TLDR: "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.
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 before localization, I'd find a way to get it early. Even if that meant learning English and engaging in piracy.
These companies understand hype and the way it drives sales, and then completely fail to use that knowledge when it comes to other countries. They won't wait! The hype has pushed them into getting it NOW, by hook or crook.
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.
The obvious question that I don't see anyone asking is what happens when pirates build a more convenient service than Steam? There is no way a legitimate digital distributor can offer more convenience when they are saddled with many business and legal limitations.
>"We don’t understand what’s going on," he admitted. "All we know is we’re going to keep running these experiments to try and understand better what it is that our customers are telling us."
That's refreshingly honest, I like that. No bluster about how it must have happened because they're so awesome and made such brilliant calculated decisions.
The only 'piracy' I've done recently is to purchase a Kindle book using convulted means (fake US account, Proxy service, using gift card) then crack the DRM on the books so I can read it on my Kindle.
I'm sure the publishers and licensing people think they are very clever restricting content to people in other countries, but in reality, they are shooting both feet off.
The old ways are gone. There is now one global IP market, whether they like it or not. They either get with the program or they lose money and die. Sucks to be them, but that's creative destruction at work. You can't differential price, you can't licence in one market but not another. You either release the content for sale to everyone, or you will be worked around.
This is a massive sticking point for me as an Englishman living in Japan. The huge delay in getting films and, especially, TV over here coupled with the IP address and other restrictions in place by certain providers is a huge encouragement to me to Bittorrent instead. Luckily I now have a UK and US iTunes account that serves me well for most things.
My biggest gripe is with the UK sports companies - a lot of American friends can legally stream NBA, MFL and baseball via a global site that charges for high quality content. The English Premier League and cricket bodies are absolutely blind to this - there is no way for me to legally watch these sports via the web (and cable TV here isn;t possible in my apartment), even though I'd happily pay through the nose to get a fix. Because of this, I'm endlessly looking for ways to catch games via means that they spend huge amounts trying to chase and shut down.
Now that language and communication face such a low barrier, staggered releases and restrictions by market make no sense.
I worked in an industry (still do sort of) that took a huge hit from piracy, and reacted by making it more difficult to do things rather than respond to what piracy exposed.
While I still worked at a major I wrote this.
TL;DR summary:
I heard a song on the radio, and used Shazam to look it up. The song was "Forgotten Years" by Midnight Oil, and it was 2008. I tried in vain to buy this song legally before having to finally get it through illegal means (torrents). To offset this, I donated directly to the lead singers political campaign in Australia.
As I stated then and I still believe:
"I believe that the ultimate challenge for media providers is to make systems of actualization which narrow the gap from desire to the fulfillment of said desire. The only true way to fight one form of ubiquity is with another form of ubiquity."
PS: Ironically the video embedded in my blog post is now blocked because it was uploaded by the band's non-US label.
In the olden days, pirating was hard. Hard to get the pirated game, hard to install the crack, hard to get it working again when a new patch came out and often the cracks didn't quite work and you had to find another one in the middle of your playthrough or even restart from the beginning because it broke something in your savegame. Just buying the game meant installing and playing, no hassle.
Today, installing a game you bought is harder than pirating it. You have to activate it, type in a 25 digit code you found on the box (wait, is that a B or a 3? Damnit.). It'll need an internet connection to activate, but the activation server is usually overloaded and doesn't work on launch day. Then it wants to patch itself before letting you play, because the stuff you got on the DVD you bought is actually out of date by the time you get home. You also have to sign up for some stupid web service that you never wanted, and have another login and password that you must not forget (or else you can't play anymore and your savegames are gone with it). Except if it's GFWL (Microsoft's Games for Windows Live). Then you also have to figure out why that damn thing gets stuck in an update loop and makes you log into things just to play an entirely offline, single player game (then you have to install xliveless, which avoids that). Pirating is so much easier. You torrent the thing, unpack it and play, just the way it should be.
I'm glad Gabe Newell gets this, and it's apparent in Valve's Steam (except for some reason they permit GFWL infested games, but at least they warn you about it).
