Was he right? | TheaterFire

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Moore2257@reddit

Tbh, I haven't pirated anything since Steam, so it kinda worked, I guess.

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I still download movies and tv shows. I use Steam for my video games and Spotify for music. In a related story, those are reasonable, usable services, while the tv streaming space is a mess of like ten different services.

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kerm1tthefrog@reddit

I never in my life bought a movie, and I plan to continue. I see no point in owning a copy of a movie. Games on other hand I complete stopped pirating (and playing sadly :(

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-TehTJ-@reddit

I still YouTube to MP3 a lot of my music so I don’t blow my data.

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-TehTJ-@reddit

I still YouTube to MP3 a lot of my music so I don’t blow my data.

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DrHerbs@reddit

I’m with that, steam is more convenient than pirating, and foreign streaming sites are easier then the cable TV-esque streaming world

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ObjectiveSeaweed5787@reddit

Same.

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TheyCallMeMrMaybe@reddit

Steam sales were everything in the early-to-mid 2010s. Games were so cheap, you could get a $50 steam card and load your library up with dozens of AAA games because they were discounted so heavily. That is how & why Steam beats piracy.

The extra DRM measures like Denuvo other, worse DRM's, are what is keeping piracy afloat. Because pirates games with that crappy bloatware removed run a lot better than with it running in the background.

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Maximillion322@reddit

Steam sales have me spending moneu filling up my library with games I’ll probably never even play. It’s like reverse piracy

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ReallyDumbRedditor@reddit

I'm confused, are they not a thing anymore? Steam sales are still going on and plenty of AAA games get big discounts still....

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TheyCallMeMrMaybe@reddit

Discounts on newer games weren't as big as they used to be.

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micahamey@reddit

A few things stopped me from continuing to pirate stuff.

Ease of access for games.

Cheaper and cheaper prices for high quality games. (Besides the AAA titles at launch.)

My own personal belief in supporting devs and also having the money to do so.

The real turning point was the game Transistor. I pirated it. Played it. Beat the game. I thought it was one of the best games I had played that year. Maybe 30 hours I put into it. Looked and saw it was $15 and realized I could afford it without blowing my budget like I would have as a teen.

After that I realized I could just wait till big sales, GoG, Greenmangaming, humble bundles.

Pennies on the dollar and I didn't have to worry about some scumbag putting Trojans in the zip files.

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ALTR_Airworks@reddit

Regional pricing is a blessing.

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WTN48@reddit

Unless you're Polish, then its a curse 😭

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DasToyfel@reddit

The real turning point was the game Transistor. I pirated it. Played it. Beat the game. I thought it was one of the best games I had played that year. Maybe 30 hours I put into it. Looked and saw it was $15 and realized I could afford it without blowing my budget like I would have as a teen.

I had exactly the same happening with Kerbal Space Program.

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House923@reddit

What a great game. It's such a shame they never released a second game.

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CagataySarp@reddit

Why would they release a second game after the first one was peak and one of its kind? That would be a waste of money and could bankrupt the studio. Lmao what a silly idea

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baphometromance@reddit

Haha... yeah... it would really suck if they did eventually release a second one to essentially steal money from fans who trusted them haha

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liluzibrap@reddit

What do you mean? I'm totally out of the loop

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GodsHelix@reddit

KSP2 was released with such bad performance issues that it was basically unplayable for everyone. It was released in early access but it was shortly abandoned and left in the same state it launched in.

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liluzibrap@reddit

Sad days when a beloved developer shits on fans

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keepingitrealgowrong@reddit

Gonna guess there's a sequel and it sucks.

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TheBigToast72@reddit

But imagine how cool a second game could be with all the help/ ideas the community has given with mods from the first game! Maybe after that we could get a live action Avatar the last Airbender movie. Unlucky that neither of those things will ever happen.

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DasToyfel@reddit

Yeah, shame really.

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GothmogTheOrc@reddit

Same but for Darkest Dungeon. Pirated it, played the shit out of it for a month or so, bought it on Steam and haven't played it since lmao

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cpullen53484@reddit

did the same with hades lol and powerwash simulator

its not even like i played them that much, i just became more enticed by sandbox games like people playground and minecraft.

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ALTR_Airworks@reddit

Me and simpleplanes and i never played it after buying

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ShakerGER@reddit

And time becomming more and nore expensive. If I mske 90-140€ an hour why would I spent 30 minutes sailing when I can just press "buy"

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FilthyCasual04@reddit

Now a days a pirated game takes as long as it does confirming the purchase on steam.

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CagataySarp@reddit

IMO pirating a game takes longer, you have to find a reliable source for it, you have to check if its the latest version, buying it from steam is just 3 clicks no fuss

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FilthyCasual04@reddit

Dodi and fitgirl, always safe and reliable. Click download am done.

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AFatWhale@reddit

Fitigrl and Dodi isn't faster though.

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36gianni36@reddit

Yeah and then a 6 hour decompress.

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FilthyCasual04@reddit

Not even my first gen i7 took that long. You either actually have a potato or are just making shit up.

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36gianni36@reddit

^ “Anon doesn’t understand a hyperbole”

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AvatarCabbageGuy@reddit

idk man i used dodi for lies of P and the download was MISERABLY slow. First time in my life I had to leave a download on over night

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liluzibrap@reddit

That's like one of the worst games you could've used it for. If you enjoyed the game, I hope you bought it. Support indie devs. They're the only ones doing it right nowadays

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AvatarCabbageGuy@reddit

I bought it when it came on sale later, but that game has no regional pricing for me. Im not paying 50% more than I did for elden ring for lies of p

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liluzibrap@reddit

Feel free not to answer bc I'm being nosy at this point, but how much did you pay for Elden Ring?

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AvatarCabbageGuy@reddit

like 40$. LOP was full price for me at 60

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liluzibrap@reddit

That is crazy, I totally feel you now man lol

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notKRIEEEG@reddit

Dunno, mate. I spent around 3 hours trying to find where to download the Borderlands Trilogy for free, and needed about 2 minutes to get that through Steam or Epic.

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FilthyCasual04@reddit

Says more about you than it does piracy

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liluzibrap@reddit

Is the ego boost from being a disrespectful neckbeard really worth being an asshole to a person? Really?

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notKRIEEEG@reddit

Oh, absolutely, but there's plenty of people as dumb as me out there. The average person will probably struggle to easily find anything that's not a very popular and brand new release.

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kev231998@reddit

It's definitely not a quick download though

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Rgeneb1@reddit

Yeah and no fucking around figuring out which version has the dlc you want or if you have to go buy another pack, just everything unlocked. Much less fuss.

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Piecesof3ight@reddit

I don't think there were ever many people making 90euro an hour who were pirating unless they didn't have regional access.

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baphometromance@reddit

Thats an upsetting number to read

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JimothyJollyphant@reddit

The real turning point was the game Transistor. I pirated it. Played it. Beat the game. I thought it was one of the best games I had played that year. Maybe 30 hours I put into it. Looked and saw it was $15 and realized I could afford it without blowing my budget like I would have as a teen.

Ironically, Transistor made me want to go back to pirating. I didn't, but it made me realize that I don't need to get every single popular indie darling just because it's cheap on discount. It ended my seasonal discount buying spree.

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SjettepetJR@reddit

I had the same experience with The Witcher 3.

But overall I think the primary reason is just income. I am a student still, but I am also an adult and if I need to, I can earn €20 in an hour. Taking an hour to pirate a game that is regularly on sale for €10 is literally not worth my time.

Overall my current approach to working around prices (such as region-spoofing) is that it is really not worth the hassle.

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micahamey@reddit

Eh, I usually just downloaded it to a shit laptop that I got at a second hand store. Checked if it fucked anything up. Moved it to my PC and played it.

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skyturnedred@reddit

Taking an hour to pirate a game that is regularly on sale for €10 is literally not worth my time.

That makes no sense unless you literally sit still staring at the download bar whenever you download something.

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SjettepetJR@reddit

I am not talking about the download time.

Finding a reputable source, downloading the game, downloading the necessary cracking software, downloading a patch to update to the latest version, downloading all the DLC separately, adding the game to Steam.

All that to then not have auto-updating, save-syncing, achievements and multiplayer. And have the risk of getting trojans.

And of course it doesn't always take that many steps, but it takes at least half an hour of your time, instead of just pressing 5 buttons.

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skyturnedred@reddit

It takes fewer clicks to start downloading a pirated game than it does to confirm your purchase on Steam.

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SjettepetJR@reddit

From my experience this is simply not true.

And it doesn't take into account the research that has to be done beforehand.

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skyturnedred@reddit

What research?

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SjettepetJR@reddit

Actually verifying that you are getting software from reputable sources.

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skyturnedred@reddit

And you need to do this research every single time instead of making a mental note of e.g. Athletic Chick being a good source?

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IT_techsupport@reddit

You forget file size. Imagine managing hundred's of gigs of games. updating , managing and hoping things dont break, missing out on update. People really dont know the shiton of work steam does on their side to make it as painless as possible.

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micahamey@reddit

Piratebay had different version of the game. Usually in the details, "version 1.1" etc.

So sometimes you find that a game only had people seeding the version from 18 months ago. So you just play the shit version of that game lol.

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hagamablabla@reddit

I still regularly visit pirate sites, but now I just skim through releases to see if anything looks interesting that I can buy during a sale.

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Spinnenente@reddit

i heaven't pirated a (still available) game since steam started doing sales. Suddenly waiting for a sale was a decent way to get AAA and some indie titles cheap without needing to resort to piracy. Also humble bundle was great back in the day

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Low-Basket-3930@reddit

Same, steam is just way to convenient. Never underestimate the laziness of gamers.

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ReallyDumbRedditor@reddit

Also Steam sales.....many games get such big discounts that going through the trouble of pirating isn't worth it lol.

If all games just stayed $69.99 forever then I bet people would would pirate PC games way more

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-TehTJ-@reddit

I bet this is why the games I do pirate are Nintendo games, which stay new-game-price forever. If anything, nintendo games only get MORE expensive with time, so I just emulate them so I don’t have to worry about them.

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-TehTJ-@reddit

Yeah, it’s easier to pirate movies and music than games because it’s so easy to buy a game and refund it in three hours if you don’t like it. Movies are hardly available so torrenting a movie is a much easier way to deal with it.

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hereyagoman@reddit

I think we all still pirates well after steam was a thing. It was about the time the orange box was released that it finally came to an end for me.

Steam was trash the first 2 years

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PlzDontBanMe2000@reddit

I buy on g2a so I’m in that healthy middle ground of legit and piracy.

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ShakerGER@reddit

Oh you mean you pay money while doing more harm than pirats?

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SamuraiJono@reddit

Never used g2a but I've seen it, what's the harm? Serious question there, I genuinely don't know

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ShakerGER@reddit

G2A takes key and games from stolen credeit cards and accounts and then sells them to people who sometimes (that is less confirmed) get their details sold. They also use region loopholes to bounce keys from cheap regions to expensive regions and if those get fixed when you get your key you are outta luck

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SamuraiJono@reddit

...holy shit what?? That's unbelievable

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ShakerGER@reddit

You know how the saying goes. World gone so hard down the drain it tops the craziest dystopian fantasies!

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PlzDontBanMe2000@reddit

Yeah exactly. Best of both worlds.

