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> allowed Steam to overtake piracy

Let's not forget the pricing, as well. Older games are actually priced lower than most books and movies, which are still being artificially inflated by their respective distributors.

Let's also not forget Steam pricing policies for different regions. Until recently same games in Turkey were priced 5 times lower than in Switzerland.

To be fair, I’m guessing books have a longer tail than games. The vast majority of game sales for AAA games are at release.

> If you live outside of US/Canada and EU it is much harder to obtain books legally

I completely agree and even though I imagine countries outside of these have it much worse, even within the EU you can find massive differences between countries. For example, there is a much smaller selection in Eastern European countries vs. Western, and books are the same price or sometimes even pricier while wages are significantly lower.

>Interesting that Steam solved most of that problems for game distribution though. They have worldwide publishing agreements, regional prices AND good support of local payment providers in many countries. I think a lot of people underestimate how these factors allowed Steam to overtake piracy.

Sadly it is being ruined by people from first-world using VPNs. Many AAA stopped using regional prices and we're stuck paying the same cost as in the first world.

From the other side it feels just as unfair. When I lived of ~AU$200 a month, $100 towards rent, a new game was ~$100 in Aus. It was often much cheaper to buy physical copies from Asia and import.