4 ms·
I am of a strong opinion that piracy is about access rather than stealing. Piracy for the most part is used by 2 types of people : 1. Those who would never ha
by screye 8y ago
I am of a strong opinion that piracy is about access rather than stealing.
Piracy for the most part is used by 2 types of people :
1. Those who would never have bought the product because of lack of income to do so.
2. Those who find the product to hard to access.
Steam is an excellent example of dealing with both. Steam sales and location specific prices solve problem 1. Everything one platform everywhere in the world solves 2.
- saganus 8y agoJust thinking out loud here, but, how long until Steam starts offering a Music service? Maybe not for big labels/artists, but if they did something like Greenlight for indie bands... I could see it working... Maybe. Or am I way off here?
- spencerflem 8y agoThey have a player, and sell soundtracks. It's not very good right now though.
- jarcane 8y agoI'd just as soon use Bandcamp honestly. Steam's attempts at media sales have been awful. Videos are broken and often won't play, music is usually just a handful of MP3s buried deep in the Steam folders.
- saganus 8y agoGood point. It never even occurred to me that they would sell music so no wonder they are bad a it, at least for now.
- jarcane 8y agoThanks to Steam I haven't bothered to pirate a PC game in nearly a decade. Thanks to Google Play, Spotify, and Bandcamp, the same can be said for music. Only TV and film really holds out. I just can't get my favorite shows in any sensible fashion, and so much just isn't even available to me. Netflix where I live at times feels like a waste of money save for a few favorite originals. TV especially is just awful, a lot of my favorite shows simply can't be had for any price, because of arbitrary exclusivity deals, time delays, bad organization, and region locking nonsense. Even if I cared for any of the local content here in my country, it's all spread out over multiple streaming sites, and quite a lot isn't available or has random availability.
- rospaya 8y agoSteam is in a great position since games aren't geographically as limited as music and video. This is why my Netflix sucks and someone elses doesn't, but my Steam selection is as good as any other.
- wilsonnb3 8y agoPeople bring Steam up as a counterpoint all the time but fail to mention the differences between pirating a game and pirating a movie or music. Playing a cracked game is less likely to work and more effort than playing a pirated mp3, which is a large part of the reason that Steam cut down so heavily on pirated games.