I pay for DirectTV, Verizion FIOS, Netflix, and have an Apple TV, yet I still can't get content delivered how I want it.
The only thing the big networks get right is sports.
If I forget to record something, I have to go to Hulu, where I can't stream it to my TV in HD unless I buy another device. My alternative is to pay 99 cents (or more) on iTunes.
I also have to buy a switch so I don't run out of HDMI ports, and it's a pain in the ass to switch between all of my boxes.
Yeah, piracy is starting to sound good.
Oh...forgot to mention that Netflix's selection currently sucks big time.
I don't mean to sound critical but why do you think networks get sports right? I actually feel like this is one of the worst offenders. Say I want to watch every Chicago Blackhawks game this season (or any other hockey team). Well, then I need to sign up for Versus. In order to get that I need to sign up for a Cable/satellite service. But I don't want all the channels, I watch what I want on broadcast or rent/stream. I just want to be able to watch a game when I have the time. I don't like watching normal shows TV on cable (can't stand commercials), so I rent DVDs or stream it on Netflix. Now there really aren't any options for me to just get sports, without paying way extra for a bunch of crap I don't want.
I can sign up for NHL Center Ice (Internet streaming), but then I don't really get to watch every game online, most are subject to blackouts, playoff games are spotty, Stanley Cup games are nonexistent. And since I don't have cable, I miss local games because it's subject to black out in my team's region.
Maybe it's better with other sports, but I really wish there was an easier way to select a team I want to follow or pay to watch games as I watch them, and only pay for that. The only station that I thought got things right was Telemundo during the world cup, even though I don't know any more spanish than "no hablo espanol". I watched all the games there since I didn't want to sign up for cable to get ESPN for two months.
Basically I'd just like a way to pay for season passes (and actually get all the games) or get a decent sports channel without paying for a bunch I don't want.
Edit: Sorry if this seemed nonsensical, my frustration with finding an easy way to watch certain sports has gone on for a couple years now.
If these services don't provide what you want, why don't you get rid of them? Try no subscription at all for a while, then start adding what truly seems to add value. You'll newly appreciate those services, save money and have more time.
There 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.
Very good point. Here in NZ much of what I want is literally years away from coming out and paying for it through legal means isn't an option. But paying in the form you suggest is an option. It's annoying to have to resort to illegal measures which actually cost money to get something.
It's also interesting to see how piracy builds a market in third world countries without the companies even being present there.
Like their example, Russians were pirating games and software long before Valve or other companies had a presence there, and as soon as they came in, they already had clients.
It was the same with Microsoft's Windows and Office - people got so used to them, for example, in Poland, Latvia, Romania, that they just bought licensed versions when they became available (government orders alone must've made them hundreds of millions in revenue).
I wonder how much of that was deliberate or a seized opportunity at a later date? It never was very difficult to pirate Windows and Office back in the day.
Nowadays 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.
Agreed. I'm really hoping that EA sees this in BF3 PC sales and reverses direction. I refuse to be shoehorned into keeping around a different gaming client, if EA pulls their titles then I'm not buying EA on PC.
I don't even have a problem with Origins as a service, but I don't trust EA to keep putting effort into it once they get the marketshare. I trust Valve to do so because they're doing it, right now, as we speak. They even took time out to breathe new life into Mac gaming, a move that earned tons of respect from me.
Using EA's store supports a trend of individual publisher stores and a situation where I have 10 different clients from 10 different companies, something that I am strongly against. It's true that Valve is a publisher as well, but the fact of the matter is they got there first and have proven themselves trustworthy. EA did neither and is now trying to lure us into their gingerbread house with candy and a fake smile. I just don't trust it.
Steam used to be a great way to get games at the same time as the USA for the same price. Now it allows access at the same time but with significantly higher prices in Australia.
In this case it is about price. I don't like being ripped off, even if the amount I'm being ripped off is slightly less than if I went into a physical store to buy the game.
So far this behavior is limited to AAA titles from publishers other than Valve, so I'm happy playing indie games and waiting for Half Life 2: Episode 3.
