6 ms·

Steam is the ultimate example that piracy is a service problem

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
Yes and no. People don't pirate PS5 games not because Sony's service is so good, but because the device is so secure that piracy is virtually impossible on it, so getting games the legal way is also the only way. The PC was and still is, way too open for that to be achievable, though they have tried with various malware DRM, including Sony. With the PC being so open, it became a battleground to competition, which led to prices being so low.
- junon 3y ago
  Ehhhh I don't think DRM is why Steam is succeeding. By that logic, GoG should have taken over. I think Gabe's original assessment is mostly correct - making things easily obtainable is more important than making them free.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    >Ehhhh I don't think DRM is why Steam is succeeding. I never claimed that DRM was the only reason. >making things easily obtainable is more important than making them free No, it's because of competition. The PC being so open and not locked down to a single entity who can engage in rent-seeking like the console vendors, means not just piracy but an unlimited ways and sources you can get media on the device which means competition, which drives down prices.
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      Rent-seeking seems a silly term here. If you just mean "charging a fortune" then there are other consoles to buy. And consoles are luxury goods, so if they get too expensive people just won't buy them in the first place.
      - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        I beg to differ. Piracy and mod-chips on earlier consoles was rampant (in my country). Anyone I knew with a PS2 had it 'chipped' and only had pirated games because the price of the console (which was also a DVD player) was more easily digestible than the price of original games which came at huge mark-ups to compensate for the console HW which were sold at a loss in the eerier stages.
        robertlagrant 3y ago
        I don't understand; how is selling a console at a loss "rent-seeking"?
        FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        I never said that nor was that my point. You're connecting unrelated dots from my arguments.
        robertlagrant 3y ago
        I'm trying to make what you're saying make sense. I said I don't think rent-seeking is a good term for this. You begged to differ.
  - wink 3y ago
    Just little QoL things can make or break it. Steam: Is kinda reasonable with keeping me logged in ON MY OWN DAMN HARDWARE. Ubisoft Connect: Hi, it's you. You seem to have a different IP after your ISP's 24h disconnect. PLEASE LOG IN to play this single player game. But then you have companies like Square Enix where their website process to buy a game was so convoluted that people went to Steam just because it was 5 clicks and not 50.
wincy 3y ago
As my little ones have gotten older it is a little annoying my kid can’t play a game on the steam deck hooked up to the TV downstairs while I want to play Baldur’s Gate 3 on my main PC. I own both games, what the heck?
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  You can. Buy a $20 USB C dock with an HDMI port, start "Offline mode" on the steam deck, child plugs into TV and plays game just fine, you go upstairs and play game just fine. Alternatively, turn off internet on your personal computer and play game, and let the little one use wireless streaming to your TV. Basically, one of them has to be in offline mode. That is a stupid thing, but valve intends for "offline mode" to be a day to day use case of the Steam Deck
  - em-bee 3y ago
    does that work with online games too?
    - mrguyorama 3y ago
      As in like multiplayer? No, you cannot play multiple multiplayer games on one steam account at the same time. This is not different from other platforms, where I don't think you can use the same Xbox account on multiple systems to play online games at the same time. The simple answer is any game you can play without a wifi connection can be played in offline mode.
      - em-bee 3y ago
        well, i mean any games that require online access even if they are not multiplayer. i am just trying to understand how that would work. as far as i can tell there is really no reason for this not to work as long as those games don't use steam services that require an active steam login. i can run multiple steam multiplayer games in parallel on the same machine, so why shouldn't i be able to do this on multiple machines? the same as if i buy multiple games independently. steam, and any other platform is a game license manager. as steam allows me to use one license for a game on multiple machines, it should not be a licensing problem to play a different game on a different machine on the same account. i don't have steam on multiple machines so i can't test it, but what i could test is that games are able to access the network even if steam is offline. what doesn't work in offline mode is logging into games that use the steam account as identification, or that connect the game account to the steam account. but even those do seem to continue to work if the steam client goes offline after logging in. games that do not use the steam account should allow logging in even from offline mode.
l_f 3y ago
Most people i know who pirate games are doing it to because it's free. I don't think it has anything to do with steam or any other service.
- Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
  There are plenty of people that know where to go to pirate games and still choose to pay for them, and not even just out of principle. I like that if a patch comes out which fixes bugs and adds features, I'm guaranteed that it works immediately. I don't have to wait for a new version of the crack to come out that cracks the new version. I like that multiplayer always works. I like that I can access the Steam Workshop. I like never having to worry if the latest crack is going to include malware. None of that is guaranteed if I pirate the game. As a side note, I just discovered that GameCopyWorld not only still exists, it's still using the same style as it did 20 years ago.
- anon4242 3y ago
  If you still pirate games in 2023 then it's because free is more important to you than anything else. But back when Steam launched it was much more of a hassle to get a game: First you needed to go to a physical store miles away and once you got there the game you wanted may have been sold out. And then there was seldom any sales, except the box of mixed five-year-old games no one wanted by the counter (only $1.99) that you could rummage through and hopefully find a gem. "Darn, they were out of Half-Life[1] but maybe this copy of Strike Squad[2] will be fun while I wait for two weeks for the next batch of Half-Life?" Also note that while a five-year-old game today will barely look dated, back in those days it's the difference between [1] and [3]. Then when you came home to finally install the game, the CD was scratched and the game wouldn't install. And typically the installer didn't notice this until it had reached 95% after 45 minutes of waiting. The StarCraft CDs were notoriously bad in this respect and you needed to treat them like delicate flower petals. "Eh, my StarCraft CD no longer works, can I borrow yours? NOO!" So for those of us, who pirated StarCraft after the third authentic CD had broken down, Steam was a godsend. [1] https://www.mobygames.com/game/155/half-life/screenshots/ https://www.mobygames.com/game/155/half-life/screenshots/ [2] https://www.mobygames.com/game/9899/strike-squad/screenshots/ https://www.mobygames.com/game/9899/strike-squad/screenshots... [3] https://www.mobygames.com/game/1068/doom/screenshots/ https://www.mobygames.com/game/1068/doom/screenshots/

