Valve: piracy a "non-issue" for Steam

By Robert Purchese Published 28 November, 2011

Perhaps Gabe Newell along.

Valve co-founder and CEO Gabe Newell believes piracy stems not from price, but from convenience. And as Steam boasts fast access to a dizzying selection of games, so piracy has become "basically a non-issue" for Valve.

"In general, we think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy," Newell told The Cambridge Student, via VG247. "Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem.

"For example, if a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24x7, 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," Newell added, "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.

"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."

Gabe Newell, CEO and co-founder, Valve

Steam's digital distribution platform requires you download and log into a Steam application each time you wish to play a game. This simple check performs a service many DRM services are criticised for. Steam also ensures games are up to date, as well as offers multiplayer matchmaking facilities, friend lists, achievements and various other platform-based community features.

Such is Steam's persuasion that many top-tier publishers and developers now opt for Steamworks tools to be implemented deep within their games. This packages Steam's clever bits - multiplayer, cloud saving, authentication, etc. - so that developers can build them into games early on.

Half-Life 2 effectively launched Steam in 2004, but it wasn't until 2005 that the service welcomed its first third-party games. Today, seven years after HL2, Steam dominates the PC (and Mac) digital distribution video game market.

This year's superb Portal 2 introduced Steam on PS3.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (88) Latest comment 3 months ago

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  • streetmagix #1 3 months ago

    .... That tag line. Amazeballs.

  • Snake_2011 #2 3 months ago

    does not mater how good steam is people still pirate all the games they have.

    neg all you want it is fact that people who pirate will still do it what ever steam charges.
    Edited by 2 at 28/11/11 @ 12:53

  • kingcrowbar #3 3 months ago

    Funny how he has just described Skyrim which is still unavailable here on Steam.

  • Shikasama #4 3 months ago

    It's hard to disagree. You look at the countries with the highest piracy rates (China, Russia, Indonesia) and the way they are treated by the major publishers is a massive part of that. It is a cyclical argument though because the publishers will tell you they don't care about those territories because of the high piracy rates.

    It is also worth pointing out though that the 'convenience' of Piracy is not to be overrated, especially for newer release PC games. OFten you will need a certain level of technical knowledge to be able to run one properly (whether it is using keygens, mounting images etc).

    Piracy will always be higher than sales though, as more people are willing to try something for free than they are to pay for it.

    Personally,I stopped pirating games a couple of years ago once I had my own money to physically buy them. I never tried to justify it to myself with a moral high ground, I just wanted to play the games that were released.

    It is interesting because there are franchises that have benefitted from my early years of piracy as the games that I really enjoyed, I then went back and bought when my circumstances changed. I also bought their sequels. Civilisation, Championship/Football Manager, Total War and Bethesda in general have all been pruchased as a direct result of me enjoying previous pirated iterations.

    I wonder how often that scenario is repeated. I would think quite a lot.

  • Shikasama #5 3 months ago

    kingcrowbar - Blame the publisher, Steam doesn't set prices, release dates or region availability.

  • crsmithy #6 3 months ago

    Valve co-founder and CEO Gabe Newell believes piracy stems not from price, but from convenience.
    He's right, at least for me. I personally haven't felt the desire to pirate anything since Steam came about, the ease of access means I'm always scooping up cheap games that I really need to get round to playing!

  • TheTingler #7 3 months ago

    DO YOU HEAR THIS UBISOFT?!

  • Liquidoodle #8 3 months ago

    You already posted an article pretty much exactly like this:

    http://www.eurogamer .net/articles/2011-10-24-newell-stop-piracy-by-offering-supe rior-service

    Slow news day? Go prod Rocksteady until they give you an answer about the Batman DX11 patch will ya ;)

  • NewbieZilla #9 3 months ago

    He has said this stuff time and time again. Why is this constantly reported?

  • kingcrowbar #10 3 months ago

    @Shikasama

    I'm not blaming anyone as they key is relatively easy to get from other sources and so defeats the whole region locking distribution issues anyway.

    Just making a general observation of the ridiculousness that a game that requires Steam is unavailable on Steam :)

  • DozyKipper #11 3 months ago

    Nice dig at THQ from Gabe there. We get none of their games in the UK until two months after release.

  • Lunatic4ever #12 3 months ago

    I only buy games on steam when they are on sale. Because regular prices are way too high for digital versions. I still don't understand how they can ask for the full retail price. How do they justify that? By saying "well you can't lose your dvd" ?

    I mean look at the regular prices of old games. They are incredibly expensive compared to the boxed ones in the store. Why?

  • mr_pink #13 3 months ago

    I think saying it's a convenience and not a pricing problem is overstating things a bit. Apart from Portal 2 I have never bought a full-price game from Steam, it's always the sales that are mega popular and account for most of my game purchases.

  • geox30 #14 3 months ago

    Are you sure this is about the PC plarform?Because I was told that the PC platform is nearly dead.

