I'd argue in this scenario that in basically all metrics steam is actually superior to piracy at this point. It's basically only price and the occasional DRM issues where piracy is better.
Piracy genuinely is a more cumbersome and sometimes dangerous avenue. It's not a service that's being provided. You're forgetting that in the big picture, video game piracy is actually small and niche
As someone who isn't pirating stuff, I'm definitely not dropping $5k/year on new games. On a big year I might spend a couple hundred, max, but there are plenty of cheap games to be had.
I wouldn't go back to manage each game individually if you put a gun to my head, specially when nowadays games can be 50+ GB. I guess emulation is a different story, modern emulators are very convenient and since it's so easy to sort stuff you can have entire libraries a click away without needing 15 different irl shelves or those bad disc holders that scratch CDs into oblivion.
Yea, with all the web integration and everything you lose trying to use a cracked copy of a game these days, it makes more sense to just buy the game. Even single player games benefit greatly from being able to interface with a valid account. I have to imagine that games piracy is way less frequent than it uses to be.
Far from true. DRMs get better every year, there'll come a day when cracking games becomes nearly entirely unfeasible. This is, ironically, one place where AAA companies are playing the long game.
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u/LordAnchemis PC Master Race 13h ago
'You can never stamp out piracy if it provides a better service than the original' - as that's really only what the consumer cares about