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> He was saying that piracy can be reduced by making the product easily available. When it was easier to download a pirated version from home than to drive to the store and back and unwrap a physical CD, piracy was easier.

Could've sworn the original context was that he was referring to Russian piracy, where many of the games were not available there legally at the time, leaving piracy as the only recourse.

Yes, the original quote was narrowly directed.

He was making a pitch for Steam in a different time where digital distribution was not a thing.

Now digital distribution is the baseline and availability and ease of use are in favor of not pirating, but his quote is taken out of context to justify piracy anyway.

It is, although I think it can be applied more broadly without corrupting Gabe's original point.

For example, I can think of numerous instances in which people get pushed to piracy by, ironically, anti-piracy DRM software (e.g. Denuvo), which causes such inconvenience and performance degradation to the end-user that even if you have legitimately purchased the game, you will have a much better experience playing a cracked, DRM-free version of the game.

That would be a case where--for example--GOG might put forth their DRM-free versions of games as an example of how to successfully counter the "service" problem.

I think you're missing 2 factors in the service/distribution problem:

- pricing - for some kids some games are just too expensive, and they still want to play, and don't want to be left out;

- platform lock - this is more for emulation, where people don't want to buy a platform to play 1 or 2 IP;

I see Gabe's reference in both of those scenarios, because Steam always had good deals, while retailers didn't.

You might say: "in that case, some people are only willing to pay 0$ for a game, and they shouldn't have access to it."

While I understand it, I bet you a massive chunk of GTA V, RDR2, and soon GTA VI players that have available income now, had their first experiences with the series through piracy.

But I agree there's no nobility, just people that can't afford stuff, or don't value it enough to part with their money, but you can't assume they would be customers at the moment they get a copy.

> - pricing - for some kids some games are just too expensive, and they still want to play, and don't want to be left out;

This was me for a long, long time. I pirated games until I was into my late 20s simply because I couldn't afford to buy them. Now, with Steam, the idea of pirating a game is something I never think about.

I like pirating games because i can try before buying. More often than not i pretty quickly realise i was not going to get $60 of value from it, and I'm not willing to drop that kind of money on something i won't get much use out of even if i can afford it

Yeah I totally get that. I should've probably added that I'm squarely now a "patient gamer" and haven't played anything newer than CP2077; and I just bought that during the summer sale.

> - pricing - for some kids some games are just too expensive, and they still want to play, and don't want to be left out;

Sorry, but that’s life. Saying something is too expensive but you still want it doesn’t change anything.

> - platform lock - this is more for emulation, where people don't want to buy a platform to play 1 or 2 IP;

How is this relevant? You can’t play a pirated PS5 game without buying a PS5.

This is just another variant of your argument above that people want things but don’t want to pay for them.

> but you can't assume they would be customers at the moment they get a copy.

You can’t assume that every pirate would not be a customer if they couldn’t pirate.

Which means the sales would be higher without piracy. Which means piracy hurts revenue. The rest is hand waving.

"Sorry, but that's life."

I can say the same. Other people don't accept the terms you do. Sorry, that's life.

I agree that's life, but piracy is also derived from that's life.

And I'm not saying this to spite you, it comes from the same place, so much so there's a whole sub culture around it.

> You can’t assume that every pirate would not be a customer if they couldn’t pirate.

I never said that every pirate wouldn't be a customer, I'm saying the vast majority wouldn't be in the short term.

Of course I can't prove that in the long term, because what I know are anecdotes - but I'm pretty sure people develop nostalgia bonds with IP they pirated.

It would actually be an interesting study.

I will give you an example. Try to find the DLC's for the original Skyrim on Steam. Technically they exist, but Bethesda has requested Steam to delist them from the search and navigation. And they are not subject to the yearly discounts etc the base game is.

This is not far from piracy, but I got them on G2A. Same advice if you want to get Unreal Tournament and the original Prey on Steam.

Personally I wouldn’t have a problem with something like this for retro gaming for titles no longer available.

I’m not sympathetic to this argument in the context of current generation gaming for titles where developers are trying to sell them and making them easily available digitally.

> The easiest path is to buy the game digitally through the service on the device and play it directly. Pirating it is more work and harder to do.

You cannot buy a game digitally. You can only rent a license. Once there are laws in place that enable me to sell a game I bought on Steam via ebay we can call it buying.