  • Agent_Orange #15 3 months ago

    Maybe it's not one or the other (convenience or price), but both. I am much more likely to buy a game if it's easy and cheap. I don't pirate stuff, but i'm not prepared to pay 30-40 quid for a game that may not give me more than a couple of hours of gameplay (therefore reviews are important to me). I'm willing to pay for games like Skyrim and BF3 at full price, ill wait for lesser games to become cheaper!

  • spliffhead #16 3 months ago

    Let Gordon out the box Gabe!

  • FireMonkey #17 3 months ago

    Eat it Ubisoft!!!

  • DwarfyP #18 3 months ago

    Just as well it isn't a pricing thing cos the prices on STEAM are insane. I prefer the convenience of paying a LOT less by buying from Amazon UK.

  • Jorendo #19 3 months ago

    Im glad to see that Steam responds to the bad pc news of late. Saying exactly what the legal pc game buyers said as well. See Ubisoft, read this you might learn something. Calling your supporters bitching people who pirate anyway. Gabe just told you why you get pirated. If you be rude to your legal buyers and make it insanely hard for them to play your game legally with DRM being the most broken anti piracy measure. Remove DRM and use any other protection and you will see more people buy your games again. Cause most legal buyers don't pirate your games but just stopped playing your games at all thanks to DRM. You charge money for a half of the time not working game, then say the pc gamers shouldn't bitch cause they pirate anyway.
    Edited by 2 at 28/11/11 @ 13:36

  • spekkeh #20 3 months ago

    Owner of distribution company says distributing through his company is better than the rest shocker.

    Russians buying more games has nothing to do with an average 4-7% growth of the economy every year. It's not about money at all.

  • One_Vurfed_Gwrx #21 3 months ago

    Now if only Steam didn't have games locked by region and was truly "open" (Yes I know that if you have a key already you can still access them but I'm in South Korea and get irked by titles that aren't available, (most Sega stuff that isn't DC or Megadrive) or even ones that randomly disappear (GTA series was available in the sale a month ago but now don't exist). I know licensing will be to blame, but a lot of the missing titles aren't as potentially controversial as GTA. (examples include AvP, all Total War games, even the new sonic game...)

    I don't pirate the stuff either, but artificial region restrictions are the bane of gaming (and why I don't have a 3DS for example.)

  • haderach512 #22 3 months ago

    Like some of the guys above, I have a hard time paying 60E for a game, I own ~20 games on steam and none of them came at full price. Sales, instead, are pure gold. Look at the last sale steam just had these days, you would find new games like Deus Ex: Human Revolution, The Witcher 2, Rage, at half price.

    I'm not a fanboy and I'm well aware of the drm involnved, but Steam kinda made it cool and convenient to be a legit gamer these days.

  • haderach512 #23 3 months ago

    @Jorendo This needs to be emailed ASAP to Ubisoft!

  • Jorendo #24 3 months ago

    @Snake_2011 you didn't really understand the text did you? He didn't say it would stop. Its still a problem, but the problem has always been there, long before the average eurogamer reader was born and will be there longer after you died. What he does say its not affecting steam sales. And with him there are also other publishers saying that pirating isn't hurting their sales like for example the witcher 2.

    And people are more willing to buy if you don't screw them. I buy all my pc games legal though.
    Edited by 1 at 28/11/11 @ 10:15

  • spekkeh #25 3 months ago

    Deus Ex is 12 pounds on Amazon, and has been for quite a while. Just saying.
    Hmm, maybe the convenience argument is a valid one. (although I'm going for brandname, everyone knows Steam is really cheap right, even though it isn't).

  • Jorendo #26 3 months ago

    @spekkeh It is cheap in America. Problem is the prices are only adjusted from the dollar sign to the euro sign. Games that are 50 dollar are sold for 50 euro. So as European you pay about 20 euro's more per game.

    The excuse thats used is the different VATS per european country. Like you im from the Netherlands, if we pay 45 euro's for a pc game then in denmark and finland they pay 60 euro.

    Its stupid though and steam should adjust the prices. But lucky enough they got nice sales often. Bought L.A. Noir for half the price friday for example and soon the christmass sales.

  • SG #27 3 months ago

    Nail on the head, Gabe.

  • SpaceMonkey77 #28 3 months ago

    Gabe Newell is a star, because he's seen the true light of things, that many in this industry and others fear to see and say. Its true that its both a convenience and price issue, and certainly, each gamer may have a toe in one or both.

    The rise of Steam like services like Origin show that Gabe's way is the better way, but others have yet to sort their prices, and stop worrying about potential loses all the time. Its interesting that EA etc were not interested in one bit about Steam before, nor did they have the pure ambition and drive to do it themselves.

    Why? Because they still worry about money first. None of us are against the gears of capitalism, and most of us just want a good deal. I opened a Steam account and purchased Tropico 1 and 2 for Ł10, and sampled the awesome Alien Swarm for free. For reasons of price and convenience, is why Steam will still be the premier online PC platform for games, and the industry is better for it.

