Gabe Newell on Piracy

Sharkey

Sharkey

Gaben's Own Aimbot
Contributor
Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a sensitive issue. Many games have been the subject of boycotts due to a draconian use of DRM. The most extreme DRM forces players to be online, and to stay online, if they wish to play the game. What are your views on DRM?

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.
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Source: http://www.tcs.cam.ac.uk/story_type/site_trail_story/interview-gabe-newell/
Originally Seen: http://www.overclock.net/t/1173226/...non-issue-for-our-company/0_100#post_15767236
 
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And Steam, which requires you to stay logged in to play games you yourself have purchased, isn't a draconian example of DRM?
 
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Dead Herald said:
And Steam, which requires you to stay logged in to play games you yourself have purchased, isn't a draconian example of DRM?
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Steam has an offline mode. I can play pretty much any game on steam without being connected to the internet.
 
Steam's offline mode doesn't really count. Because you do have to log into Steam before you can activate online mode. If you can't log in for any reason then you are effectively locked out of games you payed for. Honestly, Steam should at least give you total access to single-player games when not logged in.
 
You can log in when you're not online, what's so hard about logging in?

Steam is a lot better than the always online drm methods.
 
Funny, that didn't work when I tried it last time the intrawebz went out.
 
steam's offline mode is complete shit
but it works sometimes
just make sure you have "Dont save account credentials on this computer" unchecked
 
Piracy destroys new developers and stops the progression of possible "epic" game development. Get a job and pay for shit like adults.
 
StemsAndSeeds said:
Piracy destroys new developers and stops the progression of possible "epic" game development. Get a job and pay for shit like adults.
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Oppressive DRM software punishes the PC gaming customer whilst having no effect of piracy, turns people off from the platform thus killing PC gaming sales and stops the progression of possible "epic" game development. Think before you open your old lady mouth.
 
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Dead Herald said:
Oppressive DRM software punishes the PC gaming customer whilst having no effect of piracy, turns people off from the platform thus killing PC gaming sales and stops the progression of possible "epic" game development. Think before you open your old lady mouth.
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lol that is your opinion. As uninformed as it is, you sort of have a point. My point was stealing software does far more harm then DRM software.
 
StemsAndSeeds said:
lol that is your opinion. As uninformed as it is, you sort of have a point. My point was stealing software does far more harm then DRM software.
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Yep. And if you tell yourself that enough times, it'll magically be true!!!!
 
DRM does the same amount of harm than "acquiring" the software.
DRM restricts the user, sometimes severely.
There wouldn't be any sites like The Pirate Bay or Isohunt if they didn't have DRM.
Then again, software developers wouldn't get the credit they deserve, nor would they get the same amount of money if everyone had just bought it.
 
Risen Demon said:
DRM does the same amount of harm than "acquiring" the software.
DRM restricts the user, sometimes severely.
There wouldn't be any sites like The Pirate Bay or Isohunt if they didn't have DRM.
Then again, software developers wouldn't get the credit they deserve, nor would they get the same amount of money if everyone had just bought it.
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I disagree. People will always want software without paying anything at all.
 
Roman said:
I used BBS boards when I was a kid. We called it "shareware" back then. :confused:
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You mean the crap you install and have to buy before you get the full version?
StemsAndSeeds said:
I disagree. People will always want software without paying anything at all.
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Sad to say, I am one of those people however, I don't go around telling people about the best way to download DVD rips.
However, if I really liked the software (or servers, like Skial), I am willing to pay for it (or donate to it). I'm not a completely heartless ***hole
 
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