Lifelong game pirater here, back to the Amiga 500 games bought on floppies from a software cracker (yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me! went the into screens)
Australia has always been shafted in price - a AAA game for $110-$120? Total nonsense, even when our dollar was very low.
Steam is largely what's turned my behaviour around. I've always bought a few, pirated a few, but the convenience of Steam is hard to beat. I mostly wait for specials or bundles, and have a lot of indie games (my catalog is up around 200 games, slightly less than half are unplayed bundle-fodder). Mid-year and new year sales are great times for bargains. But a AAA game at a ridiculous price? Hello pirate bay. Duke Nukem Forever at $80? Good luck with that (not that it's a AAA title... but it theoretically occupies that space).
I've found that over the years, with few exceptions, once a game is played, it's done and I don't go back. If I do go back... it's pretty dated and I realise it was better off in the realm of nostalgia. For me the issue of "but what if Steam dies / goes offline - you'll lose all your games!" is a non-issue - I have a couple of racks of dusty game CDs behind me that haven't been opened in years.
Long story short: it's mostly about the convenience, but partly about the price.
I bought a physical copy of The Witcher 2 Premium Edition from play.com and paid €35 I think it was. This included shipping, a physical making of dvd, a physical soundtrack cd, a physical map, a brass coin, physical strategy guide book and more. My point is I got a lot of physical stuff for the price where steam users got digital versions which should have been a lot cheaper to produce. Yet steam charged €45 (since been reduced to €39.99) for the digital version of the premium edition.
Convenience of purchase or convenience of ownership/control? I am refusing to use Steam since I cannot be sure that I will be able to play when and however I like. In fact, I can be sure that at some point I would not be able to play my games because I lost internet access and Steam does not let me play (do not reply with "there is offline mode", that mode is a joke as you have to enable it whilst being online).
To me it's the direct opposite. I can't imagine life without Steam anymore, because to have to track down the install media/images of all those games, go through their ridiculous install procedures, updates, etc. every time I have to reinstall Windows or switch the game to a different computer is a tremendous waste of time.
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.
What people don't realize about DRM, is that it's asymmetric warfare, and the corporation is in the role of the guerrilla! If you have a popular product and everyone in the universe wants to play your game, then your few development groups (formed against bureaucratic friction) are going up against the vast resources and nearly frictionless meritocracy of the internet. Don't take the pirates on head-on! Be sneaky. For example, err strongly on the side of false negatives (be forgiving) and greatly separate in time pirate detection from any consequences. Never set up a situation where one crack gives the pirate the keys to the kingdom. That's like facing a huge army in a set-piece battle with your guerrillas. Only depend on a given detection scheme for a short while.
I think that people are still willing to pay for PC games as a service. That's what massively multiplayer games are effectively doing. These days, you can often download the game client at the cost of the bandwidth to do it ("free" in the eyes of many), but you pay for access to the servers that are maintained for the players, and you may also pay for expansions.
There are pirate servers, of course, but those suffer from instability, as well as the high probability of disappearing once Big Company X goes after them. That's not a risk that many players want to take, given the time investment that is often made in such games; so they pay to play.
Of course. From games to music to movies, when you limit the utility of a legitimately purchased product you will only serve to make the pirated version that much more appealing. Case in point: I can buy a movie from a Hollywood studio in Japan, but I play it on my US DVD player. If I were to pirate that same movie - I can save $20 and watch it anywhere! Localization and DRM = terrible concepts.
Piracy 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.
Hmm? Piracy is incredibly convenient. Cracks are consistent and easy to use, updates generally appear regularly, you can pass the installer to your friends offline, and you can happily play without internet connection long after the official servers die out.
Online play is a different matter, since you might have centralised server-side authentication. Online multiplayer is a definite advantage to going legit. Otherwise, piracy is nothing if not convenient.
he's totally right. I have almost bought more games in a year of having a Steam account than in the last 10 years and i prefer to buy them on Steam for the "convenience" of it's "cloud based" service.
