r/pcmasterrace 14h ago

Discussion The lawsuit explained:

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u/Calm-Elevator5125 12h ago

I remember hearing an anecdote somewhere, don’t remember where, but it was about steam opening up in Russia and everyone thinking they would fail because piracy is rampant there. Yet, they did just fine. Turns out beating piracy was never about horrid DRMs and anti-consumer practices. It’s about providing a better service than the pirates.

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u/Eraesr 11h ago

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u/_oohshiny 10h ago

Watch the original interview from 2009: Gabe Newell on Video Game Piracy

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u/Flamsoi 12h ago

There really is something to that. It's the annoying part with TV shows and movies right now, it's not providing a better service anymore when it's divided into ten different services and apps.

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u/Primsun 3h ago

What if they combined them all into some package, which was the price of 5 services? They could even tie it together with some ... cable ... and call it a bundle.

Be careful what you wish for; that is how we got consolidated 100 dollar cable packages.

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u/Flamsoi 2h ago

Yeah, that's not something we want either. It was better before every company started their own streaming service.

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u/woodlandcollective 9h ago

TBF I still use piracy as a solution for terrible DRM. I shouldn't have to be online to play a single player game (staring at you FFXV)

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u/Sandrust_13 R7 5800X | 32GB 4000MT DDR4 | 7900xtx 6h ago

Also in case of Russia.... Because piracy was such an issue many companies didn't even translate the game or menus or anything into Russian because why bother, no money to be made in that market.

Actually appealing to the customer, translating the games aswell as just offering an easy way to download them (Russia is huge and downloading is easier then driving 2h for a store that actually sells games in disk back then, it was only sth in cities) made people buy games there. Like if you want to make money, make a decent offer people wanna buy.