I feel like the Steam Deck is the best proof of Gabe Newell's quote that "piracy is a service issue."

They could have easily crammed the Steam Deck full of stuff to make it hard to use for piracy - locking down everything, making it usable only to play games you legitimately own, force you to go through who knows what hoops in order to play games on it. That's what Nintendo or Apple or most other companies do.

But they didn't, because they realized they didn't have to. It's 100% possible to put pirated games on the Steam Deck - in fact, it's as easy as it could reasonably be. You copy it over, you wire it up to Steam, if it's a non-Linux game you set it up with Proton or whatever else you want to use to run it, bam. You can now run it in Steam just as easily as a normal Steam game (usually.) If you want something similar to cloud saves you can even set up SyncThing for that.

But all of that is a lot of work, and after all that you still don't have automatic updates, and some games won't run this way for one reason or another even though they'll run if you own them (usually, I assume, because of Steam Deck specific tweaks or install stuff that are only used when you're running them on the Deck via the normal method.) Some of this you can work around but it's even more hoops.

Whereas if you own a game it's just push a button and play. They made legitimately owning a game more convenient than piracy, and they did it without relying on DRM or anything that restricts or annoys legitimate users at all - even if a game has a DRM-free GOG version, owning it on Steam will still make it easier to play on the Steam Deck.

Tattorack ,
@Tattorack@lemmy.world avatar

This was already proven at the height of Netflix, before streaming service hell.

CynicRaven ,

It's interesting you mention Apple because while I have every expectation that you're correct at the moment, the iPod absolutely benefited from piracy. iTunes allowed you to add your own songs to your library to sync with the device, and iTunes could also be argued to have been on a similar model to Steam because you'd pay to 'own' the songs and there was no subscription giving you access to songs.

Kallioapina ,
@Kallioapina@lemmy.world avatar

Then they started to remove songs you own, and songs from your hard drive that iTunes had nothing to do with it... Fucking apple cultists. You really never see any fault in your chosen god?

oce ,
@oce@jlai.lu avatar

they did it without relying on DRM

Steam itself has some kind of DRM. You need to login to Steam to access the games you bought (sure there's offline mode but then you can't download your games, update or buy more, so it's only temporary convenience). If Steam dies one day, so will your Steam games library.
However, the service is great, so it's not annoying.

corship ,

That is absolutely not correct.

Steam policy is if valve shuts it down, they'll give you enough time to download all the games and run them without drm.

barsoap ,

Steam DRM is trivial to circumvent, it's basically cheap locks screwed onto the game with security torx, not even riveted: If you have a toolbelt you're already in and every skiddie with half a brain cell can do it as Valve doesn't bother defeating the scripts that are floating around.

What it does prevent is random tech-illiterate people copying game files to their friend's box.

If Steam dies one day then my library would be largely lost, yes, but not due to DRM but because most of my library isn't actually on my disk.

Kittenstix ,

I feel like if Steam dies we're in some kind of end of the world scenario anyway so there probably wouldn't be time to game anymore.

isles ,

Or maybe exclusively time to game as we live in our caves waiting for the fallout to settle.
How many watts is a potato?

JoeKrogan ,
@JoeKrogan@lemmy.world avatar

Also they contribute loads to the Linux ecosystem so im happy to support them as I see it as a win/win . The sales are great too I spend like 50 ducats a year and get like 9 or 10 great games for that.

Blackmist ,

The sales are shit and have been for years.

The price of PC getting popular I guess.

fallingcats ,

Ever tried to buy a game on a console?

Blackmist ,

Yes, physical sales are miles better than digital. Even better if you shop used.

If you think Steam sales are still great, then you're either young or have a crap memory. Used to be the case that 6-12 month old games went for 75% off and often more. The flash sales died and so did the bargains.

Now Steam is just ancient games at full price until the next sale so they can claim "60% off" again so it matches the price of a PS5 disc on Amazon or wherever.

Lemmyvisitor ,

I just hope that steam stays good. it's great now, but I fear for the future with everything behind steam DRM

danielbln ,

Let's just hope for Gabe to live a long life still. Valve is a private company and not nearly as much in danger for enshittification as a public company would be.

DudeDudenson ,

Funny how we've just accepted that any publicly traded company has to become shit and take no action about it

JokeDeity ,

Not to defend the shitty companies out there, but in a sense they have no choice. Once you're publicly traded shareholders expect infinite growth at ANY cost to the consumers or the employees of the company. Every single year they expect to see their return increase, even looking like a plateau for a short period is enough to make a huge chunk of the greedy bastards jump ship. IMO shareholders are the number one, most direct and largest cause of the enshitification of everything. Being publicly traded these days is a death sentence for a companies nature and good will.

Terramaris ,

And its our fault too. Its easy to see shareholders as rich fatcats telling the CEO to "Put MTX in it and make it slow and grindy!", but if any of us have IRAs or retirement accounts, we are the shareholders too. We want the nest egg we set aside to grow, and that leads to the same problem.

cordlesslamp ,

Don't even need Steam deck. The Steam store has put an end to my pirate life over a decade ago.

On multiple occasions, I have found myself rather wait for sale and bought a game on Steam, than receive it for free on Epic store.

I put every single games that I have ever pirated in Steam's wishlist (if it's available). Then slowly buying them one by one when they goes on sale. I'm not rich by any means and it's the least I can do.

Cethin ,

It mostly stopped piracy for me, but occasionally I'll want to try a game but not want to support the company, or try a game I know I'll hate just to see what they did.

I also pirated Starfield, which I technically had access to through GamePass, but it couldn't be modded. (I also ended up hating it too.) I'll probably be canceling GamePass though since I've switched to 100% Linux since then, and Windows has made it impossible to use with Linux.

