Valve: "Pirates are under-served customers"
According to Valve, much computer game piracy arises from forcing gamers to wait for regional releases.
Valve's business developer Jason Holtman cited the Russian market as the main example and said that launching a game in all territories at the same time could easily convert undiscovered customers.
"The reason people pirated things in Russia is because Russians are reading magazines and watching television [and] they say, 'Man, I want to play that game so bad,' but the publishers respond, 'You can play that game in six months... maybe,'" Holtman told GameDaily.
In fact, Valve reckons that the main reason that it has lower piracy rates than other publishers isn't because it uses Steam as an authentication platform, but because it uses to service to launch all regional versions of their titles at once.
Going further, Holtman said that he didn't believe that the PC market was dying off as many people though, pointing to the fact that Valve has sold over 30 million units on PC alone and explaining that the PC audience far exceeds the size of all console markets combined.
Holtman finally pointed to downloadable content as a great way to improve PC sales, so long as the content wasn't charged for in anyway. Valve has taken a firm stand on the topic of DLC over the years, providing continuous updates and free content to loyal gamers, such as with Half-Life: The Lost Coast and on-going expansions to Team Fortress 2. While Valve typically keeps sales figures on Steam a secret, it does claim that content such as this brings good sales spikes.
Do you ever pirate games? If so, why? Let us know your thoughts on piracy and Steam in the forums.
Previous Article
43 Comments
Discuss in the forums Replytbh this has been discussed to death and the answer which i think makes most sense is Nexxo's approach to grading the product cost wise to attract as many customers as possible.
Now games are more expensive on Steam than in the shops let alone from other online retailers. The prices are okay in the UK but the
rest of europe (even countries that don't use the Euro such as Switzerland and Norway) have to pay a euro price which is a straight
conversion from the US (1$ = 1Euro)... Mass Effect 45 Euro??
Looking at a few forums around the net, people are now refusing to buy games from Steam and I wouldn't be suprised if many of those pirated the games instead.
Piracy is wrong, sure but when you are seen to be over charging your customers it's gotta be harder to keep them from pirating your games just to spite you.
I myself will just vote with my wallet and get the game where it's cheaper but I don't think visibly overcharging helps the situation.
I love Steam and reckoned it was a great way to handle the piracy thing (by making the games easier to buy than to steal) but I think we've taken a step backwards. I'm not even suggesting I should get to pay in Dollars but as an EU citizen, surely I should be able to purchase from the UK store?
Either way, charging 30% more than the local shop isn't gonna drive people to Steam and won't stop some people from pirating instead by not offering them an easy alternative (as the wise Nexxo pointed out)
http://steamunpowered.eu/comparison.html
WTF????!!
Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3
EU 65,79
US 29,99
And there is no excuse for "shipping costs" here.
Does anybody knows a hack for steam to pretend I am from the US when I buy a game?
Prices are all in dollars so it's $30 in the US store and $65 in the EU store. $65 being 45 pounds (50 Euro in my steam store). This is possibly part of the reason why it isn't available on the UK Steam store as EA are asking way too much for it and don't want to sell it at a lower price. You can get it on amazon.co.uk for under 20 quid and about 30 from HMV,etc
As for the Hack, they will ban your account if they find out. The only current solution is to have a US or UK friend gift you the game. Otherwise you have to pay more to use Steam than to walk to your local shop or log onto play.com
Oh and when I bought a game as a gift for my gf I was charged VAT. I should be charged VAT I know but it means that the prices are even higher than they look (Audiosurf went from 10 Euro to almost 13) when you add the VAT that is included in the price you pay in the shops.
think its the same with poor students paying for their own rent, food, fun, studies.... speaking from my own experience.
As for prices, it seems like it depends on what game as to whether it's cheaper or not... when the Steam store was all dollars only, Bioshock was $54.99 (with VAT charged on top of that!) which became £15.99 after currency change. I can't remember the exact price, but Tomb Raider: Underworld was cheaper on Steam even after VAT than it was listed on Play.com.
that is the problem with lots of places were piracy is huge...
PLUS, steam making prices higher for us Euro payers = FAIL
Even worse, it's only $40 in the US store which isn't even a 1$ = 1 Euro price.
I _was_ going to buy Mirror's Edge from Steam. 50 + VAT (which I according to laws here do not pay)? HAHAHAHA. Suck it, Valve. You used to be the good guys.
Note that Bioshock was apparently never $54.99 in the US as it launched over there at $49.99 and apparently dropped eventually to $19.99 in the US, while it remained $54.99 to UK steam customers. And the best the exchange rate ever got to was almost $2:£1 which made it about £27.50, with VAT yet to come when they started charging that on top.