    I'll always prefer a physical copy of a game for my collection, but failing that, I'm glad that the likes of Steam and GOG exist, both as an outlet for smaller games and also those that have gone out of print. or hard to find. We should all celebrate them.

  • bad09 #29 3 months ago

    "Steam's digital distribution platform requires you download and log into a Steam application each time you wish to play a game. This simple check performs a service many DRM services are criticised for"

    This of course is the irony of it all. Steam is just as much an internet DRM as anything else and possibly one of the doorways to all this dumbass tie customers to the internet nonsense in the modern industry in the first place. For all it's issues though offline mode is there and most of the time does work if only Gabe would tweek it a little to protect us a little better and Steam would be the perfect DRM from a consumers view although personally I 100% think GOG or indies is the way to go, sell me a file let me download it then leave me alone, that's really all I want.

    Still Gabe knows his stuff on many levels and piracy is one of them, problem is I think the industy still looks to him more for the restrictions he has been successful in achieving with Steam rather than it's benefits is half their problem, look at Ubi their crapp launcher might actually have been a benefit if they didn't chain you to it.
    Edited by 4 at 28/11/11 @ 10:44

  • ISmoke #30 3 months ago

    Nice Tagline. Maybe almost as good as the one regarding the Dead Island patch. Maybe.

  • globalisateur #31 3 months ago

    Well maybe hackers prefer to focus on pirating Steam's servers than Steam's games.
    Edited by 2 at 28/11/11 @ 10:42

  • SpaceMonkey77 #32 3 months ago

    Adding to my last post, someone said stuff about artificial region locking and price exchange rates.

    As far as all media is concerned, region locking is pointless. Blu Ray has shown the way to go, and it amazes me that some still see it as a valid practice. If they want to track sales per region, there has to be a better way that region locking, which pushes users more towards piracy. Also, think how much better 3DS would be doing, were it region free. I doubt Nintendo's losing so much money this financial year would have been as bad, if that were the case.

    Price exchange rates I think is why MS went for their own MS points system for Live. Dealing with the minutae of cents and pence etc, can be done though, through a genius thing called Paypal. I believe that if more game services used Paypal (nice one for the option on Live, MS), the exchange stuff can be sorted out immediately in the background, and we can get to the gameplaying. So long as we don't get ripped off, things will be sweet.

  • Seoh #33 3 months ago

    interesting point about the region locking when steam is subject to this as much as everyone else. However i think its more of an issue with the publishers, like the infamous THQ set-up where in the UK their games are unavailable for purchase through steam at launch despite heavy steam integration.

  • Buztafen #34 3 months ago

    I like Gabe's face. He looks like he'd be able to make a good Man on the Moon in a cartoon or play.

  • AaronTurner #35 3 months ago

    Steam has an offline mode that works pretty well so it isn't always on DRM as everyone is saying. I quite often have games loaded up on my laptop and rarely have to take it back online and when I've had internet outages there has rarely been complications with steam starting in offline mode.

  • FortysixterUK #36 3 months ago

    This man talks absolute shite.
    Price is the MAJOR contributing factor to piracy.
    Convenience? Downlaod a hacked game install and crack? No DRM worries.
    Or use Steam. And pay top dollar?
    I like STEAM. I don't like it's prices, hence I only buy when they have a sale on, then I buy games on the off chance I'll play them as the price are so good.

  • spekkeh #37 3 months ago

    @Buztafen
    I like Gabe's face. He looks like he'd be able to make a good Man on the Moon in a cartoon or play.
    Or movie. That's no moon! That's Gabe Newell!

    Oh my, this 'verified' thing is not doing me any good is it. I'm kidding, I love you Gabe Newell, please let me work for you.

  • geox30 #38 3 months ago

    @Jorendo
    I am a PC gamer to the bone,and I don't mind where people like to game.So if anyone gave me a + by mistaking for a console user making fun,please take it back!

  • uk-kob #39 3 months ago

    since when has Russia been in Europe?

  • iamtheoneneo #40 3 months ago

    Steam is doing good for the pc gaming scene, its high sale rates, yearly sales and good UI really help sell games and let people play them with minimal hassle.

  • bad09 #41 3 months ago

    I love how people say he's talking shit. You don't dominate the PC market with a 75% marketshare in the download market and get the loyalty the Valve and Steam brands have with so many by talking shite :)

    Ignore this mans words at your own ignorance.

  • azic #42 3 months ago

    @Snake_2011
    You win dumbest comment of the year.
    Can you not read and take any information from the article.
    Fail!
    Edited by 1 at 28/11/11 @ 11:40

  • azic #43 3 months ago

    @pcgaminglol
    Well removing the need to do anything is always better. Same can be argued for Console Piracy.. Don't need to get my ass of the sofa to put the disc in... The Pirated game is living on that external 1TB HD connected to my 360 that is modded.

    Stop trying to pass of Piracy as PC only, and no the vast Majority of PC gamers do not pirate.

