friends and even compare their stats and games.
If PC gaming was more like console gaming (with the one central community) it would be perfect.
Dobo
Monday, November 28, 2011 at 12:21 PMso you obviously havnt used steam
Sevs
Tuesday, November 29, 2011 at 12:26 AMFormat shifting is a perfectly legitimate defence to any copyright infringement claims.
Underworld
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 3:04 PMThat is cheap.
But I still rather buy from game shops. I like having a physical thing I can show. I’m a collector, so I’m very proud of my movie/game collection.
600 albums? Keep em man.
Thooperman
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 3:09 PMGabe is a wise man. There have been so many times where I have felt I’ve been punished for doing the right thing with DRM issues in games, or un-skippable piracy warnings and advertisements on DVDs. If I downloaded them, I wouldn’t have to deal with any of it, but I would be hurting the people I love… the people who entertain me.
Seb
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 3:23 PMI’m sure I read an article about this a few months ago.
Mark Serrels
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 4:28 PMHe said something similar in another interview. I thought these new quotes were worth quoting in light of some of Ubisoft’s latest claims.
Joel
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 6:54 PMUbisofts claim on for “Ghost Recon” for pc?
Bangers
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 3:26 PMHe’s absolutely right. Steam does such a great job, it’s a hell of a lot easier to use Steam than it is to torrent a game, crack it, and keep it updated and still working online.
PeeJayBee
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 5:19 PMThanks, Gabe. So tell me again why the price of Arkham City jumped from $50 to $100 for Australians? I’ll be pirating that one, thank you very much.
rob
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 5:21 PMStill ripping us Australians off though Gabe!
$100 (batman arkham city and many more!) for a digital copy of a game is robbery, so dont be tto quick to blow the guy!
James A
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 5:29 PMIts the other publishers who do this. Ea, 2k, rockstar, sega, activision, eidos, thq, Bethesda all up the au price on steam. Interestingly companies most piracy aware like stardock and Valve (run by gabe) never have regionalized their online prices.
mchaza
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 5:56 PMGabe solution: Treat the consumer with respect and they will not steal your products.
Publishers Solution: Treat your consumers like dirt and they surely wont steal our products.
umm, which one makes the most sense.
scree
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 7:02 PMThat’s a no brainer! The second option of course! (At least according to the way most publishers treat us)
Barney
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 6:21 PMGood on you,Gabe!
Now where’s our HL2:Episode 3?
Goddy
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 6:53 PMThis is the sort of class that guarantees I will NEVER pirate a Valve game.
Lucas
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 7:11 PM100% on the money.
There’s a few people I actually truly respect in the gaming industry, Gabe Newell is definitely one of them.
NotFrank
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 8:17 PMHe runs the company, not some fucked up exec who is all about shareholder value, so its common sense despite Valve time (google it, you will lol) i will wait for and pay for their releases, current steam lib has over 200 titles most brought on release day and not via sales 2 years later.
Ubisoft can F off to consoles
Ahtaps
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 8:45 PMThe chaps at GOG are saying similar things. This is madness I tell you. I don’t think I can handle logic on my internets. *Goes off to take a shot of Ubisoft to calm down*