Curiosity, lack of belief in a reviewer...could be any reason. I've played games that got 5.0s in reviews just to see how bad it was.
That hurts. Bad.
3 times the price???
for me, I like to see for myself whether a game sucks or not because I've read too many reviews, where my gameplay experience doesn't agree with the result. And I don't like the idea of buying a game that i'll end up not playing.
VAT and everything is fine, that's not Valve's fault.
But if a game is $30 on Steam on the american store.
Why should someone in another region have to pay more for the same game, just because they live somewhere else?
It's all on the same service, it's all on the internet. No shipping costs or anything like that.
It just makes no sense, and is obviously just a way to overprice products for abroad like they do with physical objects.
To see if they can get away with it, perhaps?
[quote] works :)
so does the edit button...
Not all are identical, for example, in Germany they have to Censor most FPS games.
Why should they make someone in another region pay more? I bet there are contracts in place that prevent them from having a too big price difference to retail shops.
Yes, Pirating can be caused by providing too little service to customers, but Valve saying so doesnt address the problem behind it, the Game developers and Distributors still have to act.
ex. Duke Nukem Forever (haha) $50 in EU and US. $20 in Zambia.
i think EA is confusing the EU with a country....
EDIT: I missed a page.
Grammatical error fixed.
Anyway, this is bollocks tbh. People pirate because the risk involved is less than the cost of the pirated item. If the punishment was the death sentence, people in Russia would suddenly be able to wait 6 months for the release and pay the fee to play.
Now having paid £30 for a gmae the last thing you expect is stuff like that, and E-Mailing twice to the customer services department I get the same old sh*te update drivers, done that, re-install, done that too, I MAKE SURE MY SYSTEM'S up to date first, y'know all the usual stuff, and I am appalled that EA hasn't yet released a patch to fix all the bugs folk are having with this game.
Now I can respect the fact that bugs are sometimes non-avoidable with games sometimes, but it's no excuse when your bein charged full whack for a game of this state that's clearly not fit for retail yet.
A game I'm checkin out now is Saints Row 2, I decided that as Gamespot and other sites claim it has performance issues, I might just have a try before I hand over my money to these people who, if they're gonna be lazy and treat us PC Gamers like Sh*t by not optimising and making a Lazy port of Console games, then why should I be interested in buying thier crap? It don't persuade new gamers to come on the platform if all they get is this kinda stuff.
BTW this isn't just me ranting on, it's the truth really, added to which the selection of PC titles and genres is narrowing to such an extent that all you can get is RPG's and MMO's,FPS's now(where the hell'd all the driving games go and Metal Gear Solid series being ported to the PC and that stuff eh?) and the fact that EA Games is a classic with thier bloody £20 rip-off expansion packs for the Sims that folk seem to keep buyin are all good signs, well to me anyway, that being a Legit PC gamer is no longer worthwhile unless publishers get thier finger out of thier arse and start treating us with a little respect.
They wnat our money right? Well give me a worthwhile product that is actually finished and let me try before I buy and then I may just start paying you for it fellas.
Sam The Bam
Over the first 5 years I managed to get ripped off a lot. Games that were supposed to be good, were not. In the end I became fed up with companies getting my cash for a game that wasn't worth the asking price.
So now if I fancy a game, I will get a pirate version of it. I will play it, and if it is bad, then it gets deleted. On the other hand, if it is good, I go out and pay for a retail version to show my support to the company.
I am rare in that approach I know, most pirates (Not all! - before anyone gets on their high horse) don't pay for a retail version, why should they when they already have the game? But in my opinion, how are we going to get better games if we don't show the companies which ones are worth paying their prices for?
Pirates pirate because...
1. It's Free!!!!!
2. Restrictive DRM.
3. ...
Last game I bought was FarCry2. Damn...what a disappointment. WTF earned this game such high marks?
Looks like I'll have to add BioWare games to the pirate first list, what a buggy POS.
I do not like paying to beta test a game, by the time the bugs are finally patched (if ever) I will have moved on to something else.
Myself and a friend recently bought Titan quest+Expansion for £10. A great hack n slash co-op at a bargin price.
Unfortunately when it comes to computer games there are few developers that release quality product that works straight out of the box and only require patching to balance gameplay. From my experience anyways.
gamegood game.i have done that to... the games i have on my buy list include COD2, COD4, UT3 (look at sig to understand why).... and that's about it... i think i am going to get something more, but at this time i have very few cash to burn...
I feel your frustration. My gaming PC isn't on the net and never will be, so any game that needs on-line activation is a big no-no for me.
I must be one of the few people who has never played HL2. :(