    Another stupid sweeping statement by another idiot on this forum.

    **NO MY 360 is not Modded.. above is an example!

  • azic #44 3 months ago

    When games are not available on steam (im talking about the UK) it is becuase the Pricks(sic) & Mortar have stamped their feet at the publishers that they want the pie all for them.

    Its Called Greed and 'GAME' are the biggest perpetrators of it on the PC.

  • azic #45 3 months ago

    @gotyourmoney
    Read the Article. If it was the Vast Majority then Valve would cease to exist.

    Please look at the Seeder/Leacher ratios on the torrent sites for the same game on PC & Console. The ratios of Console far far exceeds the PC, yet Global PC installed base is 10X of the console.

    Also look at BF3/CODMW3 multi player sats, which by and large can only be played if bought.

    Witcher 2 etc, Skyrim crashed steam due to the amount of people buying it.. all prove that simply the vast cant be.

    There may be a lot, but you simply cant say Its the majority when cleary its not.

    I could never reveal sources even if I had them.
    Please enlighten me however, Ill take your info at face values with or without sources.

  • grussbarbar #46 3 months ago

    Somewhat off-topic, but Steam might actually be the reason for me to turn to piracy again after years and years of being a non-pirate.

    I'm one of those old-fashioned gamers who likes hard copies of his games and who doesn't want to be dependant on an internet connection and an external server for playing his offline single player games. I don't really care whether the Steam servers are super reliable or not, for me the online DRM check before every play session goes just a little bit too far (even though I can turn to offline mode after that).
    (Earlier this year I was without internet for a couple of weeks due to a problem with my router. I don't want to be completely cut off from playing games because of something as needing an internet check...)

    Also, for moddable games, I want to be in complete control of the version of the game I'm playing, which is a bit difficult with Steam.

    So personally, I don't really like that several games that I would very much like to play are dependant of Steam. Even though I'm a huge Civilization fan, I've skipped Civilization V so far. and because I'm an even bigger RPG nut, I can see myself turning to a pirated copy of Skyrim in the future.
    Let me stress though that I will buy a legal copy of Skyrim before pirating. If I do this, I'll probably wait until the GotY edition comes out in a few years or so, buy that and then look up and install a pirated copy... (As great as I expect it to be, I just don't want to pay full price for a Steam powered game... =/)

    Edit: put my original comment between spoiler tags, because it seems it was completely based on wrong assumptions.
    Edited by 1 at 29/11/11 @ 17:41

  • Cobalt_Jackal #47 3 months ago

    Valve: Weight loss a "non issue" for Gabe XD.
    Edited by 1 at 28/11/11 @ 14:14

  • Snaggletooth #48 3 months ago

    Has it really been 7 years since Half Life L2?

    So, about Half Life 3................

  • coolbritannia #49 3 months ago

    Sales figures please Gabe. All of them.

  • azic #50 3 months ago

    @gotyourmoney
    No but the Vast Majority is what Business survive on. If the majority stop shopping at Sainsburys then good bye. If the Split is even then maybe..

    I cant determine what they are doing, but clearly they are buying or valve would be dead.

    I may very well be ignorant, but your worse. Your stating the obvious, and even if the vast majority were stealing then what is left is enough to sustain, or not enough to put valve in the ground.

    Funny how there are 3 main Digital Dist sites running and doing very well despite the Piracy.

    Your slant is tunnel vision and it wont change. But I hazard a guess that until its proved that the vast majority are stealing or not as I suspect we are both wrong or right.
    But judging by Gabes words and the FACT that games are still very much being made for the PC, Id say i'm in the lead.

    You say I cant determine whats going on by torrents etc. but you take the words of people saying all PC gamers are Pirates with no proof.

    Not one Dev/publisher has put tangible facts on the table have they? no its just words to the effect of 10-1 95%... Well anybody can make that up. Show us stats, show us the data. Devs use torrent data all the time quoting the amount of downloads and then use that to base their data. Don't believe me then read through all the piracy articles on here, and while your at it, ask why console figures are not quoted too?

    I ask you to back up your original "Vast Majority statement"

    You have stated the obvious, and backed nothing up. Fail and your narrow minded too, now run along before the bandwagon leaves you behind.
    Edited by 4 at 28/11/11 @ 13:06

  • weebl #51 3 months ago

    @Snake_2011 I don't know why you're getting negged this much. There are plenty of cracked Steam games around so I think the claim of it being a "non-issue" is simply wrong.

    I'll probably get negged too. I don't use cracked software and am just pointing out what there is if you're pikey enough to want it.

  • obidanshinobi #52 3 months ago

    Jumps in

    And Gabes getting larger !!

    Jumps out

  • obidanshinobi #53 3 months ago

    Post deleted at 09:50:54 12-12-2011

  • anomagnus #54 3 months ago

    I don't agree at all. People can try and paint whatever picture they want, but the people i do know, who do pirate, pirate becasue they don't want to pay cash for their products. Even when its harder to pirate something than buy it legitimatly, they still download it, whether it be music, games, video.