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aVarangian@reddit

that's even worse than pirating jfc

some devs have literally stated they rather you pirate their game than cause them losses by buying on the grey market

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PlzDontBanMe2000@reddit

Yeah but I’d rather buy them on G2a so I can add them to steam. I don’t care what the devs want.

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aVarangian@reddit

healthy middle ground of legit and piracy

not a healthy middle ground

and fyi 99.9% of grey market prices aren't better than legit sales prices, which you can follow on /r/GameDeals and isthereanydeal.com and such

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O_Queiroz_O_Queiroz@reddit

Yes, the devs dont get money and you still pay for the product, the worst of both worlds.

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FilthyCasual04@reddit

The key was purchased somewhere originally was it not? The devs still sold that key at one point.

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rayquan36@reddit

Sometimes they're review keys or media keys. Sometimes they're stolen credit card keys. There's a non-zero chance that the devs didn't get paid for the keys.

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FilthyCasual04@reddit

Unless it is a small Indy company I honestly still don’t see an issue with this. Devs don’t get paid by the copy sold. They get their hourly wage in big studios which are irrelevant to the copies sold.

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skyturnedred@reddit

Devs get paid by making games that make money for the publisher.

If the publisher ain't making money, it won't be long until the devs aren't either.

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rayquan36@reddit

Often times it is a small company. I've seen a small indy dev buy a key to one of his games off of g2a/kinguin to see where it came from and it turns out it was sent to someone who emailed him asking for a review copy. So they definitely do target the small guys too.

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aVarangian@reddit

there's a whole criminal market in acquiring such keys, stolen credit cards being an example

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TheMADIIIIIIII@reddit

G2A and other key sellers are sometimes cheaper, but the keys are often acquired through illegitimate means (scams, stolen cards etc.)

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PlzDontBanMe2000@reddit

Yeah I know. I just want my games in my steam library and I want them as cheap as possible. I don’t care how the keys are obtained because steam doesn’t punish users for registering those keys.

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My_Child_is_Acoustic@reddit

The only thing I buy on g2a is Windows keys because fuck Microsoft

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aVarangian@reddit

non-legit licenses... again, better off just pirating it

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darichtt@reddit

I believe you should learn about massgrave.dev, a site even Microsoft support used for activations

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undreamedgore@reddit

I did that in college. But I can afford to go straight now.

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A_RAND0M_J3W@reddit

See, I haven't pirated any games since Steam, but with the current state of cable / streaming, I would say we're going to other way again.

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JohnnyXorron@reddit

It’s crazy most other things I tend to pirate but because Steam is so good I basically never pirate games unless they’re not available on Steam for whatever reason

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Tonythesaucemonkey@reddit

I pirate games with regarded dlc price structures like EU4

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Tyrunt78@reddit

Yeah same, I only pirate games that I can't get on steam.

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Co0lnerd22@reddit

I only pirate games that I can’t get on steam and dlc for the sims 4

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baphometromance@reddit

Is that the one with like 1000+ dollars worth of DLC microtransactions

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ADGx27@reddit

Ex fucking scuse me? $1000+ worth of DLC for THE FUCKING SIMS

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ToolkitSwiper@reddit

I got Sims 4 as a gift, so I've effectively played it twice and haven't touched it since, can confirm there is more DLC content than base game content, and the DLC is purposely sectioned into such little pieces that you barely get anything for your money

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KrisadaFantasy@reddit

And Sims 4 is already free to play. The entire business model is to sell DLC as much as possible, with as few content and even fewer testing based on the recycled idea from previous games!

Recently I installed Sims 2 with mod to make UI more modern. It is so much better I wonder how low EA can drag the franchise to.

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t17389z@reddit

Yeah man, asset packs. There's a lot of women out there who are basically mobile game whales but for The Sims.

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MetaCommando@reddit

One purchase of $1,000 isn't a whale, that's like a dolphin. A whale is like $500/month as a lowball, some games require you to put in thousands. Lineage II has a crafted sword worth about $2 million.

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Co0lnerd22@reddit

Yes

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Razee4@reddit

As in high regards or in low regards?

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baphometromance@reddit

People are just very likely to regard him in any capacity.

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TWK128@reddit

I blame the parents.

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ApologizingCanadian@reddit

very highly regarded

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sealing_tile@reddit

Every anon is held in low regard because they are highly

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SLiperiFish@reddit

Mentally regarded

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SnooGiraffes3452@reddit

So you are still an entitled asshole

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goodoldgrim@reddit

Same. And I don't pirate music anymore either because Spotify has everything. Movies and TV series though...

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jonsnow312@reddit

I enjoy collecting achievements on my steam account and you can't do that with pirated games

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fvgh12345@reddit

Same. Aside for a couple games that I Pirated to see if they were worth buying.

It helps I play mostly older games so I can be patient and get most games I want for under $10

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ElectroMagnetsYo@reddit

Same, and now thanks to Steam’s refund policy effectively serving the same purpose as piracy (test the game out for a few hours to see if you like it), I haven’t torrented a game in years.

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maninahat@reddit

Likewise, though I attribute that more to age and work; I don't have time to faff around finding ways to get around Google's anti piracy measures when I have enough money to just buy the damn thing. It's rare I bother with the faff of piracy.

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Conch-Republic@reddit

I sure as fuck have. Some of the prices for these games are outrageous. The only games I buy are games I have to buy, to play online.

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RodjaJP@reddit

Same, the only games I pirate are games those aren't available anywhere or are too expensive ti commit to the spending.

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FalconRelevant@reddit

With all the shenanigans Ubisoft and EA are pulling, I wouldn't mind making an exception for them.

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Alexzander1001@reddit

Same, last thing i pirated was republic comando

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GothmogTheOrc@reddit

Patrician taste in games

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Old-Implement-6252@reddit

It did, the main reason people pirate is convince. I stopped pirating movies when I realized most could be rented off YouTube for like 4 bucks. The convenience and quality is well worth the price.

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oblon789@reddit

you can usually get better quality and bitrate by pirating movies in 4k

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heythisispaul@reddit

Yeah piracy was almost the status quo I feel like before Steam, you'd just buy something as a last resort. I'm sure piracy is still going on well and good but it's nothing like it was before.

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Amir616@reddit

And the opposite with awful streaming services

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darkerwar6@reddit

I would say since i got a job personally

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Mr-Stuff-Doer@reddit

Yeah but with the competition being awful companies we’re getting close to the seas once more

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eZ_Link@reddit

Now you just buy cracked keys and redeem them on steam. Almost the same as piracy tbh

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Icy_Magician_9372@reddit

Yeah me too.

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jacksonkurtus@reddit

Steam is a wonderful platform however I'm broke and 90% of games released in the last year or two are buggy messes so it's understandable if someone just wanted to try it, a family member of mines reason is "a lot of games used to have free trials so you could try and game and see if you liked it before you bought it; if I pirate a game and like it then I'll pay full price for it"

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ILoveBigCoffeeCups@reddit

Since steam and also g2play or kinguin for game keys for an even cheaper price.

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Eluupy@reddit

take arbitrary statement about some product or company

claim it is false

most don't bother checking facts

those who do seem like chud corpo dickriders, even if they are right

Sunzi - the art of ragebait

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WintersbaneGDX@reddit

piracy is still rampant

Anon lives in a third world country where videogames are a luxury item outside the reach of most wagies.

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SlashMaster63@reddit

Pretty much. No way I'm paying literally a quarter of my salary for RDR1 now that it's on PC

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Bizaro_Stormy@reddit

You live in a mud hut or something lol?

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SlashMaster63@reddit

No, I just don't earn USD. Crazy thought right?

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Tony_Khantana@reddit

Aka mud hut occupancy

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naufalap@reddit

life is just cheaper here, that's why digital nomad/refugee is a thing

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terryaki510@reddit

Digital nomad implies that you are being paid in USD (or other inflated currency) and living in a country with lower cost of living. The original commenter just lives and works in a 3rd world country. Not the same thing

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baphometromance@reddit

"Piracy still rampant"

Is anon challenged?

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Mado-Koku@reddit

No, just too young to remember when piracy was actually rampant, so two of his friends pirating a few games and him using piracy sites to watch hentai is "rampant"

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ABHOR_pod@reddit

Basically every millennial gamer/digital native had an entire large (by the standards of the time) hard drive filled with nothing but pirates games, movies, and music.

It was so rampant that even the normies were pirating back then. Everyone had hundreds upon hundreds of mp3s.

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stone_henge@reddit

As a millennial, pretty much every european computer gamer was a pirate before I was even born.

But we need people like anon, who can explain history through the lens of complete ignorance, a much needed perspective in this day and age.

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its_phobic@reddit

Unfortunately, Netflix has made it difficult for an entire generation to find movies through torrenting.

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AFavorableHarvest@reddit

You don't even need to torrent anymore tho. You can find almost any popular show/movie available to stream for free online with a Google search.

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dumb_idiot_dipshit@reddit

quality will be ass though, especially if its a visually dark film. compression and ugly banding

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AFavorableHarvest@reddit

That's often true but I've definitely been surprised before. I've found plenty to be more than passible, sometimes even including subtitles. Many of them will often let you stream from different host servers and there's often a pretty significant difference between the available hosts.

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stone_henge@reddit

You people talking about googling for random streaming sites where you have to try a bunch of different hosts to find one that doesn't look like ass... I don't know what ass-backwards way you've found to use computers, but it's normally much more convenient for me to download a rip by a reputable group from a torrent site.

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DontBuyMeGoldGiveBTC@reddit

I've seen a few sites that are godly quality but my main one died a few months ago, still looking for an alternative just as good.

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FinestCrusader@reddit

Every time someone says "where can I watch this, it's not on Netflix" my brain melts a little. Many films aren't available on any streaming service, will these people live their entire lives not having seen the films because they couldn't stream them?

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Personal-Barber1607@reddit

Lot of good old movies i had to pirate and save, nobody actually cares though, laptop picked up by cops for unrelated reason, they say nothing about the pirated media check the last time the files were opened right when i get the laptop back, these motherfuckers viewed all my movies for themselves.

took like 6 months to get my laptop back, realize that the whole crime scene department was using my laptop as an excuse to watch movies at work for months.

seems to be that they watched one movie a day in 2 hours segments for months.

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Nanocephalic@reddit

But if I can’t steal it, it’s impossible to watch it!

Akchually with my serious hat on for a moment, plenty of people don’t have a way to watch movies on physical media anymore. You only need discs to install windows, play games, watch movies and listen to music… and you don’t need discs for any of those anymore.

Most computers don’t have optical drives anymore, so all that’s left is consoles… which are showing up without optical drives too.

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Entity-Crusher@reddit

hey don't discredit us crackhead trailer park media pirates i couldn't afford the knockoff home alone movie if i wanted it rifht now so str8 to fmhy i go

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Mado-Koku@reddit

Trailer park rednecks are the most piracy-friendly people I've ever met. It's incredible how much they're willing to download on their 2003 ass wifi just so they don't have to buy Netflix.

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YourLocalSnitch@reddit

Why does anyone download movies? You're not gonna watch it 10 times, just stream it on any random site

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Ninpo64@reddit

2003 ass wifi. Back then you'd be lucky to stream 240p without any buffering unless you had rich people wifi. Otherwise you're stuck with streaming 12 minute clips at 144p with horrible video/audio compression.