Flax_vert ,

Speaking of services, I wonder how much piracy would go down if Netflix and Disney Plus and such would let you rent a film or episode at £0.50-£2 at a time for 24 hours, like how Google Play used to let you. That way if you don't own one of the subscriptions, you can still watch by paying pocket change. Or watch unlimited by paying the monthly fee.

fox ,

Vudu, Amazon, and iTunes have renting capabilities.

I_am_10_squirrels ,

Isn't it typically close to the same price as buying it?

Princeali311 ,

Yes

III ,

That's why film piracy slowed for a while there - when people weren't being gouged they were happy to pay what they felt was reasonable. But now that the gouging is back... yo ho ho.

hierophant_nihilant ,

Well, I stopped pirating games a long ago because of steam, because of how good it was/is as a service and low prices. I don't think any game publisher should cry about steam prices, because when the AAA game is just released and for a full price, millions of FOMOs run to buy it. And I can wait and see if it's worth it.

PoisonedPrisonPanda ,

I think steam in general is a proof that its a service issue

Adalast ,

Valve is one of those companies that I genuinely believe makes a strong argument for ethical capitalism being possible. Sure, they have some shitty things, but overall they do treat developers and customers reasonably well, they provide hardware and software that is easy to use and non-abusive (not filled with spyware and data harvesters, doesn't use advertising, is well maintained, etc.). If we could obliterate all of the other major conglomerates and replace them with people/companies that understand that you don't have to be a massive pile of shit to make money the world would be better off.

Morgikan ,
@Morgikan@lemm.ee avatar

Valve argued in court that you do not own any title in your library and that they are a subscription based service. That's not very ethical.

ryannathans ,

Is that not true though? As much as we hate it, until you get given some transferrable proof of ownership of the game (like an NFT) and ability to play without being tied to one service, it's the unfortunate reality of online game services.

It's easy to go buy a physical game but when it's online, you don't own anything - yet

xep ,

It's true. Pragmatically speaking if you don't have access to the server software you can't play it if the servers go down, and besides reverse engineering or the goodwill of the developers I'm not aware of any games with online components that continue to be playable after their servers are taken down.

Jako301 ,

You never owned any software, even before valve. All you ever purchased was a license key that could be revoked at any time.

That isn't a problem made by valve, it existed far before the whole company was even founded. The underlying issue is the way digital mediums are licensed and the corresponding copyright laws.

zouhair ,

Valve is not publicly owned, I don't think you can equate commerce to Capitalism.

CountVon ,
@CountVon@sh.itjust.works avatar

Commerce conducted in a capitalist economy is inherently capitalist. Being publicly traded is not strictly required, though it might be the most common form of corporate structure under capitalism. Individuals, partnerships, privately-held and publicly-traded companies can all own capital. Valve's assets are not owned by a government, its business decisions are made privately and it operates in a free market. Those three factors are pretty much the definition of capitalism.

PopOfAfrica ,

Its really just because Gabe is the dude.

It would devolve of he died.

CountVon ,
@CountVon@sh.itjust.works avatar

I'm not convinced that Valve will go down the tubes when Gabe shuffles off this moral coil (praise gaben may he live a thousand years). It would require a strong company culture that believes as he does that piracy is a service issue and is thus willing to adhere to his vision in his absence, but that can happen in a privately held company if there's a strong succession plan in place.

Now, if Gabe dies and Valve goes public, then it's pretty much over. Platform monetization, proft-taking and short-term thinking would enshittify Steam in short order.

uis ,
@uis@lemmy.world avatar

since the alternative is being kicked out at 18 without anywhere to go or money.

More like socialism. Valve is privately owmed company that is run like half-company half-coop.

giggling_engine ,
@giggling_engine@lemmy.world avatar

This.

Their strength comes from having zero management and all projects are born and lead by the devs themselves. As close to communism as you could get in a capitalistic world. It does come with some problems but they're totally manageable - like having a strictly homogeneous workforce (which, one could argue, isn't a bad thing)

theangryseal ,

It’s funny. I’m dirt poor and I really want to play The Last of Us again. I could easily download it and get it going through piracy. Heck, it’s crossed my mind a time or two.

But you know what I’m doing? I’m waiting for it to go on sale and I’ll grab it then if the time is right. If not I’ll wait until it is.

I have plenty to do until then.

It’s definitely a service issue. I haven’t pirated a single game on Steam Deck.

ReCursing ,
@ReCursing@kbin.social avatar

I buy most of my games on steam simply because it makes running them on Linux so damn easy, and I remember the bad old days when it was hell!

reverendsteveii ,

The steam deck is how you prevent piracy. If you look at the huge influx of streaming services, you'll see an example of how you encourage piracy. I recently dropped three of my services in favor of one pirate site that has almost everything. They even offer a subscription tier and I've considered it. I'm willing to pay for good content. What I'm not willing to do is pay dozens of middlemen across multiple companies to rip off the people who actually make my favorite shows and then memory hole the shows a few months after they premiere.

epyon22 ,

Recently got a switch. Digital games are same price as physical, locked to my account/switch and saves don't move easily between devices. Steam deck, I can play on any hardware that can support it TV, PC laptop games cloud save for free. I can play online games for free. I know that games I buy today will be available in 10 years on my next PC. I only buy carts for the switch cause they give me more flexibility still not even the same as steam.

Sivilian ,

The deck has made me more likely to buy a game on steam because of how easy it is.

Toribor ,
@Toribor@corndog.social avatar

Seamlessly syncing game saves between my Deck and my primary gaming PC is so nice. Before I travel I just make sure to wake up the deck long enough to get updates and sync saves.

For non steam games I use syncthing but that always requires just a little bit of work.

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