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Valve: 'Pirates Are Underserved Customers'
by Nick Breckon, Jan 19, 2009 11:48am PSTHow does Valve deal with PC piracy? According to Valve director of business development Jason Holtman, it gives them what they want--and makes a lot of money doing it.
"Pirates are underserved customers," said Holtman today during a speech at the Game Business Law summit, according to GameDaily.
"When you think about it that way, you think, 'Oh my gosh, I can do some interesting things and make some interesting money off of it.'"
Holtman used Valve's success in the Russian market as an example of how piracy can be reduced by simply selling the pirates what they want--when they want it.
Explained Holtman: "Russians are reading magazines and watching television--they say 'Man, I want to play that game so bad,' but the publishers respond, 'You can play that game in six months...maybe.' "
After ensuring that its products launch simultaneously in Russia, Holtman said that Valve's piracy rates in the territory "dropped off significantly."
Comments
who wants to spend $50+ on a game they can't return? a perfect example is saints row 2 on the PC. the performance is horrible. there's no demo, which is becoming more common these days (maybe because of lack of budget to create one in this economy).
and with steam games, you can't even resell them. so, it's like flushing money down the toilet. at least with Valve you get good customer support. and what about EA? you get a crap game that was rushed onto the shelves and horrible support. so for $50 all you get is pissed off. no thanks!
and with companies like Eidos trying to skew the reviewer ratings to sell more games, the market for PC games is even worse. every game i have now and still play is from Valve and on steam, with the exception of Crysis: Warhead, but that's still using steam.
for all other games, i use my Xbox 360.
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Natural selection has failed us. Thieving bastards.
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For example, Yahtzee's diatribe against Harmonix because they still haven't released Rock Band in Australia: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/452-Guitar-Hero-World-Tour
Rock Band is a bad example admittedly, but there are cases where something is released in one region, and doesn't show up in another until months (or years) later. The subtext of this act is the developer saying "I hate your market because it's not worthy to lick my filth-encrusted boots. Shove off!"
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Unfortunately, articles on piracy like to sensationalize everything anyone says on the topic and make it sound like the end-all be-all. Some developers also like to say easily-sensationalized things. Like that pirates are under-served customers.
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I said it before and I'll say it again, most people from US (and parts of Europe) don't realize why some markets default to high degrees of piracy simply because they live in a different reality. Having all games available a block away from you on release day is very different from having it available only many months after it is available, if at all. That sort of situation creates a different kind of game fan, one which piracy is an integral part of keeping up with the rest of the world.
What he says should be pretty obvious to anyone coming from "lesser" markets, but heck if the publishers care.
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a) Can
b) Are lazy, self satisfied pieces of shit that don't want to support the very developers that make games for them? And then when developers talk about piracy, they try to blame them? What a bunch of douche clowns.
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o_o
But now that I read this, I'm halfway with them.
If they have to wait 6months+ for a game to release which has already been international released I'd just follow and try to increase the boycot. (see, it works.)
And no..the game will not be the same after the 6 months of waiting and seeing friends play other games and finding more or less empty servers.
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Oh wait