Nowadays it's just a data hoarder thing. Old habits die hard.

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wpm@reddit

2003 WiFi?

Most people didn't have WiFi in 2003.

WiFi =\= Internet connection speeds.

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Ninpo64@reddit

I mean, I cringed when I said it. It's the side effect of how tech illiterate gen z and gen alpha are becoming considering they grew up with tablets and smart phones instead of laptops and desktops. Wifi is becoming the new literally

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Entity-Crusher@reddit

because what if one day i can't use the website

in my case i run my own jellyfin server so everyone in my house can use my library and stream like ur saying

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RectangularLynx@reddit

And it's not just snail speeds, my internet is actually quite decent but I don't want any stutters while watching with my family, or worse our neighbors suddenly joining in and making the buffer speed unbearable

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throtic@reddit

What? It's easier than ever to download one of the 50 apps for a fire stick and have basically every movie or show instantly streamed to your tv. It was so much harder back in the day to set up torrents and not get your pc eaten alive by viruses

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Nanocephalic@reddit

Damn kids who think that torrents count as “back in the day”

When I was a kid I needed to use 2400b dialup modems to download warez at about 236 bytes per second. Uphill both ways in the snow!

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Sbotkin@reddit

It made it easier you mean?

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Huge-Basket244@reddit

I mean...

I'm sure everyone in /r/unraid uses entirely legal copies of every bit of media that is stored.

I know my entire 10tb of media backups are all entirely legally owned copies. For sure.

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croto8@reddit

I think everyone in this thread is just bad at navigating the internet these days…

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__cum_guzzler__@reddit

I enjoyed zero paid for content between 1998 and about 2014.

I owned a 160GB iPod filled to the brim with pirated music and a stack of burned CDs up to my ceiling.

These innocent children have no fucking idea what degenerates we were. My PC had uptimes of months because I had filesharing going on.

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BooBeeAttack@reddit

Thanks for taking me back. I miss those days sailing and getting exposed to a world of media, books, and everything else that otherwise Id have never been able to see.

I still feel those were the glory days of open information sharing.

Internet now just seems strange as hell to me.

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__cum_guzzler__@reddit

Yeah, I am happy to have grown up exactly when all of that exploded. Back then you could become popular at school just by owning a CD burner lol every kid would ask you for copies

[-]

BooBeeAttack@reddit

My HS chemistry teacher downloading songs on Napster to play for the class, during class, is a favorite memory of mine.

Its also the example I use to explain how big a deal file-sharing was.

[-]

BrotherMaxy@reddit

Bro even my atechnical dad was pirating shit back then it was crazy. He does not know how to reset a password on his phone btw.

[-]

VirtualPantsu@reddit

In Poland you could buy burned cds with games,movies etc in electronics shops

[-]

W0rmh0leXtreme@reddit

Plus all the people burning pirated media to disks at home and handing them out or selling them to all their friends and relatives. It was so normal some people weren't even aware they were pirating or at the very least didn't consider it to be pirating. And it had been going on for so long too, people these days aren't aware that getting a blank cassette tape and recording the sound from a legit copy was a common thing too before mp3s and the internet were a thing

[-]

mcwopper@reddit

A couple friends of mine who were completely technologically incompetent (their wifi was “broken” for 2 weeks till I came and fixed it by turning it off and on again) still managed to figure out how to use limewire to download their music

[-]

nirmalspeed@reddit

Nah dude, hard drives were expensive. REAL millenial gamers had that binder and/or tower filled with Maxell/Memorex CD-R/DVD-Rs with smudged colored marker handwriting on top.

[-]

Huge-Basket244@reddit

Crossed out titles in old RW discs.

[-]

Dunggabreath@reddit

Or separate free 512gb memory sticks from Circuit City

[-]

TWK128@reddit

I still have a drive somewhere with my Napster haul.

[-]

Avocado_with_horns@reddit

Who the fuck pays to watch hentai?!

[-]

lagrandesgracia@reddit

Anon wasn't around in 2007. Torrenting 37gb dragon age at a shitty 120kbps.

[-]

shepard_pie@reddit

Man some of that stuff back then was risky as hell too. Bricked my old Asus laptop trying to pirate some sort of game.

[-]

C4Cole@reddit

My internet's been dead for the past 5 days(local node burned down) so I dug out my old hard drive with my legally plundered booty, I have no idea how my parents got 35gb of Dragonball in 2006 on dialup, but I thank them for their patience 18 years ago.

[-]

8123619744@reddit

He’s just projecting. It’s normal to think everyone does the same stuff you do.

[-]

DaveSmith890@reddit

God, I hope that isn’t the case. Humanity should be put down if that’s true

[-]

8123619744@reddit

We’re very social creatures and have a need to express our ideas.

[-]

horny_coroner@reddit

Honestly when steam started getting big I stopped pirating shit because I got all the games in one place and its way easier than pirating. Convinience trumps cost

[-]

The_Guy1871@reddit

He is challenged by me.

I hereby challenge you, anon, to a duel to the death!

[-]

CompressedWizard@reddit

ARE YOU ASKING FOR A CHALLENGE???

[-]

LeftEyedAsmodeus@reddit

Are you challenged?

[-]

The_Guy1871@reddit

No, I am the challenger

[-]

MythicalLeopard@reddit

RIP January 28, 1986

[-]

baphometromance@reddit

Fine by me I'm already dead inside anyway

[-]

The_Guy1871@reddit

Swords or pistols, sir? Because you have been challenged, you may name the time and place of the encounter. I choose my friend Bertram as my second.

[-]

baphometromance@reddit

Pistol. May I suggest going with the Hot dog eating contest format? Whoever eats the most doggie dogs gets to take the first shot.

[-]

The_Guy1871@reddit

Agreed. Time to dust off my "glizzie guzzler" bib. This is an occasion worthy of its presence.

[-]

thatguygxx@reddit

Is anon challenged?

You really asking if an anon is challenged?

[-]

Aesion@reddit

You really asking if an anon is challenged?

Indeed. Is OP challenged?

[-]

pcgamernum1234@reddit

Indeed. Is OP challenged?

You really asking if OP is challenged?

[-]

babypho@reddit

Indeed. Is asking challenged?

[-]

1960somethingbatman@reddit

Indeed. Is asking challenged?

Are you really asking if asking is challenged?

[-]

ExperienceLow6810@reddit

Are you if asking really is challenged asking is challenged if you are?

[-]

marcuzt@reddit

Maybe the challenge are the people we met along the way?

[-]

Jujubees1269@reddit

Have you challenged the challenge of driving a dodge challenger?

[-]

Bibi-Le-Fantastique@reddit

I... I see challenged people...

[-]

dirschau@reddit

Yes, tat's why I need therapy

[-]

BuffaloBillsButthole@reddit

How about I cream your cheeks instead

[-]

SpartanAlaska@reddit

How about cheek your creams

[-]

Donut-Farts@reddit

I’m challenged

[-]

Aesion@reddit

Yeah I'm challenged

[-]

PupEDog@reddit

Anon is challenged by his alphabit soup

[-]

kiochikaeke@reddit

I much rather buy a game, have it on steam with all it's features or as an offline GoG installer you can download anytime if that's your piece of cake, rather than downloading a possibly outdated and buggy copy I got from a shady website or a torrent.

That being said, no point in spending 60$ for a game I'm going to play for 5 hours, or a 20$ game I'm going to play for 15 minutes, if publishers and developers don't provide demo's people themselves are going to provide them, and if you're product is inferior than a cheaper version don't be surprised when people choose the other option, a faulty moral argument that barely stands on itself isn't going to convince me or others from spending what to me is a considerable sum of money.

[-]

baphometromance@reddit

Why is this a reply to my comment rather than a standalone comment of its own? I don't understand how the two are related to each other

[-]

kiochikaeke@reddit

Perhaps I'm the challenged one

[-]

baphometromance@reddit

Throughout Heaven and Earth, you alone, are the Challenged One?

[-]

kiochikaeke@reddit

Am I the one cause I'm challenged? Or am I challenged cause I'm the one.

[-]

avalisk@reddit

Piracy was how everybody got shit 20 years ago. Now only a few millenials even know how to do it.

[-]

Mr-Stuff-Doer@reddit

I mean… how many MILLIONS of people pirate anime daily?

[-]

baphometromance@reddit

Do the creators of the media create a better service than what they are receiving from the pirates? Anon said gaben solved the problem, not that he implimented worldwide in every industry. Therefore, anon's assertion that piracy is still rampant pertains only to the video game industry.

[-]

throwawayeastbay@reddit

Almost every pirate streaming site I use is better than it's subscription based competitors

Crunchyroll doesn't deserve a damn dime

[-]

CerifiedHuman0001@reddit

Regional pricing counts as service quality.

[-]

AvatarCabbageGuy@reddit

pirate sites unironically have a better user experience than whatever the fuck crunchy roll is doing lol

[-]

Aeon46@reddit

Aniwave was unironically an insanely well made streaming site in general before it got taken down

[-]

notKRIEEEG@reddit

A fraction of the ones who were downloading shit through P2P services like Limewire and Kaaza and Piratebay, who now use Spotify and Netflix.

[-]

Cojo840@reddit

It is lol

[-]

WalkingGonkDroid@reddit

Challenged? Who challenged him? Is he strong?

[-]

C0mF0rFun@reddit

the very root problem, people dont have enough money

[-]

naftola@reddit

Piracy is really not a problem for steam. It’s a problem for the publishers.

[-]

axess_16@reddit

I'm still pissed about not owning the game after paying the full price

[-]

OmarsDamnSpoon@reddit

Make it worth our time to not just steal it. It's that easy.

[-]

oxy-kun@reddit

I mean people stopped pirating movies and tv shows for about a decade or so when netflix was actually a good streaming service with great quality original shows and movies, and now they took a "different approach" and 90% of everything they (or its concurrents ) are now overpriced shinny garbage, people are actually back to pirating, as they should.

[-]

Jellylegs_19@reddit

Anon doesn't realize that if there WAS a service problem then it would be WAY WAY worse than it currently is. Secondly I'm not a pirater except when it comes to Nintendo games because their service is shit. If they had a better shop that isn't laggy and more sales for first party titles than I wouldn't have bothered modding my switch.

[-]

PlzDontBanMe2000@reddit

Also Nintendo loves to charge $60 for decade old games that they ported to switch. Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze was release in 2014 and got ported to the switch in 2018 and they still want $60 for it and then when they shut down their eshop in a few years you won’t be able to download it again or play online. They shut down their online shops way too early making it so anyone who bought their game digitally is fucked a no longer owns it.

[-]

_phish_@reddit

A copy of Super Smash Brothers Melee, which came out in 2001, is still $60… Nintendo is crazy.

[-]

PlzDontBanMe2000@reddit

Where are they selling that?

[-]

_phish_@reddit

If you go to like GameStop or something they will still occasionally have a copy. Also since every other Nintendo game is price at that a lot of people will just sell their own copies at a similar price

[-]

PlzDontBanMe2000@reddit

That’s different since that’s a second hand copy of a physical game they don’t make anymore. That’s obviously going to be worth more if it’s a popular game, I’m surprised it’s only 60. Second hand game prices are set by the community and supply/demand, not Nintendo. Nintendo actually got really butthurt back in the 90s and tried to ban second hand game shops because they don’t get any money when a game is sold pre-owned.

