Steam and Xbox Gamepass saved me from piracy

Some of you may know but for those who don’t I’m from Iran, and my country is a pirate-haven, where more than 80% of gamers are pirates and the remaining 20% are F2P players who play Dota and Fortnite with a fraction of hardcore gamers such as myself … and If it hadn’t been for Valve & Microsoft, I’d probably have joined the 80%.

We talked about piracy many times, about the main reasons that drive people to pirate games, how can we defeat it and will it ever die? ... no it won’t, it ain't gonna die but there's way to lower its numbers and make it insignificant and no Denuvo anti-tamper is not the answer, it only slows the inevitable, however there’s something than can wipe this plague and it’s nothing but a good gaming platform with good sales and cheap prices.

Yeah, some countries are rife with piracy, and these new solutions are curtailing that pretty well, one would think. Steam with regional pricing is a big one. Oft times, big companies won't take into account the fluctuating currency market, and the average earnings of a country. Shit, the US didn't start with the pricing shit until the USD was trading somewhere in the 1.2-1.3 range of the CAD.

I don't think it's just Steam or Xbox. Games in general get discounted pretty quickly these days. Except for Nintendo first party games lol. Xbox Game Pass is not for me. $15 a month for the ultimate package, and you get 100 games, of which don't stay forever, and you don't keep them. And the selection of games aren't that great. You can get many of those games for cheap. Unless you're a huge fan of MS first party games, it's not that great of a deal in my opinion.

Towing Sony's company line I see lol.

I don't use Gamepass either, and that's because I like to own my games, but you went full r...

I mean complaining the games don't stay FOREVER, I mean you really want the same 100 games all the time lol.

You say the selection of games aren't that great, and yet they change games every month, so you're saying the games aren't great every month, I mean Remnant was on it last month, and that game is worth the price of admission alone.

You say one needs to be huge fan of MS games? are these games different games then those of others? You can play Ori, All the Halo's, all the Gears games, Cuphead, Forza's among others that are leaders in their genre's, so you need to be a fan of genre leading games lol.

Its not that great of a deal in your opinion, I would like you to tell everybody how some of THESE games aren't great or that great of a deal.

I'm no fan of Game Pass but even I can see the value in it, and have considered it for my kids.

PS...You can play not 1, or 2, but 3 MGS games on it, so you being a MGS "fan" is saying MGS isn't great or great at that price, self ownage approved lol.

Game pass is pretty cool when it’s a dollar a month, but at regular price it isn’t worth it since the library of game is meh ( pc wise ) z also I agree with you OP, steam is the sh...

I wonder what your views were on PS Now

I am all for game subs like Uplay, GamePass, and EA Origin whatever its called.

Right now , I'm playing A Plague Tale: Innocence , a third party title and an amazing game , I think one play-through would be enough for me and if I ever miss it again , I'll always have steam with its good sales

Oh, is Gamepass available in Iran or did you use another region for it? Kind of funny you still able to reach American products while The USA is banning everyone dealing with Iran and crippling its economy.

Finished that game two days ago. It was really special! A narrative game done right.

I agree. Philippines is also a pirate heaven after all.

If Steam didn't exist, which I won't know the 'old steam sales', humble bundle and the likes, and 3rd party gray market key selling, I would be still pirating till now or play f2p online games.

Steam is OK , so is MS but when it comes to Epic and Origin you should change your DNS , there's no other way around it and Economy of Iran is not crippled ..... it's paralyzed

It's really atmospheric and it has that Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons vibe , I'm lovin' it

It's mint for the kids, they love it. Wish it had more outright games though for the youngest.

Game pass is great for pc, not sure I will always be subscribed if the price ever rises to normal 15$, but even at that price you can’t beat the value tbh. My younger self would have loved it that’s for sure, my older self doesn’t have that much time to play unfortunately so 15$ might be a bit much with the time I use it.

There's no way you can get rid of piracy.

All you can do is to adapt your economic model to the population that use your system.

That the reason why pc is at 70% f2p model, players don't need to pay for their games.

On the other side, with 1.22 Bn pc players, micro transactions generate enough money for these companies to survive.

You only buy games when you can afford them ( no offense meant here, only economic reasons, mind you!!! ), that's why EU and US are where most of the AAA industry is making its money.

On the other hand most of pc revenues are located in Asia, and mainly China.

Will game pass change this trend??? Let's hope so.

If the Asians adopt it then it will certainly succeed, but it seems to me that, at this time, it's more "west" focused.

A Plague Tale: Innocence is also on EA Origin Premier as well. When it comes to subs on PC, I like taking advantages on playing games without paying full price but games like Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order, I ended up buying it to add to my collection cause that game is my favorite and on Game Pass, it just depends what games I want to play. Playing Crackdown 3 on it save me tons of money and no way I'm paying full price.

By the way @the_master_race, I didn't know you are from Iran. Very interesting. And you should know, I'm against Piracy and for you, you are exceptional in my books ;)

@SolidGame_basic: I tried Game Pass around the time it started and thought it was a better value than PlayStation Now, but I recently started playing my Xbox One again and got Game Pass Ultimate for $1 and was shocked to see that there’s only like 244 games available and I didn’t remember that you can only download games. There’s no streaming in Game Pass. PlayStation Now has nearly a 1000 games from PS2,PS3 and PS4 games available and you can just start playing them right away or download them (only the PS3 games can’t be downloaded).

@ButDuuude: So you are now arguing that streaming is superior to downloading??? Lol..

@ButDuuude: Streaming sucks so its a plus that Gamepass doesnt have it.

thanks mate and btw I'm not the only Persian here , I guess you've heard my friend @mjorh

and also this guy...

there have been rumors that he's back

What do you mean by outright games?

Same here. I think these guys are making gaming much more accessible and it is much easier to be a gamer not a pirate today than in the past. These guys are commendable.

Gatygun is also from Iran I think.

Probably gonna get the ultimate game pass. Saw some good games there that I'd like to play.

Question, if I dl a game and it's removed before I'm done with it, am I SoL?

@djoffer: PlayStation Now has BOTH

@vfighter: Depends on your internet speed. Of course if you want to avoid the lag then download the game, which you can also do on PlayStation Now. If you don’t want to wait then stream it.

It's a game dev that makes games for 4-6 year olds, like Paw Patrol, Ben 10, and Hotel hotel Transylvania. My littlest one loves them.

Good deals is indeed how to combat piracy.

If only I could pirate Switch games..

Ah ok, I don't keep up with what's on there every month. I guess its hard to balance games for every kind of person and genres.