Gabe Newell’s Valve “gets” gaming like very few others. Here are but a few examples:
- They made Half-Life (enough said)
- They made Half-Life 2, and they gave us the gravity gun at the start of the game, rather than holding out on it till the end as some kind of nonsense reward for playing through their game.
- They released Portal, after buying the developers who made the original Narbacular Drop
- They only release games when they’re ready. Sometimes that takes a looong time, and sometimes, not so much.
- They developed Steam, which has changed gaming forever.
Gabe says that piracy will not be cured by price reductions, but by improved services. As someone who lives in Finland, but would consume North American content by choice, I can tell you that he’s right on the money. iTunes store? Location restricted. Netflix? Geographic restrictions. XBox 360 media content? Restricted. Beatport DJ downloads… geo restricted. And the list goes on. I’m keenly aware that these limitations are put in place by the publishers and copyright holders of the content, rather than the distribution channels. But when push comes to shove… if pirates are offering a product in region x, that cannot be had by legitimate means, then it’ll be had by piracy. And this isn’t even a lost sale! There never would have been a sale in the first place, because of the regional restrictions, so your cost analysis is wrong.
“Most DRM solutions diminish the value of the product by either directly restricting a customer’s use or by creating uncertainty.”
Valve get this, and so they’ve built Steam with that in mind. My hat is off to these guys, pretty much all the time. If publishers and copyright holders could get it in their heads that people actually do want their content, and are happy to pay for it, then we’d all be a happier bunch.
I heard on the radio this morning a debate between Silicon Valley software desigeners saying “I don’t hate piracy, because it means that what I made is in demand. That’s good for my brand.” and hollywood producers saying “I hate Piracy because I don’t get to pay my camera men as much because my publishing house isn’t getting paid as well as we should.”
I thought it was an interesting look at the difference between pirating an end-product item like a game or a movie where the piracy means opportunity loss, or a user based product like software that will perhaps could lead to opportunity gain down the road.
No one says “man that album I pirated was so good, I think I will actually buy the next album that artist puts out.” But I think I agree that perhaps a pirated copy of autocad finds its way onto a laptop of someone who becomes proficient enough to NEED a legal copy.
Yeah… the problem with the Hollywood producer’s argument is that it’s a lie. They’re making more money than they ever have, and are pocketing more themselves than they ever have.