[-]

Some_Majestic_Pasta@reddit

The most egregious part about Tropical Freeze being 60 is that it wasn't even 60 when it originally released

[-]

PlzDontBanMe2000@reddit

What was it? 50? I know that used to be the standard price for games in the early 2010s

[-]

Some_Majestic_Pasta@reddit

Yeah it was 50. Honestly the game is so good, it could've dropped at 60 originally which is why I think Nintendo just did it since like 13 people had a Wii U. Still stupid af

[-]

Jellylegs_19@reddit

Exactly! I'm noy paying $60 for Xenoblade Chronicles, a game I played many years prior on my 3DS. Which was a port of a wii game. If they priced fairly I'd never think about piracy. But now they can't get any money from me.

[-]

Gingy1000@reddit

tbh at least for xenoblade i justify it with it being $40 for base game $20 for future connected which imo is fair

[-]

Jellylegs_19@reddit

I guess that's true, it was just the straw that broke the camel's back for me.

[-]

MeriKurkku@reddit

Don't forget that next year Donkey Kong Country Returns is making it's way to switch for 60€ next january. And it was also a Nintendo Selects title so it's a game you could have gotten for 20€ over a decade ago 🙄

[-]

PlzDontBanMe2000@reddit

But think about all that work they did porting it over. It’s totally not Nintendo being greedy

[-]

NukemDukeForNever@reddit

Think there was a service problem and now piracy isn't as rampant as it was in early Internet

[-]

Dje4321@reddit

Or stop selling me games I already paid for. I refuse to pay $20 for access to super mario bros for the 8th time

[-]

danredblue@reddit

people who pirate ain’t buying anything anyway

[-]

Ok_Transportation310@reddit

It's also a lot about economics, here in Brazil games are heavily taxed, so what for you is about 10 dollars, for us is the equivalent of about 200 dollars, Some games have already cost at least HALF the minimum wage. It's tough. So for me, a young adult who doesn't yet have a steady job, buying games is something completely outside my reality.

[-]

GreenRiot@reddit

Piracy will NEVER be solved. That being said I left piracy most of the time because I can buy games at a mostly fair price.

[-]

ejectionejaculation6@reddit

me and all my friends still pirate every singleplayer game

[-]

BIOHAZARD_@reddit

I’m pretty sure gaming has a much lower piracy rate compared to other media forms lol

[-]

PinkSploosh@reddit

Movies still have a huge service issue, thus rampant piracy. I pay for all my games but even if I wanted to pay for the latest movies I can't

[-]

ShopperOfBuckets@reddit

Movies don't have DRM, you're talking out of your ass.

[-]

PinkSploosh@reddit

what? I didn’t say they have

[-]

ShopperOfBuckets@reddit

I'm pointing out that your base idea that movies having a "service issue" is the reason why people pirate them more than games is stupid.

Games have always-online features, DRM, achievements, patches, etc. Movies are just video files with nothing stopping pirates from enjoying the full experience outside of legal consequences. Warner Bros tried the direct to streaming model for new movies and the CEO who implemented it got sacked cause of how much money they lost.

[-]

PinkSploosh@reddit

So can I buy any movie on any streaming service? No. Can I buy all new movies currently in theaters? No, usually after some time.

Gaming doesn’t really have these problems. Most games are available to buy on Steam, and usually on day 1. Some games do appear exclusively on other stores for a limited time and we actually see that doesn’t work out well for those games.

[-]

ShopperOfBuckets@reddit

In what ways does Steam provide a superior experience to just pirating a given game, in your opinion? And what can streaming services do to emulate that competitive advantage over piracy?

[-]

PinkSploosh@reddit

For one, let me pay to patch most new movies in a single service/store. We see the same for PC gaming, most prefer to shop their games in one store, Steam, and most games are available there. If it's not on Steam many choose to just wait until it is, because usually it will be.

Second, actually make new movies available to watch. Region locking is much more common for streaming services, and new movies just don't appear on any service for quite a while sometimes. For example if I want to watch Smile 2, which is out in theaters right now, I can't stream it online anywhere. It's like making me go to an internet café (as we had back in the day) to play the latest games.

[-]

ShopperOfBuckets@reddit

Even if we could use a magic wand to wave away all the licensing and copyright issues that lead to region locking content, the key issue remains that streaming services cannot provide anything that piracy can't, outside of the threat of legal consequences.

and new movies just don't appear on any service for quite a while sometimes. For example if I want to watch Smile 2, which is out in theaters right now, I can't stream it online anywhere

Yes, and like I said that's because it's the only way distributors can make a profit. Warner Bros had new movies in streaming and they are fucked financially (not just because of that of course, but it didn't help).

At the end of the day, when the only thing you offer is a video file, pirates will always be able to provide the exact same thing but for free. So while you are a good person and are willing to pay for what you consume, a very large part of the population would rather just not pay, leading to a loss of potential revenue for studios.

Steam has the benefit of games having online features that are locked for pirates. Apart from DRM and straight multiplayer, there are online components in a lot of single-player games (messages in Dark Souls for example), as well as Steam providing updates/patches, achievements, mod support, etc. You cannot implement any of that for movies, so a streaming service just cannot provide a better experience than piracy.

[-]

KainDing@reddit

Actually netflix for a period of time got piracy for movies to a generational low.

After that they made their service more expensive, while the selection shrunk due to the publishers of those movies making their own service.

They solved the problem, but were greedy and created it anew.

[-]

ShopperOfBuckets@reddit

You mean when Netflix was in full growth mode with unsustainably low prices and no competition?

Redditors talking about business tickles me.

[-]

KainDing@reddit

Unsustainably low prices is a weird way to spell "the biggest period of profits for their whole company" but go on.

Prices were lower, because movie studios didnt yet see the money in streaming and sold the rights to netflix at far lower rates, than what movies and shows go now for.

Adiotionally netflix made so much money from this that they gave any director huge budgets to film a show, with some being well know to have basically "stolen" millions from netflix, since they didnt bother tu do their due diligence with many of the smaller directors(if their infestments actually were done to get the filming done), because they had the sole gole of pumping out more content to discourage competitors that could only come out with smaller offerings for their own services.

That period of trying to outpace any competition and stay a monopoly is what made them go into negatives and eventually have to raise the cost of their service multiple times.

If you really think the low prices were the reason for this and not their own greed... well i would call you naive at best.

There are many well documentet articles, and even videos if your attention span is too low, that show quite well how this period of "film as many movies/shows that are exclusive to us as possible" and the huge loses Netflix accured to some of these decisions.

[-]

ShopperOfBuckets@reddit

Unsustainably low prices is a weird way to spell "the biggest period of profits for their whole company" but go on.

There is no way you are serious.

[-]

L003Tr@reddit

Its not even the cost of netflix that causes the piracy, it's thr fact you need so many different services for decent coverage.

If you could pull all of the services into one subscription you'd massively cut piracy rates even if it was more expensive than paying for them individually. Ironically the market was actually better for the consumer when Netflix had a monopoly

[-]

Spare_Possession_194@reddit

Exactly, I was so tired of needing so many streaming services I just started using Stremio and it is amazing. Feels no different in quality than any real streaming service and having infinite selection is awesome

[-]

W0rmh0leXtreme@reddit

Not to mention the drop in quality for a lot of the big name movies these days, making people less likely to pay for such an inferior product, whereas gaming still at least has those high quality experiences people are willing to spend money on

[-]

Key_Catch7249@reddit

Movies and TV shows are so inconvenient to watch. You can pay for four streaming services and have access to a fourth of all tv shows and movies.

At a certain point there’s no reason to subscribe and pay $70 a month to not even own what you buy when you can just buy the movies and tv shows on disc and own them permanently.

But then it gets difficult to find a blu ray. Not all stores sell blu rays at all, and even if they did there’s a low chance that they’ll even have your specific movie in stock. You have to search their websites to see when a specific movie is available and wait days just to watch your movie.

So why the hell wouldn’t the average person pirate? You go to any pirating website and search up a movie, and there’s a 99% chance they’ll have it. Then you can just stream it there. Plug it in your TV if you have to. And just watch. That’s it. Maybe click off of a pop up or two. For free, right now.

Of course, piracy is a bad thing. People should absolutely be paid for their work. But I don’t blame people who do it. I do it too once in a blue moon when neither Netflix, Hulu, Disney+ or HBO has what I want to watch.

[-]

Dje4321@reddit

Nothing like $40 for a movie only to be told I no longer own after 2 years

[-]

PinkSploosh@reddit

Imagine if you had to go to an old school internet café to play the latest games, and you couldn't buy the game to play at home until a few months later. That is kind of what going to a movie theater to see the latest movies feels like to me these days.

[-]

ahthenegotiator@reddit

I think a huge part of this is the service quality in terms of pirating.

It's far easier amd less hassle to pirate a movie than a video game.

You just click play and you're good to go, no need to download.

[-]

Landio_Chador@reddit

You wouldn’t pirate a car…

Fuck yeah I’d pirate a car

[-]

bob1111bob@reddit

All you need is a gun and some confidence

[-]

happyonthewestcoast@reddit

a crowbar would suffice

[-]

nukethecheese@reddit

Unfortunately all I have is a ship with cannons.

[-]

discarded_dnb@reddit

Pirating is not stealing. Imagine being able to copy a car at will, I would definitely pirate a car.

[-]

DevinLucasArts@reddit

What do you think pirates do? 💀

[-]

discarded_dnb@reddit

Make illegal copies of copyrighted material. Copying isn't stealing though, because the original is still in the possession of the rightful owner.

[-]

skyturnedred@reddit

Pirates steal precious cargo from ships.

[-]

discarded_dnb@reddit

Yeah this post is obviously referring to "real" pirates and not software piracy. /s

[-]

skyturnedred@reddit

The waters became muddy as soon as guns and confidence entered the chat.

[-]

A_Blue_Potion@reddit

The only thing that could make it technically theft is if the owner is still making and selling them. But we all know that's not the case for the vast majority of piracy. The only reason corpos call it theft is because we're stealing their "theoretical" sales in case they were to ever bring it out of their vault. cough Nintendo cough

[-]

racoondriver@reddit

Real pirates, go sail in powerboats and attack cargo ships. I just can aim so I have to download copied files from the internet.

[-]

erichf3893@reddit

Sail the seven seas

[-]

FallenSegull@reddit

I think the only reason I wouldn’t pirate a car is because it’d be too easy to get caught

[-]

PCmasterRACE187@reddit

maybe if you could do it from the safety of your moms basement, but you actually have to go outside for that

[-]

Select-Bullfrog-5939@reddit

If i could steal a car as easily and guilt-free as I could pirate a movie, i would

[-]

SharkMilk44@reddit

Thanks to 3D printers, we can now pirate physical items.

[-]

Landio_Chador@reddit

I tried to pirate yo mama, but my 3D printer ran out of filament

[-]

SharkMilk44@reddit

Yeah, that's a lot of love you would have to print.

[-]

Ratathosk@reddit

Pirate i'd fuck a car yeah

[-]

Worst-Panda@reddit

I'd fuck a pirate car yeah

[-]

neofederalist@reddit

I forget which comedian said it but he made the remark "but if my buddy pulls up in in a new Mercedes and says 'hey, I just got this from the dealership, want a free copy?' hell yeah, I'd take that offer!"