  • Jorendo #55 3 months ago

    @geox30 I will take it back if your first post was meant sarcastic about pc gaming dying, then it was purely a misunderstanding from my side and shall take it back. But there are many console fanboy trolls who in every topic about pc gaming love to shout pc gaming is dying and that all pc gamers are assholes who pirate.

  • himmelsturmerIX #56 3 months ago

    Gabe speaks the truth. I'm from a country where you can get the newest PC game for $5. Yet I have about 90 Steam games.
    Granted most of them I got at >= 50% discount but hey its all legit.

    The thing is if only online retailer does not to uptight selling their merchandise across region then the chances are there are some people eager to purchase it.

    For example if only amazon sell their kindle devices and online books in my country then I would have a nice collection of ebooks right now. Legally purchased from their online store.
    Same thing with iTunes, I would love to buy the newest music from USA, but they apparently just resent my money, and you know where I can get the newest album for < $1? From pirates.

  • Jorendo #57 3 months ago

    @anomagnus Not everyone is like the people you know *shrug* And seeing that the sales keep rissing for the pc its not as bad as you think it is. Beside the console gets pirated like mad as well and you hardly hear the game industry whine about that even though the numbers between the PC and xbox pirates is less then a million.

    Nintendo had to take drastic mathers to deal with the pirates using the R4 chip, all you had to do was to download the roms who where even easyer to find and use then pc game downloads and put it on a SD card and tadaa you could play free DS games. Nintendo had to put a protection on it that would really damage your DS, once playing a pirated game it would fuck up the DS so you couldn't even play legal games anymore. Just like the 3Ds, try putting the R4 card in it, then you can buy a new 3DS.

  • bf #58 3 months ago

    Yes Steam is convenient, if you have a reliable internet connection and the servers aren't bogged down or decides that your game is unavailable when you want to play.

    Its handy I'll give them that but if given the choice, which is diminishing with the increase of Steamworks titles, I would rather have and run my games 'locally'.

  • Matfink #59 3 months ago

    @SpaceMonkey77 all very well, except PayPal are just one step away from crooks :p

  • ChairmanYang #60 3 months ago

    Valve gets it, offers lots of value to customers, and is rolling in cash.

    Lots of other companies don't, they penalize customers, their PC sales suck, and Gabe eats their lunch.

    Sounds good to me!

  • George-Roper #61 3 months ago

    Heavens above, some of the anti-PC sentiments in this thread are just outright retarded.

    Downloading and installing an illegal version of a game is just as easy as on Steam? What, until there's a major patch out and you also need a hacked, packed and cracked version of that as well? That then, even if you can find it, doesn't work properly, which possibly screws up the game and potentially the saves? And that's not even covering day0 viruses or malware.

    Rather that, than a self-contained system that automatically (or not, at your preference) downloads and applies whatever patch is made available?

    Fuck me....
    Edited by 1 at 28/11/11 @ 14:33

  • SpaceMonkey77 #62 3 months ago

    @Matfink

    Lol, perhaps so, and perhaps not. There are other services like Western Union too, if Paypal isn't for you. Other than that, then just pay straight from your bank account. Surely we all have one of those, right? All these options should be open for gamers to pay through.

    I've used Paypal plenty when buying on ebay, even abroad, so a few pence/cents etc here or there, for them handling the payment, that they might take for themselves is nothing to me. Banks always take a cut of your money anyway, somehow, and look how much we trusted them, and what they did with it all. Think about that.

    In truth, everyone has dirty hands and food on their face, but still deny they ate anything.

  • JumpinJackFlash #63 3 months ago

    Piracy is on almost every platform out there. Not just the PC. Publishers just ignore the problem on consoles and kid themselves on as if it's not there in the first place. Piracy is here to stay and will never be eradicated.

    I know many who pirate every DS/PSP game, these same gamers can download any 360 game in 20 mins due to their 50MB connections.

    As for always needing to be online when playing certain games on the PC, this problem also exists on the 360 for XBL titles (assuming you haven't transferred your licences to your console). It's even worse on the 360 as you can only transfer content licenses every 4 month.

    If you use that licence and your system breaks (like mine did) you'll need a permanent internet connection to play your XBL titles until the 4 month period is up. It's a pain in arse.

  • v.profane #64 3 months ago

    @spekkeh The 'normal' prices on Steam aren't cheap but there's at least one game a week discounted to impulse buy level and there are several big sales a year (like the one on now) with lots of games heavily discounted. Steam IS cheap as long as you aren't bothered about buying the very latest games, and when you build up a big backlog of games bought for a Ł5 or less, which is very easy to do, you won't be.
    Edited by 1 at 28/11/11 @ 15:27

  • v.profane #65 3 months ago

    @weebl It's a non-issue because it doesn't matter how many people pirate as long there are plenty of people paying. Which there are.

