| This makes me think of GabeN's 2011 commentary on expanding Steam into notoriously hax0r-infested Russia: the smart money scoffed at the prospect, keenly aware that the Russkies will just steal your product and why not make it that much harder for them to get their hands on it? “Russia now outside of Germany is our largest continental European market [...] The people who are telling you that Russians pirate everything are the people who wait six months to localize their product into Russia. It doesn't take much in terms of providing a better service to make pirates a non-issue.” [0] "We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem," he said. "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." [1] I for one absolutely have more money than I once did, but to be honest I stopped pirating long before that in '09 or '10, once I realized that the then-ridiculous Humble Bundles and Steam sales reduced the actual expenditure required from "gotta save up" to a mere "gotta skip buying takeout tonight". Of course the sales have decreased in quality since then, but so too has the number of games I want to play, and the time I can spend doing it. [0] https://www.pcgamer.com/gabe-newell-on-piracy-and-steams-suc... [1] http://www.escapistmagazine.com/Valves-Gabe-Newell-Says-Pira... |