[+] [-] politician|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wccrawford|14 years ago|reply
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 before localization, I'd find a way to get it early. Even if that meant learning English and engaging in piracy.
These companies understand hype and the way it drives sales, and then completely fail to use that knowledge when it comes to other countries. They won't wait! The hype has pushed them into getting it NOW, by hook or crook.
[+] [-] redthrowaway|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rick888|14 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] contravert|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] afterburner|14 years ago|reply
That's refreshingly honest, I like that. No bluster about how it must have happened because they're so awesome and made such brilliant calculated decisions.
[+] [-] brc|14 years ago|reply
I'm sure the publishers and licensing people think they are very clever restricting content to people in other countries, but in reality, they are shooting both feet off.
The old ways are gone. There is now one global IP market, whether they like it or not. They either get with the program or they lose money and die. Sucks to be them, but that's creative destruction at work. You can't differential price, you can't licence in one market but not another. You either release the content for sale to everyone, or you will be worked around.
[+] [-] beseku|14 years ago|reply
My biggest gripe is with the UK sports companies - a lot of American friends can legally stream NBA, MFL and baseball via a global site that charges for high quality content. The English Premier League and cricket bodies are absolutely blind to this - there is no way for me to legally watch these sports via the web (and cable TV here isn;t possible in my apartment), even though I'd happily pay through the nose to get a fix. Because of this, I'm endlessly looking for ways to catch games via means that they spend huge amounts trying to chase and shut down.
Now that language and communication face such a low barrier, staggered releases and restrictions by market make no sense.
[+] [-] ethank|14 years ago|reply
I worked in an industry (still do sort of) that took a huge hit from piracy, and reacted by making it more difficult to do things rather than respond to what piracy exposed.
While I still worked at a major I wrote this.
TL;DR summary:
I heard a song on the radio, and used Shazam to look it up. The song was "Forgotten Years" by Midnight Oil, and it was 2008. I tried in vain to buy this song legally before having to finally get it through illegal means (torrents). To offset this, I donated directly to the lead singers political campaign in Australia.
As I stated then and I still believe:
"I believe that the ultimate challenge for media providers is to make systems of actualization which narrow the gap from desire to the fulfillment of said desire. The only true way to fight one form of ubiquity is with another form of ubiquity."
PS: Ironically the video embedded in my blog post is now blocked because it was uploaded by the band's non-US label.
[+] [-] sdfjkl|14 years ago|reply
Today, installing a game you bought is harder than pirating it. You have to activate it, type in a 25 digit code you found on the box (wait, is that a B or a 3? Damnit.). It'll need an internet connection to activate, but the activation server is usually overloaded and doesn't work on launch day. Then it wants to patch itself before letting you play, because the stuff you got on the DVD you bought is actually out of date by the time you get home. You also have to sign up for some stupid web service that you never wanted, and have another login and password that you must not forget (or else you can't play anymore and your savegames are gone with it). Except if it's GFWL (Microsoft's Games for Windows Live). Then you also have to figure out why that damn thing gets stuck in an update loop and makes you log into things just to play an entirely offline, single player game (then you have to install xliveless, which avoids that). Pirating is so much easier. You torrent the thing, unpack it and play, just the way it should be.
I'm glad Gabe Newell gets this, and it's apparent in Valve's Steam (except for some reason they permit GFWL infested games, but at least they warn you about it).
[+] [-] nhangen|14 years ago|reply
The only thing the big networks get right is sports.
If I forget to record something, I have to go to Hulu, where I can't stream it to my TV in HD unless I buy another device. My alternative is to pay 99 cents (or more) on iTunes.
I also have to buy a switch so I don't run out of HDMI ports, and it's a pain in the ass to switch between all of my boxes.
Yeah, piracy is starting to sound good.
Oh...forgot to mention that Netflix's selection currently sucks big time.
[+] [-] zbisch|14 years ago|reply
I can sign up for NHL Center Ice (Internet streaming), but then I don't really get to watch every game online, most are subject to blackouts, playoff games are spotty, Stanley Cup games are nonexistent. And since I don't have cable, I miss local games because it's subject to black out in my team's region.
