Home Gaming "Pirates Are Underserved Customers" says Valve

"Pirates Are Underserved Customers" says Valve

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valvepirates.jpg

What in the world is going on? Gaming companies are really starting to wisen up.

Know I know that Valve has always been pretty switched on but it’s always good to hear news like this.

You see, according to Jason Holtman from Valve, a lot of pirates are playing illegal copies of games because they just don’t have proper access to their legitimate counterparts. Hang on, are you telling me that if you hype a whole bunch of people up about a game and then tell them to wait six months longer than everyone else that they might resort to piracy instead?

No, It can’t be true! More after the jump.

So here is what Holtman had to say:

There’s a big business feeling that there’s piracy. [But the truth is] Pirates are underserved customers. .. When you think about it that way, you think, ‘Oh my gosh, I can do some interesting things and make some interesting money off of it.’

[At Valve] we take all of our games day-and-date to Russia. The reason people pirated things in Russia is because Russians are reading magazines and watching television — they say ‘Man, I want to play that game so bad,’ but the publishers respond ‘you can play that game in six months…maybe.’

We found that our piracy rates dropped off significantly [by releasing in Russia]… [There are] tons of undiscovered customers…

While I don’t think that all pirates are just undeserved customers, he does make a damn good point and one that a lot of companies need to pay attention to. Also, just to make things clear, Valve release their games simultaneously on their online platform “Steam” and this is how they get their product straight to the consumer.

He says quite clearly that when they started releasing the games at the same time in Russia that their piracy rates dropped significantly. Now obviously they aren’t going to go away altogether but look what a difference it made.

Games are too expensive and people also don’t like waiting longer than everyone else to play them. If companies started to get this into their skulls, sales would increase significantly for everyone.

A few companies have started dropping prices here and there and good for them, everyone else needs to take the hint. Cheaper games equals more sales, it’s not so tough to figure it out for Pete’s sake.

source: GameDaily [ via GamePolitics ]

Last Updated: January 19, 2009

10 Comments

  1. They will sell a lot more games if:

    1. the games are actually any good
    2. the prices are way down from current levels

    Reply

  2. Marc

    January 19, 2009 at 10:46

    Well there is the whole 6 month wait thing… also it would be nice if publishers release the same game/package all over the world… see GOW2 golden lancer and map issue…

    Reply

  3. someone

    January 19, 2009 at 11:18

    I’m not too sure how true this is but.
    A friend of mine said that we he was over seas games would cost full price or more at launch then like a month later games would cost around 70%.

    I think that would be a good idea here. (or something similar)
    I mean paying R600 for games like bullet witch that’s that old is just crazy. Not all games go Classic so sometimes a game that you want will stay a launch price even after a year.

    Reply

  4. Bboy

    January 19, 2009 at 11:21

    Good point. I was in Thailand recently and because I don’t pirate I was looking for legit xbox games over there cos maybe they were cheaper… and seriously I couldn’t find ANY. I was in malls that dwarf our biggest and there was zero xbox distribution – tho if you wanted copied games, OMS there was tons of that.

    Now perhaps it’s too late for Thailand, ppl too used to pirating there now, but things need to shape up over here or we will follow suit.

    Reply

  5. TyrannicalDuck

    January 19, 2009 at 11:50

    The problem, from a ZA perspective, is the purchasing power of the rand. Example: a standard casual game, bought online, costs US$20. To someone earning dollars, $20 is throwaway. Convert that to rands, and it’s suddenly a little pricier for your average S-African gamer.

    Reply

  6. Lupus

    January 19, 2009 at 12:18

    $20 is not pricey for an average SA gamer, that works out to R200 that is pretty cheap, remember gaming is a hobby not something you require to live, prices are going to be a bit high. Though you are correct on the price drops on older games.

    Reply

  7. Wolfy

    January 20, 2009 at 12:28

    dont forget bug free!

    Reply

  8. Wolfy

    January 20, 2009 at 12:30

    Well dude you need to shop around more. I see at some flea markets ORIGINAL games which are as old as bullet witch go for R300 to R350 which i think is a steal. And the best thing about it all is… Its legit

    Reply

  9. Wolfy

    January 20, 2009 at 12:57

    Dude i’ve know people who have been pirating for years. to tell the truth i dont even know anybody with a legit version of Windows XP

    Reply

  10. Fudzy

    January 20, 2009 at 13:01

    He makes a good point, but as game leaks in America have proven. Pirates will just find ways to distribute before the game is even released in it’s native region.

    Reply

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