During an interview with The Cambridge Student Online, Gabe Newell, the co-founder of Valve, feels the issue with piracy on the PC goes beyond just the usual complaints about prices and more about the services themselves.
By comparing the 24/7 services a pirate can offer in comparison to a publisher limiting access to their games either by region locking or DRM restrictions, the pirate's services would be more favorable regardless of the actual retail price of the product.
His main issues involves the various types of DRM being more of a hassle to legitimate customers than to pirates and games being restricted only to certain retail stores well after their initial release on the PC.
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"For example, if a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24/7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country three months after the U.S. release and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable. Most DRM solutions diminish the value of the product by either directly restricting a customer's use or by creating uncertainty."
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He compared those services with Steam's ability to provide both the 24/7 service and affordable prices customers wanted. This ended up leading to both the service's massive rise in popularity and a way to fight piracy on the platform due to those same customers continued satisfaction with the service.
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"Our success comes from making sure that both customers and partners feel like they get a lot of value from those services. They can trust us not to take advantage of the relationship that we have with them."
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http://www.screwattack.com/news/gabe...vice-not-price
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Daily Recap:
1) The official US prices for the PS Vita memory sticks will range from $30 for the 4GB stick to $120 for the 32GB stick.
http://www.screwattack.com/news/ps-v...y-card-pricing
2) According to leaked documents, Sony is currently working on their own version of a "Super Smash Bros" fighting game.
http://kotaku.com/5862755/is-sony-wo...mash-bros-game
3) Nintendo is facing another lawsuit as Impulse Technology is currently suing the company and other 3rd party developers involving the Wii Balance Board claiming it infringes on their patent rights and is too similar to their own Trazer Interactive Fitness machine.
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/11/25/im...-infringement/
4) Based on a few rumors, Microsoft is currently negotiating a deal to add Kinect into Sony built televisions while the next generation Kinect device is strong enough to both track and read lip movements.