[-]

MalekithofAngmar@reddit

Feel free to try, you might arrested or shot though.

[-]

PinkSploosh@reddit

if you have a BMW with subscription for heated seats, damn right you should

[-]

Fakkef@reddit

But why would you pirate from valve? Most of their games are either free or pretty cheap nowadays

[-]

ToAbideIsDude@reddit

I don’t pirate because steam is more convenient.

[-]

Big-Cartographer-166@reddit

This is no rampant piracy , in my country original games were more dificult to find that pirate ones. You could buy a ps2 from a sony store already chiped for pirated games, hell I didnt even know how an original game looked when I was a kid and belived they came in jewel case like the pirated games. I didn saw a game manual until I was 21 years old. We even had NES , SNES, Genesis and N64 pirate games.

[-]

CrazyDuckTape@reddit

Solved the service problem

Yeaaah, no lol. When your game is 60 euros in a country where 120 euros makes up a monthly wage you haven't solved sh*t

Developers that put regional pricing on their games guarantee get more sales which in turn translates to greater profit, though in most cases not marginal, the profit is greater seeing as to cover the usual 60 euro price the region priced game needed to sell thrice for a 10 euro overflow = say 70 in total

I come from an impoverished country with these kinds of standards and now adays i can of course not afford any 3 AAA titles, hell, i can barely scrape by to support good indie devs because i want to see them succeed

[-]

Kloane@reddit

wholesome chungus gabe

[-]

seventhdayofdoom@reddit

I actually don't enjoy games as much when they are not on Steam, so I guess he did succeed. I'd buy more games on Steam if I didn't live in a 3rd world country.

[-]

Special-Remove-3294@reddit

Yes. I used to pirate everything but nowdays I mostly use Steam and buy shit cause it downloads so much faster it manages all my games, it has the Steam wokrshop which gives easy access to mods, Its just more convinient.

[-]

ajstorey456@reddit

Also much easier for online play, adding friends and such

[-]

Randolph__@reddit

Hense the quote.

[-]

trillmill@reddit

He wrote that to say he agrees with the quote

[-]

PavlovianTactics@reddit

What quote?

[-]

snoteleks-skeletons@reddit

Reddit is more than a comment section, there’s a post here, too.

[-]

tigergoalie@reddit

Who's Hense?

[-]

popepipoes@reddit

He’s the quote

[-]

SpongederpSquarefap@reddit

Turns out that when you offer a product that isn't dog shit and slowly becomes more dog shit over time, they're happy to spend money

How strange

[-]

Metrix145@reddit

Investors hate this simple trick. Seriously, why do they need to jerk each other off at every shareholder meeting while doing jackshit for the company. Like I'd get it if they were the ones doing shit and trying to get more profit but they're just coming in every quarter to jerk each other off and cut salaries in half since they did not make 50% increase of revenue per quarter.

[-]

GLOBEQ@reddit

You can just pirate and add it to the steam library I guess

[-]

PhilosopherMonke01@reddit

Still does not get those workshop mods downloaded directly. I wanted to download a mod collection for city skylines and had to do it all one mod at a time.

[-]

imperfek@reddit

risk of getting a virus, game crashing/bugs, having to redo everything again after a patch.. it's just not worth it, just wait for one of the steam sales

[-]

skyturnedred@reddit

The mods still need an update by the author, and with mod managers like Vortex it's just as easy as it is on Steam. Games crash and have bugs regardless of where you get them from and avoiding viruses just comes down to common sense.

[-]

kanny_jiller@reddit

Unbelievable that this is a controversial opinion

[-]

skyturnedred@reddit

Just trying do dispel the myth that Steam is so damn convenient that nothing compares. Pirating games has never been easier and for any in-depth modding you need to use external resources anyways.

Sometimes piracy is even preferrable so Steam's auto-update doesn't break your fully modded game.

[-]

Mega_Anon@reddit

The only games that you "should" buy on steam overy pirating nowdays are Denuvo games(since there is nobody cracking newer denuvo versions) and games that get updated every week. It just comes down to convenience of auto-updating games that are always getting updated.

[-]

TheCrzy1@reddit

Vortex: requires off steam downloading and installing, paying a subscription to get not cucked 3MB/s downloads

Steam: everything managed in one place for no extra sub

Just the same guys!

[-]

Mega_Anon@reddit

I love watching people who's opinions are irrelevant, due to their ignorance, share their views. It is like watching a clown doing his thing.

[-]

skyturnedred@reddit

Good luck modding Skyrim with the workshop.

[-]

AlittlePotato1560@reddit

I haven't pirated a game in over a decade. The first game to break that streak will be Assassin's Creed: Shadows

[-]

Anabiter@reddit

I still pirate Nintendo stuff because i hate Nintendo, but Steam wise the closest i come to pirating is buying overpriced old games on sites like g2a and kinguin. I'm not paying 60 dollars for an old CoD game.

[-]

dagon_xdd@reddit

i will never pirate anything that's worth for it's money. at the end of the day it's not about the services Steam provides. it's the product depending on the developers' and publishers' senses

[-]

W0rmh0leXtreme@reddit

I'd say both are important. People are only going to pay for something if they think it's good enough to be worth the price, but they also need it to be easily available. Doesn't matter how high quality the product is, if it's a pain in the ass to access people will be more inclined to pirate it

[-]

SmolBirdEnthusiast@reddit

Steam is a hell of a lot more convenient (and safer) than pirating. that said, if the game uploaders don't give proper regional pricing, you can expect to see a lot of pirates from various nations.

But you'll always have someone who will refuse to pay for anything if they can get it for free, so piracy in some way will still exist no matter what.

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Mr-Game-Videos@reddit

Also steam won't force publishers to remove DRM, thrid party launchets, etc., so the experience can still be very bad on steam.

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W0rmh0leXtreme@reddit

And then there's buggy abandoned games and half assed poorly optimised ports the devs refuse to fix or update, even going as far as to having missing or broken features that are available on other platforms because the devs and/or publishers don't care. Steam really should warn people when a game has been abandoned in this way

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diabloenfuego@reddit

That is not a Steam problem and is entirely a problem with the game.

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Warning64@reddit

I got Battlefield 2042 on sale through the Epic Games Launcher a couple of years ago. The Epic Game Launcher made me download Origin. Origin made me download the EA Launcher.

To play the game, I would have to open the game either the Epic Games Launcher or Origin, which would open the other, which would then open the game. If Origin or the EA launcher was open, even as a singular small task in the background, when I tried to open the game it wouldn’t work because Origin and the EA launcher couldn’t be opened at the same time because they used some of the same files.

I have never had a problem anything like this with Steam. The closest thing I’ve ever had to deal with is trying to play a Ubisoft game because that requires their laggy ass launcher.

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Mr-Game-Videos@reddit

Never said that it's Steams fault, just supported the argument that steams existance does not garanty a good overall UX as it's just a part of the supply chain.

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SmolBirdEnthusiast@reddit

That does suck but I don't blame Steam/valve. Its the companies like ubisoft and EA that force players to use their much worse launchers in order to play the games. If steam wants those big titles on their platform, they have to comply. Would be great if Valve just said no, but then players would be forced out to use other launchers to play those games, losing income for both Valve and Steam.

Although you could eliminate the hinderance of 2 launchers if you bought direcetly from EA launcher/Ubisoft Launcher. Would you? Less refund protection, Sales may be better/worse, imo worse interface/infrastructure, etc...

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FallenSegull@reddit

Regional pricing and availability is a huge thing. There was a lot of harping on about how Australians were the number one pirates of game of thrones and it’s like, bro, the only alternative to watch season 8 was $50 and the quality was only 720p. Could you imagine have to pay $50 to watch season 8 of game of thrones in only 720p?

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NotOnLand@reddit

I saw some dev talking about how all their piracy was in Brazil because of huge taxes. So they made the game there 1/10th the price it is elsewhere, and now it's where most of their revenue comes from. Not enough companies realize sometimes you make more money by charging less.

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SmolBirdEnthusiast@reddit

Are ya thinking of that youtuber Pirate software? I think I saw a clip of him mentioning that funnily enough

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ABR5796@reddit

"Solves service problem"

????????? Am i living in a different world?

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Anzire@reddit

Pirating became the new way for me to check out games. If I like it, I buy it on steam.

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MrSneakyPeakyAir@reddit

I love people who claim they're not paying 60 Euros for a game, so they pirate it and then spend 1000 hours playing said game. I know such people personally. If they played the game for just 990 hours and spend the remaining 10 hours working, they would have made the 60 Euros.

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BatmanForce@reddit

I mean, I still pirate every single player game if I wanna play it. RDR PC port is how much? Nah, you know this shit is on russian torrent trackers already. Why pay when can no pay

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finnicus1@reddit

I pirate movies all the time but buy games on Steam as usual. Gaben is right yet again.

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austin101123@reddit

Lots of games I would want to pirate and mod or play offline but can't. Hearthstone, many sports games, LoL (in the past). None of them are on steam, coincidentally.

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SaltyboiPonkin@reddit

I am more of a privateer, thank you.

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whyUdoAnythingAtAll@reddit

Anon is regarded and don't understand it's the companies that sell their games on steam with stupid drm like denuvu and online only that cause people to pirate and also inflated prices and anti consumer practices like full game split into dlcs valve doesn't have control on it

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Cpt-Kadde@reddit

i like when the greentext is just anon being confidently wrong or ignorant about easily disprovable stuff ☺️

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bisky12@reddit

in a lot of situations this is true though. probably about 30%-50% if piracy is simply because a movie, video game, album, show, etc is just not available via legit means or incredible hard to obtain legitimately. i know most people in this sub probably just pirated everything but most NORMAL people either don’t know how or don’t want to go through the hassle of pirating things, and will even pay extra for the convenience of not having to pirate something.

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CodeDJ@reddit

anon thinks the service problem is solved.
Money is also a service problem.

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mobby_duck@reddit

I would gladly buy all my games if they were not 1/5 of my pay check . I WAS buying them when we had regional prices, but now it’s just dumb to spend 70 bucks for a game that most likely rushed cash grab

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Neomataza@reddit

The problem that was solved was that revenue is damaged. Not that people have the game. You dafthead. I hope you don't also believe that 1000 pirated copies are 1000 missed sales. It's usually more like a 10% conversion.

The point is monetization models have adapted. It's why shareware died out and liveservice thrives.

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cemtemeltas@reddit

Games having abysmal prices are still part of the service problem. A PC port of a game (RDR1) that was released 14 years ago was introduced on Steam today for $50 USD.

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IzanamiFrost@reddit

I actually used to pirate game a ton but now I buy exclusively from Steam. The download and installation is just so much faster. No longer do I have to leave my laptop on for 2 days to try out a game with 10fps

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FallenSegull@reddit

But that’s the thing though. Piracy dropped hard when services like steam and Netflix first released. Then other companies dropped in and started trying to cash in on other people’s success, the whole thing got fragmented between a bunch of different services, and piracy became an easier option again

Anon truly embodies the 4chan mind

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iwasbatman@reddit

There will always be piracy but steam is a great alternative if you want to skip that.

