Newell: Stop Piracy by offering Superior Service

A whole bunch o pirates complaining in this thread... :|

Johnny_Rock

[QUOTE="Johnny_Rock"]

A whole bunch o pirates complaining in this thread... :|

SF_KiLLaMaN

I got this in game informer a while ago. Anyway, he's totally right. So much of his DRM is actually harming the peoplle who actually buy it, making people think "wtf? I can get better service from the pirates"

[QUOTE="ShadowDeathX"]btw: Eurogamer gave Uncharted 3 an 8/10Mozelleple112

:lol: Now IGN matters all of a sudden?

I think there is some truth to that, but he does neglect to acknowledge the percentage of pirates who aren't potential customers.

For example; I used to work with this guy. He was married and had a few kids. He had little in the way of personal time, and even less in the area of personal spending money. He made squat (so did I, we did work toegether after all), so he couldn't afford the games he'd play.

He pirated everything he played except one of the Battlefields, which he only payed for because it was an online game. The point is, this guy wouldn't have purchased these games had piracy not been available to him, he simply would have had to find something else to do with his time.

I'm sure his situation is not the common one, but this type of pirate has to be acknowledged to accurately judge how much revenue is lost to the pirates.

Steam is a service, Blizzard understand this with Battle Net. EA, bless their cotton socks ;) are trying their best with Origin unfortunately their one of the prime evils and no one will ever believe they have anything but nafarious intent. Ubisoft don't have a clue and think they know better than their entire legal customer base and therefore try and alienate and crimalise them at every turn. Activision will probably take the Blizzard approach in the near future.

So what make Steam different? One simple fact - Steam games can be played offline after they've been installed and updated.

Oh!I hope no one still believes piracy is a PC exclusive, every console title can be found on torrent sites as well.

GarGx1

As a service Good Old Games destroys Steam, because GOG games are DRM free. I don't mind DRM that much, never had a problem with it, but I would still prefer to live without it. Too bad GOG only sells good old games and Witcher.

I bet half the piracy traffic on the internet is from people who already bought the games legitimately but want a copy that is DRM free. When the pirated version of something is superior, of course people are going to download it. Smart publishers try to make the official product superior, instead of saying "if you buy this game, we will preemptively punish you since you probably will consider uploading it to the internet at some point. Shame on you, you evil little bastard, and give us $60."

whats funny is that Steam is an agreesive form of DRM...Newell just doesn't get it people steal the majority of the time because they want something but can't afford it...Not because its hard to get...
And people wonder why PC gaming has the highest piracy ratebecause of people like Newell who just don't get it.

[QUOTE="Johnny_Rock"]

A whole bunch o pirates complaining in this thread... :|

SF_KiLLaMaN

whats funny is that Steam is an agreesive form of DRM...Newell just doesn't get it people steal the majority of the time because they want something but can't afford it...Not because its hard to get...
And people wonder why PC gaming has the highest piracy ratebecause of people like Newell who just don't get it.

WilliamRLBaker

Steam is agressive DRM? I don't find that, its easy to use and allows you to play any of your games on any PC at any location, how is that bad?

Defending pirates? as if they have ethics and morals.

Let me make it real clear, pirates are freeloaders, they do it because they can. They make excuses up to justify it, but they are 9 out of 10 times unfounded.

Pirates FORCED steam. Steam wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the pirates. PC gaming was better then stream can ever be. You got a full copy of a game and a CD key and that was it. PC gamers were already paying the least, PC gaming has always been great value.

If I could buy games on disc with just a CD key, how it used to be, I wouldn't entertain the idea using steam. Right now, steam is the lesser of two evils.

Don't make out as if pirates are protesting heroes. "we wont be milked and we'll stand up to the evil publishers". They DON'T WANT TO PAY. They aren't heroes, they're petty theives.

Edited: Re-read the op. Not sure if TC is defending pirates or not. Sorry for original comment if not.