  • jonfon #66 3 months ago

    @grussbarbar
    I'm confused by your post. You know that Steam doesn't require an online DRM check on every play session at all, that it will happily start in offline mode anyway and let you play your games without any sort of connection to the Steam Servers?

    The only time you need to be online is on the first run. After that the worst it does is warn you that you're in Offline mode and then when you start a game it reports that the game isn't connected to the Cloud to backup your saves.

    As long as the game is installed already you don't need to be online to play it via Steam, verified it myself last week when I was playing Oblivion on Steam even though my connection was down (hence the Cloud Save error).

    The Cloud Save came as a surprise to me recently. I upgraded from my laptop to my desktop a month or so ago and set all my Steam games downloading. When I played a few to go "Oooh, aaah" at my new system all my saved games had popped onto the machine too, even though I hadn't played some of them in 18 months. Kind of sums up why I love Steam, it did it all perfectly behind the scenes without making any sort of a song or dance about it.
    Edited by 1 at 28/11/11 @ 15:52

  • Paul_cz #67 3 months ago

    It is just too bad that steam itself also uses region locking on many games. I still cannot buy Rage on it for example, nor any DLC for New Vegas. So Gabe...how about talking about that?

    Or even better, how about looking at how CD Projekt does it with GOG.com, and doing the same? You know, one price for whole planet, no region restrictions, no additional DRM, huh? You have the power to do it, dammit.

  • zarathustra2k1 #68 3 months ago

    Anyone still wanting to collect discs-in-a-box these days must be suffering from some form of OCD. The benefits to digital distribution, Steamworks,cloud-based backups, etc., etc. FAR outweigh any cardboard-&-plastic to me.

    I was a pirate before the days of Steam. I had copies of games on my ZX81, Speccy, Trash-80, Amiga & even my PC pre-2006. I now have about 300 games on my Steam list &, what with the latest in a long line of sales (Autumn Sale), I'll be adding many more. I'm more than happy to be spending money on PC Gaming nowadays.

    Steam is all win. Keep up the good work, Gabe. You are the saviour of PC gaming. =]

  • IronCladChicken #69 3 months ago

    @NewbieZilla
    Just read the comments below yours (& from the 'I Am Alive' mews stories from las week) - It seems that there are plenty of console owners on EG who seem very angry that people use their PC's to play games (they maybe the same ones who were angry the Wii existed too?).

  • Jorendo #70 3 months ago

    @George-Roper Funny how console gamers work no? They only care for their own machine yet call pc gamer elitist. They fight silly wars among each other with "My PS3 is better then your xbox 360" but if a pc gamer says "Yeah you can't see the difference, beside on my pc it looks 10 times better" then you as pc gamer are a elitist. Yeah console fanboys, the curse of gaming, fake gamers who can't be reasoned with.

    They shout things they have no knowledge of what so ever. Shouting weird lines without any facts to proof it. Shouting and blaming others of what they do. In another article one of the console fanboys shouted when i said that the console has many torrents as well that we pc gamers are the blame for it. That we don't wanna pay for games and then come to the console and do the same. Gotta love fanboys with their stupidity. Serious i wonder how hard their parents dropped them at birth. This is nothing against console gamers, i own all consoles as well, this is against fanboys who only come to sites to shout at other platforms how hard they suck. Even here Gabe says it does not hurt their sales and they go like he doesn't know what he is talking about cause games still get pirated. While Gabe doesn't deny that he just says its a problem that always been there and has more reasons then just the money issue.

    Also about the game bizz not crying over pirated console games. They are mostly console favored. I was reading a article from someone who made shooters for the consoles and simply said that shooters don't work on the pc anymore, that the console have passed the pc on better controls. Well that is very funny cause remove auto aim and any other build in assists like if you shoot 2 meters next to the enemy it still registers as hit and the console gamers won't even be able to kill anymore. They done a test with CoD before. They let the best xbox CoD players play with the controller in CoD vs mediocore to not so good PC CoD gamers who used the mouse and keyboard....the xbox gamers with the controller got pwned big time that it was pathetic. But that's how good they are without auto aim and bigger hit boxes, then they can't even beat the not so good pc gamers. Yet pro console devs shout that shooters are better on the console uhu if you want a dumped down easy version sure.

    There is a massive hate towards the pc and especially to the pc users yet they cry when the games get pirated. And console fanboys sure love this cause it feeds them with new hatred material even though they pirate the shit out of music and movies but in their eyes that's not the same. Everyone has pirated a game before, everyone has downloaded music without paying and hell everyone "borrowed a movie from the internet without the owners knowledge. Those who say they haven't lie and probably own a huge library with illegal movies. Again i have nothing against console gamers, only the fanboys who shout things just to piss people off.

  • weebl #71 3 months ago

    @v.profane Perhaps true from a profit point of view, but do you think that Nintendo has the same outlook given how many DS games have been pirated, against the profits that they have made on game sales?

