Re:Netflix crushed the Latin American password black market
by danpalmer on Monday October 09, 2023 @01:10PM
(#37822648)
> Video streaming services need to take Gabe Newell's words to heart. Steam still heavily beats pirating games, and so I pay up for games
Absolutely. I do think there are subtle differences and bits of strategy that are often overlooked here though.
First off, the risk of using pirated games is significantly higher than that of pirated music/films/tv. You can't put malware in a video/audio file (modulo codec bugs), but it's fairly trivial with a game binary.
Secondly though, Steam has sales, regularly. The amount I care about content exists on a spectrum. I'll pay $30 to see the new Dune film in an IMAX cinema, but the 87th episode of House MD is probably not worth $1 to me. TV/Movie companies never seemed to understand this, with things like buying on iTunes, and it was left to retailers to sometimes price down DVDs, but even then there were restrictions (e.g. Disney). Streaming sort of solved this, but is now un-solving it with so many streaming services having their own pricing setup based on their perceived value of their content.
Steam nicely side-steps this with a range of sale prices – I can buy stuff I care about soon/predictably at high price, or I can buy stuff I don't care about later/unpredictably at a low price. And I do buy across a range of price points based on how much I care about the content.
Edit: another aspect that is maybe under-valued is that Steam doesn't seem to do regional releases. I've never experienced a game not being available in a region. However with TV/movies/streaming this is regularly the case. It's so common for a hit TV series to come out in the US, for the online discourse to be in full swing, and for the studio to just have plans to maybe possibly launch it in select other countries in a year's time. How did they think most people in the world were watching Game of Thrones?
Absolutely. I do think there are subtle differences and bits of strategy that are often overlooked here though.
First off, the risk of using pirated games is significantly higher than that of pirated music/films/tv. You can't put malware in a video/audio file (modulo codec bugs), but it's fairly trivial with a game binary.
Secondly though, Steam has sales, regularly. The amount I care about content exists on a spectrum. I'll pay $30 to see the new Dune film in an IMAX cinema, but the 87th episode of House MD is probably not worth $1 to me. TV/Movie companies never seemed to understand this, with things like buying on iTunes, and it was left to retailers to sometimes price down DVDs, but even then there were restrictions (e.g. Disney). Streaming sort of solved this, but is now un-solving it with so many streaming services having their own pricing setup based on their perceived value of their content.
Steam nicely side-steps this with a range of sale prices – I can buy stuff I care about soon/predictably at high price, or I can buy stuff I don't care about later/unpredictably at a low price. And I do buy across a range of price points based on how much I care about the content.
Edit: another aspect that is maybe under-valued is that Steam doesn't seem to do regional releases. I've never experienced a game not being available in a region. However with TV/movies/streaming this is regularly the case. It's so common for a hit TV series to come out in the US, for the online discourse to be in full swing, and for the studio to just have plans to maybe possibly launch it in select other countries in a year's time. How did they think most people in the world were watching Game of Thrones?