Piracy as viewed by Newell (Again)

[vlad321]

http://games.on.net/article/14330/Gabe_Newell_Piracy_is_a_non-issue_for_Valve

Cambridge has published a new interview with Valve founder Gabe Newell, in which the mastermind behind Half-Life and Steam shares his thoughts on digital distribution, region-locking, and piracy.

Gabe asserts that since Valve focusses on monitoring and delivering what customers actually want, piracy is a 'non-issue' for the company.

In general, we think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. For example, if a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable. Most DRM solutions diminish the value of the product by either directly restricting a customers use or by creating uncertainty.

Our goal is to create greater service value than pirates, and this has been successful enough for us that piracy is basically a non-issue for our company. For example, prior to entering the Russian market, we were told that Russia was a waste of time because everyone would pirate our products. Russia is now about to become our largest market in Europe.

In addition to touching on the topics of Dota 2, CS:GO, and whether games really are art, The Cambridge Student also asked about one of Valve's most anticipated upcoming games:

When will Half-life 3 be released?
I don't know.

You can read the interview in full by clicking here.

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Well, crap.... no news on HL3.

Oh yeah, also, he seems to be the ONLY personthat realizes what piracy actually is. The other publishers need to HTFU, take the blame for themselves, and stop whining, bitching, and complaining about this.