Yes and no. People don't pirate PS5 games not because Sony's service is so good, but because the device is so secure that piracy is virtually impossible on it, so getting games the legal way is also the only way. The PC was and still is, way too open for that to be achievable, though they have tried with various malware DRM, including Sony. With the PC being so open, it became a battleground to competition, which led to prices being so low.

junon 3y ago
Ehhhh I don't think DRM is why Steam is succeeding. By that logic, GoG should have taken over. I think Gabe's original assessment is mostly correct - making things easily obtainable is more important than making them free.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >Ehhhh I don't think DRM is why Steam is succeeding. I never claimed that DRM was the only reason. >making things easily obtainable is more important than making them free No, it's because of competition. The PC being so open and not locked down to a single entity who can engage in rent-seeking like the console vendors, means not just piracy but an unlimited ways and sources you can get media on the device which means competition, which drives down prices.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    Rent-seeking seems a silly term here. If you just mean "charging a fortune" then there are other consoles to buy. And consoles are luxury goods, so if they get too expensive people just won't buy them in the first place.
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      I beg to differ. Piracy and mod-chips on earlier consoles was rampant (in my country). Anyone I knew with a PS2 had it 'chipped' and only had pirated games because the price of the console (which was also a DVD player) was more easily digestible than the price of original games which came at huge mark-ups to compensate for the console HW which were sold at a loss in the eerier stages.
      - robertlagrant 3y ago
        I don't understand; how is selling a console at a loss "rent-seeking"?
        FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        I never said that nor was that my point. You're connecting unrelated dots from my arguments.
        robertlagrant 3y ago
        I'm trying to make what you're saying make sense. I said I don't think rent-seeking is a good term for this. You begged to differ.
- wink 3y ago
  Just little QoL things can make or break it. Steam: Is kinda reasonable with keeping me logged in ON MY OWN DAMN HARDWARE. Ubisoft Connect: Hi, it's you. You seem to have a different IP after your ISP's 24h disconnect. PLEASE LOG IN to play this single player game. But then you have companies like Square Enix where their website process to buy a game was so convoluted that people went to Steam just because it was 5 clicks and not 50.