I bet most people don't even know how to pirate and they just buy games. Also you can't pirate gaas and that's the rage nowadays.

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dexter2011412@reddit

> "Buy" game
> game needs always-online access
> game has drm that reduces performance on already poorly optimized games
> game is dead after servers shut down
> game library cannot be shared with family properly

Piracy is the only thing keeping old games alive. It's the only thing (apart from gog, usually) that lets you actually own the game.

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RicoDC@reddit

I'm willing to pay for actual good games from devs that acknowledge their fans' criticisms. Not hide behind pre-written responses from their PR team to satisfy their shareholders.

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byquestion@reddit

i pirated my games before steam because i didnt trust websites with my credit card info (actually, my parents did, but for good reason to be honest)

i stopped pirating when i got steam, i liked actually contributing to the people who make the games i play.

then steam became inviable in argentina (tldr: a game is a whole paycheck) so i started pirating again, now with more criteria of only going for those games i ABSOLUTELY wouldnt be able to play anyways.

gotta give credit to gabe.

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yamfun@reddit

And pirates come up with all sort of virtueous reasons for pirating and emulating

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4thelasttimeIMNOTGAY@reddit

I'm willing to pay a fair price to use a service. Or I'm willing to watch a reasonable amount of reasonable length targeted ads to use a service. What i don't like is when companies start fucking with me, that's when I start to skirt the rules

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notexecutive@reddit

People don't really pirate games on Steam.

It's mostly Ninty games and Sony Exclusives (old ones)

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ITCrandomperson@reddit

Yes and no. There are always people who want free shit and games that just aren't reasonably available through normal means due to delisting (see: Mistover or the Activision-era Spider-Man games) or needing to import (Touhou games until ZUN started putting his shit on Steam) or some other problem.

That being said, just buying the games becomes a lot more enticing when it's easy and low maintenance.

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aideshomemade@reddit

The great pirate age has begun

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Deadsouls88@reddit

Who?

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Arcadian_@reddit

I pirate movies, but I don't pirate video games. it worked for me.

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Glum-Ad7611@reddit

Before steam I never bought anything. Now I spend hundreds every few months without batting an eye. Pirate something? Ugh, too much work. Just take my $15 please Mr Indy game.

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BaconDragon69@reddit

Anon has no idea of the bigger picture and didn’t notice that piracy only started ramping up again after capitalism caused worse services for people

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doge999999@reddit

Time to download more ram from pirate bay.

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kryotheory@reddit

The only stuff I still pirate is abandonware, especially retro games that don't have any legal way to purchase them, even digitally anymore.

Yes, Nintendo, I'm talking about YOU. FIGHT ME SHUNTARO.

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neat-NEAT@reddit

This was the case too with movies for like 5 years. Then every company realised they could buy out streaming rights and split people between a dozen subscription services and now piracy is suddenly more convenient.

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blueberrykz@reddit

game piracy isnt rampant

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ApXv@reddit

I havent pirated shit since the 2000's or something

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RecycledMatrix@reddit

Market: I want a fun game to play that doesn't break the bank.

AAA developers: So you want a 200GB game that looks amazing. Got it. That'll be $70. $130 for the Ultimate Edition (with P2W MTX, battle pass, DLC schedules)

Market: What? You didn't mention fun at all. And I make $7.25 an hour. And I have a 1TB SSD.

Indie developers: Here's a fun game for $5.

Market: Deal * purchases on Steam *

Pirates: cracks DRM of overpriced 200GB game as a coding challenge, and/or out of spite.

AAA developers: failing to turn a profit on their overpriced, overbudget unfun game that doesn't work at launch and missing features, needs something to blame: piracy is rampant!

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goldenkoiifish@reddit

that is peter griffin

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iSeize@reddit

People will always pirate just let it go. There's always a kid in a 3rd world country who can't be buying every game he wants to play

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Saltyfox99@reddit

Most of it is a service problem, sometimes it’s a price issue.

The game Heartbound has seen fantastic sales in Brazil, a place infamous for rampant piracy, simply by lowering the price for that region. Having known a couple people from Brazil the one thing they always talk about is just how stupid expensive games are.

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Reaper-Leviathan@reddit

Anon is denuvo

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hardcore_softie@reddit

Well, considering that Steam makes six times as much money as the world's most successful Wall Street hedge fund and like 70% of purchased Steam games never get played, usually because people buy them on sale then they just go into the virtual backlog pile, I think GabeN was onto something here.

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rice_with_applesauce@reddit

I used to pirate games, and then a while later actually buy the game, because 1. I liked it and wanted to support the developers. 2. I wanted automatic game updates instead of searching for a newer pirated version. 3. Steam is so much less hassle than 16 different folders with different pirated games that you can’t really trust a 100% because, well, they were pirated.

I think he did solve the problem. I like steam.

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Captain_Pumpkinhead@reddit

I get free games from Epic every week. Free. As good a deal as piracy except better because I don't need to worry about viruses or VPNs or ISP letters. I still don't play them.

The Steam experience is just nicer. I can play any game with my Nintendo Switch Pro Controller and it'll automatically remap ABXY to correct buttons instead of the "correct" spots. It shows how much time I have in each game. Achievements are kinda neat. And best of all, I can get all of that on my Steam Deck with ease!

Not only has Steam made piracy unappealing to me, they have also made other launchers unappealing to me.

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timelapsedfox@reddit

Anon doesn't understand that 3 world countries exist

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Blue_Robin_04@reddit

Bitches be poor.

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adrian_shade@reddit

Plebs will be plebs

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Laxhoop2525@reddit

Yeah, in countries without real money, anon.

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AlrikBunseheimer@reddit

Guess the services are still shit

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Bubbly-Ad-1427@reddit

“piracy is still rampant” and the piracy in question is literally every game you can’t get on steam and/or people who are broke

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blueblurspeedspin@reddit

cherry picking his life into the formula instead of looking at stats

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Kirito619@reddit

Before steam i never bought games. I used to torrent everything. Then i needed to buy Farming Simulator 15 to play online with my friend. Then i got CSGO, then Don't starve. And now i even buy most of my single players games.

Once you get on steam you get a dopamine rush whenever you get more hours or achievements. Now it feels 'wastefull' to play if your progress isn't tracked on steam.

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SkyrimSlag@reddit

“Solves the service problem”

Maybe when it comes to Steam, but others like EA, Nintendo and Ubisoft downright refuse to - “buying isn’t owning”. Not to mention Nintendo hitting Emulators, then closing down various stores on their older devices and giving people no other alternative to obtain the content. If you don’t provide it when people want it, expect them to get it elsewhere.

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TheLeastFunkyMonkey@reddit

Interesting fact: Per a study from the EU, digital media piracy (is extremely hard to properly study since most pirates aren't going to talk to an organization of any kind about what they're doing, so grain of salt, but) only negatively impacts blockbuster films. In all other types of media, piracy either has a neutral or positive effect on sales.

Pirates, on average, have a larger collection of legally purchased media than non-pirates.

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WantonKerfuffle@reddit

Never pirated a Steam game. Shows, on the other hand...

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iSeize@reddit

Just ask a converted pirate with 400 games on steam

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PigInATuxedo4@reddit

The conclusion in my Computer Science Ethics textbook was the same as Gaben's.

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Idmaybefuckaplatypus@reddit

Most of those are people who wouldn't have bought it regardless tho

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Dje4321@reddit

I mean since I got steam, the amount of games I have pirated have dramatically reduced. Now I only pirate games if I truely cannot afford it, and if its a good game, I make sure to try and buy it later

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rippingbongs@reddit

Imagine playing single player games, couldn't be me.

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EccentricNerd22@reddit

I pirate anime and movies but have never pirated games since steam started existing so I think he’s right.

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nuuudy@reddit

>piracy still rampant

OP is a highly regarded individual. Did Steam completely remove piracy? shit, nothing ever will. Piracy is and will always be present

but piracy is not as rampant as it used to be. It's like saying, vaccines do not work because people still occasionally die from illnesses

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IcyDrops@reddit

Anon wasn't there when piracy was truly rampant, when every single PC had LimeWire and/or torrent installed, and games were being passed around on USB drives like candy

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BlueKyuubi63@reddit

Since I bought my Steam Deck, I've stopped pirating entirely. There's so much content right at my fingertips for $5-$10 it's crazy

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whatup_pips@reddit

As someone who pirates shows, I would never pirate a Steam game because it really IS more convenient to pay once for a game on sale (because it's GOING to be on sale) than it is for me to spend hours looking for a game that may or may not be infected with virus from a torrenting site.

In fact, it's so convenient that I've probably gotten more games than I'll ever play already and I still want to buy more.

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LitmusPitmus@reddit

The services aren’t better though we can’t even watch 3pm kick offs legally

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Bombalurina@reddit

I almost never pirate games now thanks to steam sales.

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dance_rattle_shake@reddit

Ironically, Pirate Software has proved this is true - Brazil is full of 3rd world pirates, so he actually did regional pricing correctly, making it super cheap for them, and now 70% of his game income comes from Brazil.

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secondcondary@reddit

Brazilian here

Games are not cheap here in the slightest

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KainDing@reddit

The guy you are commenting on literally said this, just not directly.

What do you think his comment was saying?

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keepingitrealgowrong@reddit

what does "making it super cheap for them" mean though?

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Lolheals@reddit

It means not simply converting USD to BRL and that's the price Brazilians pay but instead factoring in cost of living and average salaries so that a game doesn't cost so much of your monthly income before tax. Average gross salaries (before taxes etc) for Brazil is 3900 BRL which is around $677 USD. Then take the Silent Hill 2 remake which is R$349.90 when concerted to USD seems fine at $60 but compare that to average gross monthly incomes in the US which range between $5477-$6692 so Silent Hill 2 would cost 0.986% of your monthly income in the US but 8.97% of your monthly income in Brazil.

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keepingitrealgowrong@reddit

Okay that makes sense, I think it's pretty clear though where the Brazilian got the idea that comment OP was saying they were cheap.

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skyturnedred@reddit

His comment is basically entirely made up.

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MusiX33@reddit

Pirate Software is the name of a developer / streamer. I have also seen this clip of him saying literally what the commenter said. It's true that his game is cheaper in Brazil.

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skyturnedred@reddit

That makes more sense, I thought it was just some random capitalization which made the rest of the comment seem like nonsense.

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Aesion@reddit

Every new AAA title costs 1/4 of the minimum monthly wage here and they wonder why Brazil pirates so much.

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Head-Sick@reddit

I've not pirated a single game since steam. I just wait for a sale at this point.

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madjohnvane@reddit

The data does indeed show Gaben was correct. Hell, piracy of films and TV also dropped substantially when streaming was cheap and centralised. Now it’s expensive and spread across a million services it’s been growing again. Shocker.

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xx123gamerxx@reddit

if you see 2 stores and 1 sells everything for free but has a %0.0000001 chance of you getting arrested which shop do you choose

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NotOnLand@reddit

More like if one store has everything free, but the aisles are super cramped, there are tons of empty boxes that look real, each one hads a .1% of being coated in anthrax, and you sometimes have to do a stealth minigame to get out the door. And the other store has hundreds of checkout lanes and constant clearance sales.

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displayboi@reddit

In many countries like mine it is not even illegal to pirate, so the choice is very clear a lot of times

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LesserValkyrie@reddit

The future has proven that the easiest way to stop piracy is to make games that are so horrible nobody will pirate it because even for free it's too expensive on their time.

