The Secret to Combating Piracy is to Make Good Games - Valve

[Shawn Zipay]

Valve's philosophy on combating game piracy is a simple one: create good games that are given huge post-release support. In speaking with Destructoid, Valve's Doug Lombardi laid out their unique take on piracy.

"We always see these overall numbers, like how much money GameStop's making per year off of used game sales," he says, "but we really don't have a breakdown of details for those. I don't personally know, after being at Valve since Half-Life 1, how many copies of our games per year are sold used, and on the PC versus the 360, so I think there's a certain amount of information that's missing, sort of like piracy. I think a lot of folks cry piracy when a game fails to hit their forecast and it may or may not be part of the problem, and it may or may not be all of the problem, but I think to throw any one reason at any problem is probably a mistake, considering the lack of information on both fronts.

"Having said all that, though, I think that it's probably true to say that gamers tend to have affinity for the games that they like, so if you're doing your job and making a good game, and providing a high level of service for that game at the time of release and post-release, I'm guessing you're probably less of a victim of piracy and trade, because people want to have the full copy, the legal copy, and have all the updates.

"I think there are ways of curbing both piracy and used game sales by providing a higher level of service at the time of launch and post-launch. And I think what we're seeing, as platforms become more and more connected, that this problem will become less and less an issue as the idea of offering a service post-launch becomes more and more en vogue."

Do you, the readers of CS-Nation feel as though all companies need to do to curb piracy is offer up solid support for their top-tier releases?

[K-16]

Re: The Secret to Combating Piracy is to Make Good Games - Valve

This would definitely cheer the gaming community up, knowing mistakes and poorly tested issues can be addressed upon purchasing a product, rather than waiting for a sequel (this is in general and NOT about L4D2) to come out because the developers "don't have the resources to support legacy titles." Furthermore, games ported to other consoles would also experience a smoother transition when updates are provided to correct both the game's flaws and the previous update's flaws. And (though a minority to be honest) part of the community would also appreciate if companies stop ignoring flaws in the game that aren't "showstopper bugs" simply because businesses should only focus on things that are making them lose money (again, only a minority would agree with this for obvious reasons).

That said, note how I did not mention anything about piracy... I'm afraid I'm going to have to side with the developers on this one and say this won't reduce piracy more than say... ~20% with a source of error of +-10%? I believe there are a lot of pirates who do this "simply because they can." They don't actually care about supporting anyone, they want to be cheap-asses and pirate the game as long as the option is available. Unless developers cut their prices down to dangerous levels that would surely bankrupt them (Audiosurf for example, probably had their piracy levels demolished when they had that near-free deal on Steam), piracy will remain consistent for the sake of being an @$$. However, toughening anti-piracy software only pisses the legitimate customers off. I remember when people starting patching their Half-Life 2 installations just to bypass SecuROM. Were these people pirates? Hell no, they took photographs of their receipts after their Steam accounts got banned (good thing I didn't listen to my friend's advice and was patient enough to wait for VALVe to remove it themselves, but damn it was torture). The truth was (and SecuROM still hasn't figured it out judging from the live, but generic E-mail replies they gave me) SecuROM isn't compatible on all CD/DVD readers, so it actually has no ideas the disc was already inside. Pissing customers off with DRM and other restrictions would only have them turn to the people who know how to kill it within days... Yep... The pirates. Of course, the industry won't see that pattern. They'll just continue to haggle their accountants to cook the books until they really go bankrupt... Again. The cycle goes on.

[raptor552]

Re: The Secret to Combating Piracy is to Make Good Games - Valve

Valve is the last great publisher/developer left.

Activision and EA won't release games they can't "exploit" everyyear, and everything after release you have to PAY for. Things like maps and updates that used to be free, now cost more than the game cumulatively.

Keep it up valve. I always BUY games from you.

[K-16]

Re: The Secret to Combating Piracy is to Make Good Games - Valve

... I really don't think anything changed from the past. I think we're just spoiled from free mods and how the mod teams are more or less obligated to provide updates for free. Some venture into donationware though, but that's optional.

[milly9]

Re: The Secret to Combating Piracy is to Make Good Games - Valve

Well, it's true I have never pirated a Valve or Blizzard game

[IC dead people]

Re: The Secret to Combating Piracy is to Make Good Games - Valve

I've pirated Valve games, (CSS HL2 and L4D) then bought them cause I liked them!
Though I wish I hadn't bought L4D instead of waiting for L4D2-3-4-5-extended deluxe directors cut edition.