wincy 3y ago

As my little ones have gotten older it is a little annoying my kid can’t play a game on the steam deck hooked up to the TV downstairs while I want to play Baldur’s Gate 3 on my main PC. I own both games, what the heck?

mrguyorama 3y ago
You can. Buy a $20 USB C dock with an HDMI port, start "Offline mode" on the steam deck, child plugs into TV and plays game just fine, you go upstairs and play game just fine. Alternatively, turn off internet on your personal computer and play game, and let the little one use wireless streaming to your TV. Basically, one of them has to be in offline mode. That is a stupid thing, but valve intends for "offline mode" to be a day to day use case of the Steam Deck
- em-bee 3y ago
  does that work with online games too?
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    As in like multiplayer? No, you cannot play multiple multiplayer games on one steam account at the same time. This is not different from other platforms, where I don't think you can use the same Xbox account on multiple systems to play online games at the same time. The simple answer is any game you can play without a wifi connection can be played in offline mode.
    - em-bee 3y ago
      well, i mean any games that require online access even if they are not multiplayer. i am just trying to understand how that would work. as far as i can tell there is really no reason for this not to work as long as those games don't use steam services that require an active steam login. i can run multiple steam multiplayer games in parallel on the same machine, so why shouldn't i be able to do this on multiple machines? the same as if i buy multiple games independently. steam, and any other platform is a game license manager. as steam allows me to use one license for a game on multiple machines, it should not be a licensing problem to play a different game on a different machine on the same account. i don't have steam on multiple machines so i can't test it, but what i could test is that games are able to access the network even if steam is offline. what doesn't work in offline mode is logging into games that use the steam account as identification, or that connect the game account to the steam account. but even those do seem to continue to work if the steam client goes offline after logging in. games that do not use the steam account should allow logging in even from offline mode.

l_f 3y ago

Most people i know who pirate games are doing it to because it's free. I don't think it has anything to do with steam or any other service.

Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
There are plenty of people that know where to go to pirate games and still choose to pay for them, and not even just out of principle. I like that if a patch comes out which fixes bugs and adds features, I'm guaranteed that it works immediately. I don't have to wait for a new version of the crack to come out that cracks the new version. I like that multiplayer always works. I like that I can access the Steam Workshop. I like never having to worry if the latest crack is going to include malware. None of that is guaranteed if I pirate the game. As a side note, I just discovered that GameCopyWorld not only still exists, it's still using the same style as it did 20 years ago.
anon4242 3y ago
If you still pirate games in 2023 then it's because free is more important to you than anything else. But back when Steam launched it was much more of a hassle to get a game: First you needed to go to a physical store miles away and once you got there the game you wanted may have been sold out. And then there was seldom any sales, except the box of mixed five-year-old games no one wanted by the counter (only $1.99) that you could rummage through and hopefully find a gem. "Darn, they were out of Half-Life[1] but maybe this copy of Strike Squad[2] will be fun while I wait for two weeks for the next batch of Half-Life?" Also note that while a five-year-old game today will barely look dated, back in those days it's the difference between [1] and [3]. Then when you came home to finally install the game, the CD was scratched and the game wouldn't install. And typically the installer didn't notice this until it had reached 95% after 45 minutes of waiting. The StarCraft CDs were notoriously bad in this respect and you needed to treat them like delicate flower petals. "Eh, my StarCraft CD no longer works, can I borrow yours? NOO!" So for those of us, who pirated StarCraft after the third authentic CD had broken down, Steam was a godsend. [1] https://www.mobygames.com/game/155/half-life/screenshots/ https://www.mobygames.com/game/155/half-life/screenshots/ [2] https://www.mobygames.com/game/9899/strike-squad/screenshots/ https://www.mobygames.com/game/9899/strike-squad/screenshots... [3] https://www.mobygames.com/game/1068/doom/screenshots/ https://www.mobygames.com/game/1068/doom/screenshots/