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PrivetDecem@reddit

Solves for who?

In my country, a game still is almost half of a salary.

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DankElderberries420@reddit

my favorite class is the spy

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Sawier@reddit

I stopped pirating stuff because I cant be bothered pirating anymore, also have a job and can afford shit now compared to when I was kid

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A_Blue_Potion@reddit

What is Anon talking about? The corpos never even listened to Gabe's advice. They'd probably sooner jump off a cliff than give better service.

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_Hello_World_7@reddit

Doesnt minecraft also have modding

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Apalis24a@reddit

Piracy will never be fully eliminated, but you can absolutely reduce it.

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ConscientiousPath@reddit

Piracy is only rampant among teenagers who don't get an allowance or have jobs, and people in poor countries who aren't getting regional pricing to help them out. Every adult with a job good enough to leave time off for gaming has no problem shifting what would have been a $60 night out budget to a game instead, and getting to play immediately instead of spending 3 hours trying to find a pirated copy that works makes it a better experience.

The only games people pirate anymore are the ones that do stupid shit to their customers like killing performance by adding Denuvo, or making so many expensive-but-game-changing DLCs that it feels like you can't play without spending $200 (e.g. Stellaris and The Sims)

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PreviousLove1121@reddit

they didn't really solve the service problem though.

bunch of games still require me to install their publishers proprietary software.

so in those cases, well the pirate copy doesn't make me install the EA client or the Ubisoft client or the RockStar client.
you get what I mean?

if I buy a game on steam, let me launch and play it through steam without any extra shit. especially shit that has "EA" or "Ubisoft" written on it. gross.

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krausier@reddit

Of course, Gabe was right, but the problem is there's always going to be pirates. Regardless of how happy the consumer is or not.

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FullTimeHarlot@reddit

It's a mixture of both. There will always be people that don't want to spend a penny and instead pirate anything and everything. They were never going to be the target audience to profit from.

However, if you look at Netflix prior to 2018-19 and Spotify, there's definitely a large amount of customers that will pay a subscription for ease of access and a large collection. I can't remember the last time I pirated music since I bought a Spotify sub in 2012.

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nothing_in_my_mind@reddit

Gaben reduced piracy to a great degree. In my country, it went from like 99% of people pirating games to maybe less than 50%. It was all because of Steam, how convenient it is and its many sales.

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Ad841@reddit

Nowadays I only pirate to test out a game. If I like it, I’ll buy it from GOG or Steam. Otherwise, I’ll uninstall it and keep going with my life.

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Calibrumm@reddit

even at its peak piracy wasn't anything remotely rampant compared to sales numbers and piracy has dwindled over the last 10 years.

also most people only resort to piracy when they can't get the game on steam or it's from a really scummy developer.

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Own_Initiative396@reddit

Fuck i got gaben

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qercl@reddit

I think Gaben is right, I haven’t pirated games since steam

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AlexMiDerGrosse@reddit

OP can't even imagine the sheer amount of shit I'd illegally download if it Steam did not exist or wasn't so convenient

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Every-Nebula6882@reddit

Streaming services and steam have very much reduced piracy of media and games. Gen z doesn’t even know how to pirate music because for their whole lives they had infinite music for 9.99 a month or whatever Spotify costs.

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Captain_Sacktap@reddit

Piracy went down significantly in the early years of Steam and streaming services. Convenience, ease of accessibility, and the price point made piracy far less relevant or necessary. But over the last 7-8 years things like Netflix and Steam have become more expensive and less convenient, hence a resurgence of piracy.

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nojala@reddit

Done my fair share of piracy. But it’s just a fucking hassle. Knowing which sites to trust/not trust, getting errors that seem unique to just you, the abysmal download times and then trying to get everything to fucking work. And hoping I didn’t just fuck my computer with a bunch of viruses.

Buying, downloading and then playing is so much easier. Yeah, money will always be a factor, but I have patience and almost always buy exclusively on sale. Plus as I have grown older and started my own various projects and whatnot it feels good to support smaller games and devs that are clearly passionate about what they do.

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hectic_scone@reddit

the only games i pirate are ones that would otherwise cost me $70

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TheDarkDistance@reddit

I’ve never pirated a game that is available on steam. Usually just old Nintendo games cause those rats abandon them on an antiquated console that even if I had, I wouldn’t wanna bust out for a singular game. Have a friend who pirates games that are on steam, but if he really likes them, he buys them on steam and leaves a good review. So I’d say yeah, in a way.

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NCSGeek@reddit

Nobody can stop theft or piracy. I'm sure Gabe's point wasn't that. It's about ratios. Offer a good enough product and service such that it's the better option for most people to just buy it.

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LosWitchos@reddit

I'm happy to wait a while before I buy games (even GTA6 I'll probably wait a year or two before I buy it) and after that time they're either real cheap or on gamerpass anyway.

There's been barely any need to pirate games nowadays. If I was into The Sims then I'd probably do it to have all the DLCs without spending a thousand quid, but I don't play The Sims, so I won't.

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Antanarau@reddit

Yes. Both anon and Gabe, in fact.

Gaben was talking about pirates that would buy. But couldn't afford it, or simply couldn't physically. Both of these were solved with steam. He, in fact, even talks about that in the full context ( "If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable."). THOSE pirates Gabe has fully converted to Steam.

But there are other pirates - those who just don't want to pay. Those who are never pay. Those are still running as rampant as ever. And yes - those pirates are "just people who want free shit" as anon says.

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ObscureRaptors@reddit

Honestly unless it's not on steam or I can't get a second hand copy is the only reason I pirate if nintendo wants money maybe let me buy what I wanna buy

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RodjaJP@reddit

I haven't pirated any game that was on steam since I got into PC gaming unless I wanna try it before spending 60 dollars.

I have pirated a ton of shows and movies because of many reasons: 1. I want to BUY them, I don't wanna pay a subscriptions, even less the 10 streaming services. 2. My dub isn't there. 3. The subs are shit compared to pirated subs. 4. The only legal options are overseas without English subs. 5. The show isn't available anywhere. 6. The other seasons, specials, and movies of the series I'm watching aren't on my current SS.

If there was a Steam for movies and shows I wouldn't be pirating them ever again. So yeah, it is a service problem.

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NightWis@reddit

He actually solved piracy problem for many people. For me it’s EGS which brought it back with exclusive deals and bare bones store.

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JustPlayer@reddit

that genius forgot about the prices of the games kekw

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Mental_Dragonfly2543@reddit

I only pirate movies and TV because Spotify and Steam are a lot more convenient while TV and Movies are spread across a hundred different websites with different payment tiers on each one.

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NotAnNpc69@reddit

Regardless of what you believe the answer is to that question, nobody can deny the fact ol' gaben completely changed the modern gaming industry with steam. And surprisingly for the good. Usually when a new business model takes root, it's cancerous (ubisoft, EA et al with microtransactions and pay to win) to the culture. How many artists actually made money cause of steam, how many indie developers who, if steam didn't exist, would have gone penniless?

Anon is regarded if he truly believes gabe didn't practice what he preached.

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Sarojh-M@reddit

I never ever pirated a game that wasn't straight up not available for purchase anymore like emulating old Nintendo games.

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full_knowledge_build@reddit

Bro steam literally lets me use pirated games in my library with all the comfort, he is letting me do that, that guy just wants people to use steam that’s it

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Username928351@reddit

Piracy is irrelevant if you're making fat stacks of dosh.

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KSoMA@reddit

Capcom just revealed a few days ago that they sell more games on PC than all consoles combined.

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ThatGuyYouMightNo@reddit

Don't make me get the plane diagram out, anon.

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bruthu@reddit

The platform can’t do much about piracy, and I don’t think they need to. If a game offers services that are worth the money and only function when you buy the game, people are gonna buy the game.

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DatBeigeBoy@reddit

Yes it worked.

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TheSlapDash@reddit

Bro I got a cease and desist last time I tried to pirate

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H00ston@reddit

Rampant is a bit much, Piracy groups peaked in size and scale around the 2010's when you had uplay, origin and disc/physical DRM running around.

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NormalGuy_15@reddit

Yeah, even when i pirate some games, I later buy them just for how convienient Steam makes it, like with cloud saves, multiplayer and so in

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CrystalFriend@reddit

I mean I havnt pirated a game since I got steam

Anime on the other hand.

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Jcrm87@reddit

He is right. The moment I stopped being poor I started buying from Steam very happily, instead of struggling with shady websites and cracks.

This is also a good reminder for streaming services like Netflix: they're only popular because they're slightly more convenient than piracy. Keep increasing the price while screwing up the streaming quality and options... And we will sail again 🏴‍☠️

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Schozinator@reddit

steam doesn't sell tv shows and movies sooo

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Trash_Emperor@reddit

Steam helped the game industry more than probably anything else. The only games I pirate nowadays are the ones I'm too broke to afford. I at least pay for every single indie game and getting a good game on sale also feels weirdly rewarding.

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UnidentifiedTomato@reddit

I'd argue that piracy to some degree actually works as free marketing for those who wouldn't afford or pay for whatever it is they're pirating. Word of mouth is still the #1 marketing tool

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hackitfast@reddit

I pirated when I was a kid and wasn't allowed to use a credit card. Now I buy every single one of my games.

Adobe software, on the other hand.. 🏴‍☠️

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akamalk@reddit

"Piracy still rampant" when people buys much more games than before, anon is a dirty corp shill.

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GargamelLeNoir@reddit

Of course anon, we can see that Steam really doesn't pull any money...

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PCMR_GHz@reddit

Don’t pirate indie games. Idgaf about AAA devs and publishers though.

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1stMembrOfTheDKCrew@reddit

I will legitimately buy shit on steam because I know I can refund it if its shit vs pirate a game of its not on the steam platform

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alekdmcfly@reddit

Yes, he was.

The only games I pirate are games that aren't available legally on PC.

If the game isn't legally available on my machine, then this means that the developer doesn't want me to buy it legally.

Honestly, there should be a law for all commercial games to provide the game's code for emulation on PC.

Even if that way is just sending you the compiled game's code, a key to enter inside the game to unlock it, and telling you "go emulate it yourself jackass". Even that would instantly prevent me from pirating console games.

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lawnmowerboi69@reddit

Tbh the only thing I pirate these days is textbooks for my engineering classes

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Totoques22@reddit

Lmao the comments losing their shit at this and claiming it’s just poor people in poor countries

Denuvo still exist and is bought more than ever by publishers so I guess piracy isn’t as dead as the comments wants to believe

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ValhallasRevenge@reddit

A game that I played as a teenager got released on steam today. The game is Red Dead Redemption, this game is 14 years old. Rockstar is charging 50 USD for it. While also forcing their stupid launcher on anyone who is stupid enough to give them money.

Shit like this is why people still pirate games.

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Winter_Low4661@reddit

Yes, Peter Griffin was on to something.

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lifeisagameweplay@reddit

The real "service" are the updates and patches. Keeping pirated games up to date is a pain. It would be so easy to update games by rehashing torrents but no one does it.

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ChangingMonkfish@reddit

He was right in the end. Steam makes it too easy to just buy a game for most people to be bothered pirating things.