  • DodgyPast #72 3 months ago

    <quote>Paul_cz wrote:
    It is just too bad that steam itself also uses region locking on many games. I still cannot buy Rage on it for example, nor any DLC for New Vegas. So Gabe...how about talking about that?

    Or even better, how about looking at how CD Projekt does it with GOG.com, and doing the same? You know, one price for whole planet, no region restrictions, no additional DRM, huh? You have the power to do it, dammit.</quote>

    Region locking and pricing have nothing to do with Valve. They follow the requirements of the publishers.

    They do seem pretty good a persuading the publishers to offer deals and informing their customers of those deals.

  • Fox89 #73 3 months ago

    I agree. Pirating games isn't even a temptation for me anymore thanks to Steam. I'll open up Steam once every day, and quite often I'll spot a special offer on some game or another and think "Oh hey, I'll give it a go."

    3 clicks later the game is purchased and downloading, and I have a clear conscience. Great service doesn't eliminate piracy by any stretch of the imagination, but it certainly makes it a much less attractive option.

  • SpaceMonkey77 #74 3 months ago

    @Jorendo

    Okay, calm yourself, sir. While someone else might comment, try not to take it so personally. Like I said before, though, exclusivity and money play into gamers not having every format game are released on, and thus some devide themselves into camps, to sell, promote and wave a happy flag for their chosen format.

    But please note, that not all gamers are like that. Please try to not let others ruffle your feathers.

    I'm sure we are all about the games we love, or have yet to try, regardless of what format they grace. I know that while I might favour my 360 for regular gaming, I've experienced several cool games and many different formats down the years, PC included.

    Just purchased a new PC after ducking out of it for a decade, due to the 'keeping up with the jones upgrade nightmares', so I'll be enjoying some good PC titles, pro and indie games alike. My mind is open to that, but plenty of other peoples can be myopicly closed. I pity anyone, who thinks that way.

    My next PC game I have my eye on, is Eye: Divine Cybermancy. League of Legends looks cool too.




    So Jorendo, always remember and be safe in the knowledge that, the PC put todays (and tomorrows consoles where they are (especially features wise). On top of that, games are created on them too, so they play an invaluable part in this industry.

  • azic #75 3 months ago

    @gotyourmoney
    By you stating the obvious I mean me not knowing what every PC gamer is doing!!!
    Well unless I have crystal ball then no I don't.

    You stated the vast majority pirate, why the hell would I be mooting that point if you did not?

    Clearly if the vast stole games steam would be dead, as would GG.

    Just get over it, your below the comprehension of the conversation, your 2 literal and of course you can debate what you don't know... How does being convicted in a court room work? It's called being " found guilty" based on evidence...

    And in this case.... Evidence says the vast do not pirate as you said.

  • arremelle #76 3 months ago

    steam is an excellent system, all my PC games in one place and on multiple machines as well.

    there are some real bargains on there as well, lots of sales. Only a week or so ago bought Elder Scrolls Oblivion for Ł3.74, a steal for a such a game.

  • moonshire #77 3 months ago

    This man gets it! The devs finally gets it!

  • grussbarbar #78 3 months ago

    @jonfon
    wait, now I am confused. I always understood that the online check before every play session was compulsory, both through what I read online and what my friends told me...

    Could it be that Oblivion is a special case, since it's also available without Steam support? (I have a non-Steam collector's edition myself.) I read somewhere that Oblivion had cloud save support added to it later on, so it wasn't part of the original package. Could that be it?

    Otherwise I've been mistaken all along, which would be very good news. (And thank you very much for telling me then!)

    Can somebody clarify how this works with newer Steamworks games, like Civilization V, Deus Ex: Human Revolution and TES V: Skyrim? Do you need to connect to the Steam server everytime you want to play these games or can you just not connect, get an error message and play anyway?

  • Jorendo #79 3 months ago

    @SpaceMonkey77 Like i said, i have nothing against normal console gamers. Only agains the fanboys that come here and seek any kind of excuse to bash another platform again. I own a xbox 360 myself, i own the PS3 and even the wii. I got nothing against console gamers, only against fanboys. I cheer for a wide variation of gamers.

    But what pisses me off is that these fanboys and Ubisoft keep blaming the pc gamers as a entire group and not listening to what is said at all. I seen many fanboys say that we pc gamers ruin the game industry. Shall i remind these console fanboys that the dreamcast stop excisting cause of the piracy? That it got killed cause everyone just downloaded the games instead of buying them? Yet these fanboys don't know these things. They shout stuff to piss us off or shout things without knowing what they talk about. Just like Ubisoft does. Let me make a good example how Ubisoft is treating the pc gamers atm. And this is not something i made up, this is how Ubisoft atm works with pc gamers:

    Lets pretend Ubisoft is your local game store. You come there to buy one of their pc games. After you paid your 50 euro the guy suddenly says "Well thank you for your money, you can play the game only here in the store so we are sure you aren't pirating it. But our computers is occupied atm, and on frequent base so yeah you can't always play when you want too" you will think the guy gone insane when he says that too you. But this is exactly what DRM is. But it get worse, you complain about it that you bought the game legally and you just wanna play it but then he says "Well stop bitching you whining pc gamer cause you pirate the game anyway" how would you react if a game shop would do this to you? That's not good business. But this is what Ubisoft does to PC gamers who legally buy the games. They punish the legal buyers for the actions of pirates. And hell if you bought that game and the shop only lets you play it in their store you will go home and will pirate the game no? Or like me and others you refuse to buy games from them anymore. Result is either way that they lose customers, either to piracy or just people who refuse to touch their products again. But Ubisoft still points their finger to the pc gamer, not to themselfs.

