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> How much either charges for the service has no bearing on that. This is just dodging the subject; I'm talking about net value. How valuable would Steam be to

> How much either charges for the service has no bearing on that. This is just dodging the subject; I'm talking about net value. How valuable would Steam be to you if it cost $100 a month to be a member? Anyways, my point was meant to be in the context of movies, which is what's offered by the linked service. Steam works because they sell games, not movies. Games aren't hard to pirate (a game's bits aren't any harder to get than a movie's), but pirated copies are hard to use compared to legal copies because it's easy to build games that require Internet connectivity to verify authenticity. No one minds this because they probably need the Internet to play the game in the first place (Google "World of Goo piracy" for an example of what can happen when just this one point doesn't hold true, and tell me again that piracy is just a service problem). People like to say Steam is "DRM done right" but it's not, it's just that it happens to be the case that the DRM doesn't require anything you don't already need to enjoy the content. Movies are obviously different. How would one offer a service that can beat piracy on convenience, when piracy offers un-DRMed files that you can use anywhere? It's conceivable, but how much would they be willing to charge for this service? Therein lies the rub. The root of the problem is that the movie industry does not agree with people's valuation of their content. They don't want to sell you a just-released movie, unDRMed, for a buck, or anything approaching the $0 that piracy charges. They'd rather keep their existing business model and try to raise the perceived risk of piracy. It's disingenuous to say that it's a service problem and not a pricing problem merely because the service doesn't exist, when the primary reason that the service doesn't exist is pricing. The movie industry isn't going to invest in building a service if they can't sell their content at the price point they want. The most important thing to note about Steam isn't the DRM, it's the prices. The content producers have conceded to the fact that they have to adjust their prices to match the public's perception of the value of their content. The movie industry hasn't made that concession. Yet.

fournm 13y ago
Piracy offers DRM free movies that you can use anywhere, sure. But very rarely does it have properly synced well-written subtitles, multiple audio tracks, and a quality encoding. Find a combination of those that works together without 30 minutes of fiddling with the subtitles and you've probably just wasted your weekend even if you frequent high quality private trackers. It's also generally harder (not impossible, mind--same as the above) to find extras like cast/crew commentary, blooper reels, etc. These wouldn't be hard for studios to provide in some theoretical Movie-Steam. Even in the case of games that don't use an internet connection to verify themselves, though, Steam is still more convenient--automatic patching without needing to try and find a new crack every time, no need to hunt down files or patches every time you want to reinstall, less concerns about malware, etc. If Steam had a monthly fee, I'd probably still see it as worth it up to a certain point--definitely not the 100$ you mention, but considering how much use I get out of it it isn't completely off the table.
- watwut 13y ago
  Legal DVDs have limited selection of subtitles and you can not rewind them 10 seconds back to review scene if I misunderstood. I downloaded even movies I own for that reason (downloading is legal here, uploading is not). I like to watch movies with english subtitles an dvd rarely have those. I do not care about extras. I do care about ability to jump where I want in the movie and about seeing movie I brought without warnings and ads.
  - endemic 13y ago
    +1 "seeing movie I brought without warnings and ads"
- w1ntermute 13y ago
  This program's site claims that it offers subtitles. I don't know about the quality though. I do know that subtitles haven't been an issue for me when downloading from private trackers. 30 minutes is a gross exaggeration.
- pantaril 13y ago
  >But very rarely does it have properly synced well-written subtitles, multiple audio tracks, and a quality encoding. My experience is diametraly different. Legal sources like netflix, TV or some DVD's are usualy low quality, cenzored and cropped versions, terribly dubbed with no original audio or subtitles. On the other hand, i have usually no problem finding pirated copy which has none of these issues.
deciplex 13y ago
Fair enough. Perhaps I missed your point, which seemed to be that since piracy is (nominally) free, then paid services can never beat it. But I don't agree he's being disingenuous. He's just speaking about the service problem in that particular quote. Gabe has also addressed the pricing issue in the past, talking mainly about how the sweet spot for maximizing profit on Steam is much lower than most people would have thought (the blog post is old, and it's been a while since I read it, but that's the gist). It's mostly a service problem IMO and also to a lesser extent a pricing problem, and if you asked Gabe he might say the same. Unfortunately that quote makes it seem like he thinks it can be one or the other, but that's not likely really true.
- downplay 13y ago
  If you had identical (very close) interfaces to the same content. It then becomes a moral choice. Currently I'm more satisfied with the illegal offerings, I've tried a subscription service: Lovefilm (which isn't amphibious), and look at many of my DVD boxsets, that have no value added content whatsoever. I have three seasons of very poor quality Star Trek episodes on DVD. Now I think the studios owe me a better quality version. Which I don't think I should pay for. In my mind you should just pay for the license to watch, listen, read... and it doesn't really matter about the medium of delivery.

