I always found this take a bit odd. Not because I think he's wrong necessarily, but because they realized that piracy is a service problem and then proceeded to fail to compete with piracy in a number of ways.
E.g., I don't need an account to pirate, but I need an account to purchase games on Steam. I don't need a launcher or extra software / external services to play pirated games, but Steam requires the launcher, which requires internet, which requires the Steam servers to be up, etc. I can archive pirated games long term and they're likely to continue working as like as computers exist to run the code, but many Steam titles will stop working when Steam shuts down. I can transfer pirated games to my kids or whatever when I'm done with them (or in my will when I die), but Steam doesn't allow either individual title transfers or wholesale account transfers.
It was always baffling to me that they simultaneously hit the nail on the head with identifying that there are advantages of piracy beyond cost while also seemingly going out of their way to not offer most of those advantages.
1 comment
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 9.5 ms ] threadE.g., I don't need an account to pirate, but I need an account to purchase games on Steam. I don't need a launcher or extra software / external services to play pirated games, but Steam requires the launcher, which requires internet, which requires the Steam servers to be up, etc. I can archive pirated games long term and they're likely to continue working as like as computers exist to run the code, but many Steam titles will stop working when Steam shuts down. I can transfer pirated games to my kids or whatever when I'm done with them (or in my will when I die), but Steam doesn't allow either individual title transfers or wholesale account transfers.
It was always baffling to me that they simultaneously hit the nail on the head with identifying that there are advantages of piracy beyond cost while also seemingly going out of their way to not offer most of those advantages.