Darth_DuMas

To stop a Gaben, take control and press the Gaben.

Sorry, the title of this thread just reminded me and I couldn't resist. :lol:

Yes Steam is a giant DRM service.

And yes Steam is a solid service, and is worth enough to put up with it.

The fact is, i had 0 steam games until a while and i used the platform for years. It manages all your games (Steam and non steam) and has an auto download button for AMD drivers. Plus for those who purchase it keeps you up to date with patches and reminders of extra dlc you can purchase, tells you what your friends are playing (similar to XBL and PSN) has an achievement system for games and offers you incredible deals every once and awhile.

Also it lets you download your game anywhere you are as long as you login into it.

If you are a pc gamer you know how good steam is and why it is so popular (plus you don't have to pay for any of these services unlike XBL).

You may need steam to install the games but you don't need to be online to play them.

To stop a Gaben, take control and press the Gaben.

Sorry, the title of this thread just reminded me and I couldn't resist. :lol:

Timstuff

[QUOTE="Darth_DuMas"]

Defending pirates? as if they have ethics and morals.

Let me make it real clear, pirates are freeloaders, they do it because they can. They make excuses up to justify it, but they are 9 out of 10 times unfounded.

Pirates FORCED steam. Steam wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the pirates. PC gaming was better then stream can ever be. You got a full copy of a game and a CD key and that was it. PC gamers were already paying the least, PC gaming has always been great value.

If I could buy games on disc with just a CD key, how it used to be, I wouldn't entertain the idea using steam. Right now, steam is the lesser of two evils.

Don't make out as if pirates are protesting heroes. "we wont be milked and we'll stand up to the evil publishers". They DON'T WANT TO PAY. They aren't heroes, they're petty thieves.

Edited: Re-read the op. Not sure if TC is defending pirates or not. Sorry for original comment if not.

siLVURcross

Holds more merit than the guess work going on. Mines backed up by scores of people who advocate piracy and want to fight for the right to do so.

It's based on the fact that no matter how low priced a product can be, the pirate would rather not pay. I've heard their excuses so many times. It's frustrating because none of the excuses are that good and are generalisations in them selves.

They have been given opportunity after opportunity.

The only time i've heard an excuse i've understood is when someone said, they'd download creative software because they can't afford the £400 - £500 it would cost to buy.

I actually appreciate the honesty from the ones who just say "I ain't paying".

As soon as I hear a good reason for what they do that I can't counter with something, i'll accept why that person does it.

The real way to stop it is to include a free game specific Hat with proof of purchase

[QUOTE="SF_KiLLaMaN"][QUOTE="Johnny_Rock"]

A whole bunch o pirates complaining in this thread... :|

Endomi

To stop a Gaben, take control and press the Gaben.

Sorry, the title of this thread just reminded me and I couldn't resist. :lol:

Timstuff

So...damn...catchy! :cry:

[QUOTE="Kickinurass"]

[QUOTE="supdotcom"]

offline mode? that works pretty well.

bri360

Yeah, because I didn't try that :roll:

Tried four times. Log in. Start in offline mode. "Steam is not connected to the internet" or something like that, and then the only option was to hit the close button.

I eventually gave up and watched Kickass instead.

Well then its obviously not a problem with steam in general but something you did, cuzzz.... it works fine for everyone else...

It is a very, very, very common problem.

Google it.

Type Steam Off... by this point google will already suggest Steam Offline Mode Error and Steam Offline Mode Not Working, because a lot of the time, it doesn't.

That's not including the fact that if the games aren't 100% updated they won't work in offline mode by design, and the fact that every game used in offline mode needs to have been used in online mode at least once to work anyways.

Note: Don't fret though, all you have to do to fix most offline mode errors is connect online. Steam will do the rest, isn't that handy?

I'm sure Valve is on it though, these problems have only been posted on their forums since 2005 and what with their anti-pirate superior service, I'm sure a fix is right around the corner.