fournm 13y ago

Piracy offers DRM free movies that you can use anywhere, sure. But very rarely does it have properly synced well-written subtitles, multiple audio tracks, and a quality encoding. Find a combination of those that works together without 30 minutes of fiddling with the subtitles and you've probably just wasted your weekend even if you frequent high quality private trackers. It's also generally harder (not impossible, mind--same as the above) to find extras like cast/crew commentary, blooper reels, etc. These wouldn't be hard for studios to provide in some theoretical Movie-Steam. Even in the case of games that don't use an internet connection to verify themselves, though, Steam is still more convenient--automatic patching without needing to try and find a new crack every time, no need to hunt down files or patches every time you want to reinstall, less concerns about malware, etc. If Steam had a monthly fee, I'd probably still see it as worth it up to a certain point--definitely not the 100$ you mention, but considering how much use I get out of it it isn't completely off the table.

watwut 13y ago
Legal DVDs have limited selection of subtitles and you can not rewind them 10 seconds back to review scene if I misunderstood. I downloaded even movies I own for that reason (downloading is legal here, uploading is not). I like to watch movies with english subtitles an dvd rarely have those. I do not care about extras. I do care about ability to jump where I want in the movie and about seeing movie I brought without warnings and ads.
- endemic 13y ago
  +1 "seeing movie I brought without warnings and ads"
w1ntermute 13y ago
This program's site claims that it offers subtitles. I don't know about the quality though. I do know that subtitles haven't been an issue for me when downloading from private trackers. 30 minutes is a gross exaggeration.
pantaril 13y ago
>But very rarely does it have properly synced well-written subtitles, multiple audio tracks, and a quality encoding. My experience is diametraly different. Legal sources like netflix, TV or some DVD's are usualy low quality, cenzored and cropped versions, terribly dubbed with no original audio or subtitles. On the other hand, i have usually no problem finding pirated copy which has none of these issues.

deciplex 13y ago

Fair enough. Perhaps I missed your point, which seemed to be that since piracy is (nominally) free, then paid services can never beat it. But I don't agree he's being disingenuous. He's just speaking about the service problem in that particular quote. Gabe has also addressed the pricing issue in the past, talking mainly about how the sweet spot for maximizing profit on Steam is much lower than most people would have thought (the blog post is old, and it's been a while since I read it, but that's the gist). It's mostly a service problem IMO and also to a lesser extent a pricing problem, and if you asked Gabe he might say the same. Unfortunately that quote makes it seem like he thinks it can be one or the other, but that's not likely really true.

downplay 13y ago
If you had identical (very close) interfaces to the same content. It then becomes a moral choice. Currently I'm more satisfied with the illegal offerings, I've tried a subscription service: Lovefilm (which isn't amphibious), and look at many of my DVD boxsets, that have no value added content whatsoever. I have three seasons of very poor quality Star Trek episodes on DVD. Now I think the studios owe me a better quality version. Which I don't think I should pay for. In my mind you should just pay for the license to watch, listen, read... and it doesn't really matter about the medium of delivery.