I've often said that while many publishers and developers whine about piracy and the PC market, there's a little company called Valve which rarely seems to bitch about it. Valve's Jason Holtman may provide a clue as to why that is, as he's revealed the developer's philosophy that pirates are just "underserved customers."
"There's a big business feeling that there's piracy," explains Holt. "[But] pirates are underserved customers ... When you think about it that way, you think, 'Oh my gosh, I can do some interesting things and make some interesting money off of it.'
"[At Valve] we take all of our games day-and-date to Russia. The reason people pirated things in Russia is because Russians are reading magazines and watching television -- they say 'Man, I want to play that game so bad,' but the publishers respond 'you can play that game in six months...maybe.'
"We found that our piracy rates dropped off significantly [by releasing in Russia]... [There are] tons of undiscovered customers..."
Valve is a company that seems to truly know how to cultivate and appreciate customer loyalty. While screwing over EA or Activision doesn't sound like a big deal, I think it takes a real special breed of arsehole to rip off Valve. It's great to see a company that understands the power of loyalty, and works with its consumers, instead of against them.
Maybe a few other companies should stop just sitting there thinking "poor me" and actually do the same kind of good work.
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
11:40 AM on 01.16.2009
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A company doesn't have to target a certain market or demographic if it's not part of their business model. The PS3 just isn't one of Valve's priorities.
Also, when you have a GoTY disc of the original Halflife, Steam will also give you the expansions!
I think with that kind of service, and service with ease, theres no real need TO pirate valve games.
Just buy a Visa gift card at a store with cash and use that on Steam.
They cultivate loyalty these days with DRM.
Hardly. Any instances of regular DRM (i.e. SecuROM etc.) on a Steam-sold game are the results of special deals and requirements put forward by the publisher in order to be sold via Steam.
I conducted an amateur test of Steam's DRM and it's the most liberal digital distribution system on the market today, short of actual software piracy.
I pirate is indeed an underserved customer in a market you haven't figured out how to break into.
RIAA/MPAA and many game companies could learn a lot from Valve.
Yes, there will always be people who want something for nothing. There is no way to be able to get money from those people.
But Valve has at least done the right thing and looked at it from a "what can we do go turn them from pirates to purchasers" perspective whereas EA and the rest view it from "How the f@$k do we pound the f#^king hell out of those pirates, even if it means that legitimate customers get screwed in the process?"
The other top thing is that Valve have cultivated a great mod community, providing tools and letting the user run with the creative ball (and not worrying about damn copyright stuff...points finger at Sony/Media Molicule). The results are cool stuff like Portal and Left 4 Dead.
In short, when Valve give, they cleverly get something back in return and everyone is happy.
It's weird but buying a Valve game actually kinda makes me happy. I'm pretty much certain of getting a good game and I'm helping an awesome company. It's all win win!
linuxguy, it's true that Valve is ignoring linux. If I recall correctly they had a linuxclient for HL1 ready to be shipped but for some reason it got axed. If there was steam for linux I'd be all over it.
Also the orange box on PS3 is a complete disaster. Since a firmware update released a while back none of the games can be played without terrible crackling noises coming from the speakers.
I do like Valve games I just don't think they are the greatest thing ever.