Same with Spotify, Netflix, even things like TNT Sport which is a pisstake.

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Vincomenz@reddit

I've only recently put my pirate hat back on in the last year and it is specifically because all the services now suck. Its just cable again, but even more fragmented.

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Brasil1126@reddit

actually the solution is to just shoot them

oh, you’re pirating our game? Guess what

and then just shoot em

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L003Tr@reddit

Live a pirate, die a pirate's death

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PlzDontBanMe2000@reddit

You can tell a 14 year old wrote this

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WeekendBard@reddit

Don't give Nintendo ideas.

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ShopperOfBuckets@reddit

Then why does steam have DRM?

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KryptoBones89@reddit

I used to pirate games, now I usually just get them on steam. I still pirate movies and shows tho lol

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throwaway-DSMK@reddit

Because they didn't fix the service problem.

They are a lot of exclusives (less quantity), ads and it's in worse quality than Blu-Ray Remuxes. So in this case, piracy provides a better service

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rchelgrennn@reddit

I pirate shit because I want free shit, it's that simple lmao.

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imalasagnahogama@reddit

I buy a ton from steam. He wasn’t totally wrong.

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CritStarrHD@reddit

Rockstar just released a 14-year-old game for 60 bucks without a second thought, I couldn't care less if their net profits decreased a lil bit because of piracy.

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Jugaimo@reddit

Basically the same problem with the NY metro fare evaders. The city has spent more money on policing fare dodgers than the actual cost of lost fares. Cracking down on something is infinitely more difficult than actually making a good product, but industries are loathe to take the risk needed for change.

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SanityZetpe66@reddit

I pirated a lot of games as a teen before I could use any kind of online payment without having to ask my parents.

Then steam added cash payments and there was no going back.

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Acharyn@reddit

It's still morally acceptable to pirate games with Denuvo.

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chroniclesofhernia@reddit

100% correct. I pirated EVERYTHING when I was on windows, now I'm on linux for everything, I pay for my shit. Sure, I can still pirate? But damn, Steam is cooking with Proton.

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nurpleclamps@reddit

The easiest way to stop most piracy of media is to turn off the internet for the entire world.

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skyturnedred@reddit

Piracy existed for a long time before the internet was even a thing.

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nurpleclamps@reddit

Sure you might still have some people putting data on flash drives and mailing it to each other but with without the internet you won’t have one dude sharing a file with 3 million people.

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skyturnedred@reddit

You don't need to involve the mailman. Pirated media was sold everywhere, and still is in some places.

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PooInTheStreet@reddit

“People”

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MenkyuKan_Twitch_VT@reddit

since I got my first credit card I almost never Pirated anything. always bought it. since it's easier to play through steam instead of pirating.

also making collections feels nice. getting achievements and showcasing them feels nice.

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Foxehh4@reddit

I mean Steam makes dickloads of money and helps small indie devs advertise - it works to a pretty damn good extent.

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Disco_Biscuit12@reddit

He probably said this back before they started putting commercials in paid streaming services and didn’t have pay blocked content for half of their shit.

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Owhlala@reddit

i started spending money on games because of Steam so are you gay

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BrownieZombie1999@reddit

Never met someone who pirates who couldn't have been convinced not to if 1. The item was still available & 2. It wasn't a brain dead price.

People tend to want to support products they like, but I'm not buying a game for $100, loosen your tie Mr. Exec because it's clearly cutting oxygen to your brain.

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Some_Kenyan@reddit

I pirate every single new game that comes out because since the quality of games have significantly gone down in the past decade but the prices keep going up, I pirate. I buy the game if the game is worth buying but I have only purchased one game (helldivers 2) in the past 10 years.

The modern games industry is dogshit and filled with diversity quotas and the only way to make them listen to the customers is to hurt their wallets. But lately all that has been doing is making the companies double down and call us all kinds of ists and phobes so yeah fuck them, don’t give them a dime

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Brokenbonesjunior@reddit

If epic and origin were the only platforms available (and god forbid, multiplayer communities restricted to said platform) piracy would be at a whole other level right now.

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OG_Felwinter@reddit

I wouldn’t have to buy pirated copies of old Pokemon games if Nintendo would sell me them for $60.

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MrFrames@reddit

The service issue comes from publishers. Games are unattainably expensive in second and third world countries. Maybe if publishers are serious about stopping piracy they should swallow their pride and make their games affordable everywhere.

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Tobosix@reddit

Nah my debrid works overtime

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creeper6530@reddit

Anon is regarded

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divinity995@reddit

Piracy is rampant, yeah but on the other side many people who spend absolute tons of money wouldnt have gotten into games if they didnt pirate as kids. And some people just buy games later on or when they grow up. Like my parents were well off but they werent too happy about popping 50€ for a game, while now as an adult i spend half my paycheck on games

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rekaids@reddit

Nah he's right. I stopped pirating music after I got Spotify. If you make the legal shit more convenient than illegal shit at a fair price, people will take the path of least resistance and pay it.

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Luciano99lp@reddit

Piracy will always exist, but if you want to mitigate how much exists then gabe really hit the nail on the head. Why do so many people pay for NSO for all of the retro games? The convenience. People are lazy and willing enough to pay a monthly fee to circumvent the hassel of finding a good quality emulator that works, roms for your favorite games, and controller setups that dont suck ass. Yes, to us, all of those things are very easy to find and set up. But to a lot of normies, nso is a quality service thats cheap enough to give you the retro nintendo experience without the "hassel" of piracy. Piracy will always exist, but nintendo has cashed a big check from nso retro games.

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whitewail602@reddit

I haven't pirated a single game since I first installed Steam. Same with music and streaming.

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KaiserRoll823@reddit

Piracy will always exist, but a good portion only pirate because they can't get their media elsewhere or where they can get it is too much of a hassle/too expensive

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Ledairyman@reddit

I'm paying for 99% of my games.

I didn't mind downloading music or movies, but I always bought my games.

If it's not on Steam then guess I'm not playing

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Mars_Aeternum_@reddit

Pirating Nintendo games to play at 1080p 60fps ? Hell yeah

Pirating a pc game to later buy it at a 90% discount if I like the original material ? Fuck yes

Buying directly from EA/Ubisoft ? 🤮🥴

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the_bartolonomicron@reddit

I only started properly gaming on PC circa 2008 and have literally never pirated a game because of how convenient Steam is.

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MiruCle8@reddit

If I pirate a game it means I like it enough to play it. Worst case scenario I delete it and don't think about it again. Best case scenario I buy the game.

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slowkid68@reddit

Honestly just say you like free shit. I hate hate when pirates act like they have some sort of moral high ground

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CacodemonGaming@reddit

And now people are FINALLY realizing Steam was ground zero for “you will not own your games and you will be happy”-type marketplaces and are going back to pirating lmao

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WoolooOfWallStreet@reddit

There’s a lot of games I bought on steam simply because they were on sale for 50 cents that day

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UltraMegaKaiju@reddit

not anymore, if buying aint owning, piracy aint stealing

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IamWatchingAoT@reddit

People who pirate shit are people who can't afford it. Can't solve that unless you solve global poverty.

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5intage_@reddit

i recently bought sonic adventure 2 on steam even tough i dowloaded for free a couple months ago i know im not alone in this but most of the games i pirated i never played or gave up after a day

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SilverDriverter@reddit

"Piracy is still rampant" mostly for people in the less fortunate countries. If you can't buy the game cause it costs half your monthly salary you are better off just pirating it. Also it's not even a loss on the company's side, because these people wouldn't have purchased it in the first place

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humziz2@reddit

There's still piracy but a lot less. The countries that have high piracy still have service issues, brazil for example where games are like 100% more expensive

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GoodlifeFOB@reddit

I used to pirate everything when i was younger and penyless, now i have everything on Steam.

Ironically i have started pirating movies and series again since streaming services turnt into complete garbage

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FantasmaBizarra@reddit

Or maybe companies are charging 70 USD for unfinished shitty games that nobody wants to pay for

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pretty_pretty_good_@reddit

Don't know about anyone else but literally the ONLY way I can watch like 90% of the live football and ice hockey games I'm interested in watching would be illegal streaming. Even if I was paying for the services they still don't let you watch it for dumb obsolete reasons.

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Pennywise_M@reddit

Actually I think it did work some. I think game pirating was much heavier 15+ years ago. Games is one of the things I practically don't pirate, for example.

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das_slash@reddit

Only games I pirate nowadays are games that have dozens of DLC that add little value, and I usually buy the base game whenever it's possible to just unlock the DLC.

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simpydk@reddit

I don't pirate because of a lack of services. I pirate because I'm not rich enough to drop 60+ bucks on a new release that might just be utter dogwater.

S'long as publishers release AAA sludge (Concord, Cities skylines 2, etc.) I rather pirate first to see if it's worth spending money on.

Very few games have been worth full price recently.

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Jabjab345@reddit

Spotify is objectively a better experience than downloading mp3 files and fixing the metadata and maintaining a song library.

Steam is objectively a better experience than downloading pirated games that have a non zero chance of giving your computer viruses, and even when you do get a working game, pirated versions can be buggy and hard to get working properly.

Unless you're entirely poverty stricken, Gabe was right.

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MisterSirrr@reddit

Unfortunately not every game is on Steam.

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thegree2112@reddit

Or just make shit games that no one wants.

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AgarwaenCran@reddit

piracy died down massively thanks to steam. back then it was so rampant, that gaming on PC was slowly dying since publishers basically went like "they will pirate it anyway so why even bother with a (good) PC version".

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The_real_bandito@reddit

I agree because I don’t pirate games except some Nintendo games that I wouldn’t buy otherwise.

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Designated_Lurker_32@reddit

Giving a service that is better than what pirates are offering requires you to keep your greed in check and avoid fucking over consumers unnecessarily. This proved to be beyond most entertainment corporations.

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Kairofox@reddit

Mate I got death stranding for free on epic and still bought it on steam, it fuckin worked

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PofanWasTaken@reddit

> problem exists

> company provides good service

> problem still exists, despite there being good service

> "is service le bad?"

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HereIsACasualAsker@reddit

you pirate things when a game is worth a week of food or rent where you live.

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Aesion@reddit

Yes, anon, Steam is bankrupt because people just pirate everything

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Lebenmonch@reddit

Classic American take

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dyrkeske@reddit

Good games deserve the money as simple as that and most of the people that pirate games are people that wouldn’t by the game either way not everyone have access to 60 to 80 dollars to spend on a game. when you have to choose either to buy food or play a game the decision is pretty obvious. DRM is an anti poverty tool above all.

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BobertRosserton@reddit

“Yeah I have all the stats on the popularity of video game piracy and it’s definitely gone up I swearsies”.

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Chakramer@reddit

Idk if it's that rampant.

When I was younger every multiplayer game had pirated servers, these days you just don't see that anymore. Also there are many games you can't pirate until they remove the DRM, at which point they don't care about getting many more sales.

If piracy was still super huge on PC we'd never see single player releases again from AAA studios as they would not be profitable

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thesyves@reddit

I can't give Nintendo money to play Fire Emblem Path of Radiance in 2024 so of course I'm gonna pirate it.

PC games? Nah, I just get them on steam or wait for them to get to steam.

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IrregularitySquared@reddit

wait till he figures out people like pirating games from big corpos who don’t deserve people’s money