Maybe it's better with other sports, but I really wish there was an easier way to select a team I want to follow or pay to watch games as I watch them, and only pay for that. The only station that I thought got things right was Telemundo during the world cup, even though I don't know any more spanish than "no hablo espanol". I watched all the games there since I didn't want to sign up for cable to get ESPN for two months.
Basically I'd just like a way to pay for season passes (and actually get all the games) or get a decent sports channel without paying for a bunch I don't want.
Edit: Sorry if this seemed nonsensical, my frustration with finding an easy way to watch certain sports has gone on for a couple years now.
[+] [-] Confusion|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fourk|14 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] Anti-Ratfish|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jakeonthemove|14 years ago|reply
Like their example, Russians were pirating games and software long before Valve or other companies had a presence there, and as soon as they came in, they already had clients.
It was the same with Microsoft's Windows and Office - people got so used to them, for example, in Poland, Latvia, Romania, that they just bought licensed versions when they became available (government orders alone must've made them hundreds of millions in revenue).
[+] [-] ryan-allen|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pixie_|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shinratdr|14 years ago|reply
I don't even have a problem with Origins as a service, but I don't trust EA to keep putting effort into it once they get the marketshare. I trust Valve to do so because they're doing it, right now, as we speak. They even took time out to breathe new life into Mac gaming, a move that earned tons of respect from me.
Using EA's store supports a trend of individual publisher stores and a situation where I have 10 different clients from 10 different companies, something that I am strongly against. It's true that Valve is a publisher as well, but the fact of the matter is they got there first and have proven themselves trustworthy. EA did neither and is now trying to lure us into their gingerbread house with candy and a fake smile. I just don't trust it.
[+] [-] getsat|14 years ago|reply
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...
[+] [-] omgtehlion|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DrStalker|14 years ago|reply
In this case it is about price. I don't like being ripped off, even if the amount I'm being ripped off is slightly less than if I went into a physical store to buy the game.
So far this behavior is limited to AAA titles from publishers other than Valve, so I'm happy playing indie games and waiting for Half Life 2: Episode 3.
[+] [-] vacri|14 years ago|reply
Australia has always been shafted in price - a AAA game for $110-$120? Total nonsense, even when our dollar was very low.
Steam is largely what's turned my behaviour around. I've always bought a few, pirated a few, but the convenience of Steam is hard to beat. I mostly wait for specials or bundles, and have a lot of indie games (my catalog is up around 200 games, slightly less than half are unplayed bundle-fodder). Mid-year and new year sales are great times for bargains. But a AAA game at a ridiculous price? Hello pirate bay. Duke Nukem Forever at $80? Good luck with that (not that it's a AAA title... but it theoretically occupies that space).
I've found that over the years, with few exceptions, once a game is played, it's done and I don't go back. If I do go back... it's pretty dated and I realise it was better off in the realm of nostalgia. For me the issue of "but what if Steam dies / goes offline - you'll lose all your games!" is a non-issue - I have a couple of racks of dusty game CDs behind me that haven't been opened in years.
Long story short: it's mostly about the convenience, but partly about the price.
[+] [-] dkersten|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bluedanieru|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aw3c2|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ak217|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Pewpewarrows|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TruthElixirX|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] axefrog|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stcredzero|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bluedanieru|14 years ago|reply
How about a delivery mechanism that uses technology in a sane manner and doesn't punch paying customers in the face with stupid bullshit?
[+] [-] noarchy|14 years ago|reply
There are pirate servers, of course, but those suffer from instability, as well as the high probability of disappearing once Big Company X goes after them. That's not a risk that many players want to take, given the time investment that is often made in such games; so they pay to play.
[+] [-] jcscott81|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] kbatten|14 years ago|reply
Looking at you Ubisoft.
[+] [-] watty|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mappu|14 years ago|reply
Online play is a different matter, since you might have centralised server-side authentication. Online multiplayer is a definite advantage to going legit. Otherwise, piracy is nothing if not convenient.
[+] [-] zemanel|14 years ago|reply