    Also one thing they have to explain to me. They and the fanboys here shout that DRM is a good protection, that it works. But how is it working if Ubisoft keeps saying that 95% of their games get pirated. Wasn't DRM suppose to prevent it? Yet all their games still get pirated. I don't know but to me that sounds like your system is failing so why keep using it with the knowledge it drives legal buyers away? Knowing that most people in the game industry openly said that DRM is a fail product? This isn't stuff i make up, these are facts. If DRM is so good then why can pirates play the games when ever they want, without a constant internet connection and without any hinder while i as legal buyer am confronted with no acces cause the DRM server is offline again or my internet disconnected for what ever reason.

    The fanboys don't understand this, or rather not wanna understand it they just wanna bash another platform.

    Sorry that i said console gamers without adding fanboys before it all the time, but i meant in my other posts only the console fanboys you see fighting each other as well when a game came on both systems and both convinced theirs looks at least 100 times then the other console.

  • Jorendo #80 3 months ago

    @grussbarbar Only the first time you need to be online. After that you can play your games in steam on offline mode. So even if your internet stops working you can still play the games.

  • grussbarbar #81 3 months ago

    @Jorendo

    That's fantastic! Thanks for telling me! ^_^ This removes the biggest gripe I apparently mistakenly had with Steam, and I'll finally be able to feel good about buying and playing the 3 games I named. =)

  • jonfon #82 3 months ago

    @grussbarbar
    Nope, as far as I've ever experienced it I've never had a game refuse to work because when I was offline due to lack of connection.

    However at one point on my old laptop I used to get blocked a year or two ago with an error along the lines of "Cannot connect to Steam Network and there are no user credentials stored on the machine so Steam cannot start", I had to go digging through the options and switch something on (I wish I could tell you exactly what) so that it would remember the credentials I connected with in the past and start in Offline mode for me.

    Any game from Ubisoft might have extra "You need to be connected to play this" checks, I'm not sure. I refuse to buy Ubisoft games on PC because of their DRM stance. Other publishers might make you jump through additional hoops too, but my Steam based GOTY Oblivion works fine, as does Fallout NV (I've tried both in the last few weeks in preparation for Skyrim which I'm waiting until Xmas for)

  • v.profane #83 3 months ago

    @weebl Profit IS the point of view of a business. I've no idea what Nintendo has to do with Steam or PC gaming. If Nintendo aren't happy with the money they make from software then they need to make their games more attractive to buy. Perhaps they could start by realising that the 'casual' market that they've spent a fortune marketing toward are not people who are going to buy more than a couple of games a year, if that.

  • Jorendo #84 3 months ago

    @v.profane It was about pirating and that many people say its only a pc problem while consoles and handhelds got the same problems, even as much as the pc. Nintendo was mentioned cause they had to make drastic measures to prevent pirating, namely if you used the R4 chip with a rom on it it would make it unable to play games at all anymore, even legal bought games.

    Nintendo saw a huge drop in the profit when the R4 chip came on the market. It was even easier then pc pirating. It almost killed the DS. Thats why the profit thing and Nintendo got mentioned.
    Edited by 1 at 29/11/11 @ 16:00

  • grussbarbar #85 3 months ago

    @jonfon

    OK, thanks for taking the time to reply! I'm very glad to be mistaken this time. XD

  • sourc0r #86 3 months ago

    @SpaceMonkey77 did you actually read the article? Gabe said it was NO pricing issue and that pretty much reflects the situation on Steam. have a look at the top sellers on Steam. people buy it anyway, no matter the costs. they just want it immediatelly and that seems to make up for the ridiculous prices

    of course, most people are being drawn by the cheap stuff, but publishers also make profit with new games on Steam.

  • Darksjeik #87 3 months ago

    Steam is an amazing service, it's pure convenience . The downloads, the auto updates, the auto defragment, cache verification. All that background work being done on your games is fantastic. Let alone the hotlink to your games' specific forums.

    Pure class which I'm more than happy to pay for.

  • Darksjeik #88 3 months ago

    BTW I'm confident if pc piracy didn't exist, more developers would invest deeper in the platform. We'd see more high end PC exclusives showcasing the fact we're on hardware so powerful it eats consoles and shits out tablets.

    The Witcher 2 was amazing and that got stolen 4,5 million times. Way to thank the devs for their hard work.