<story><title>If buying isn&apos;t owning, piracy isn&apos;t stealing</title><url>https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/08/playstationed/#tyler-james-hill</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>flohofwoe</author><text>Of course, but since the Steam model works so well one wonders why everybody else is stumbling along instead of &amp;quot;just&amp;quot; copying it. Steam is pretty much the only platform where I don&amp;#x27;t care that I&amp;#x27;m constantly bombarded with &amp;quot;targeted ads&amp;quot; for instance, I&amp;#x27;m actually most of the time interested in what the Steam recommendation algorithm has in store for me.</text></item><item><author>dindobre</author><text>I also appreciate Gaben, but we can&amp;#x27;t rely on enlightened despots, it just leaves room for bad actors to eventually ruin things.</text></item><item><author>flohofwoe</author><text>It can&amp;#x27;t be worse than in the mid-90&amp;#x27;s (at least in relative numbers, of course absolute numbers will be much higher because the market is so much bigger now).&lt;p&gt;Ever since services like Steam existed I have pretty much pirated zero games, it&amp;#x27;s just too much hassle compared to clicking the Buy button on Steam (and if it&amp;#x27;s too expensive, the next season sale is always just around the corner). In comparison, my 90&amp;#x27;s self owned pretty much zero bought games.&lt;p&gt;Or as our Lord and Saviour Gaben ;) said:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It&amp;#x27;s by giving those people a service that&amp;#x27;s better than what they&amp;#x27;re receiving from the pirates.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Still spot on.</text></item><item><author>dindobre</author><text>The social contract is so broken that I&amp;#x27;m not surprised that piracy is rampant. I justify it (and I make games). It has all become a matter of leverage, I truly believe that if some companies (or people) could point a gun to our heads they would, and it shows in the way they operate.&lt;p&gt;And no, it&amp;#x27;s not always &amp;quot;it&amp;#x27;s just profit&amp;quot;, sometimes it&amp;#x27;s a shortsighted chase of the next stock value high with complete disregard for the future since lack of accountability is pretty much built-in into the higher classes of managers</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dleslie</author><text>&amp;gt; Of course, but since the Steam model works so well one wonders why everybody else is stumbling along instead of &amp;quot;just&amp;quot; copying it.&lt;p&gt;Origin, Blizzard, uPlay et al failed to challenge Steam largely because they lack both features and catalog; it&amp;#x27;s not clear they even intended to take on Steam, because of the lack of content from other publishers.&lt;p&gt;EGS is worth special attention because it both has content from other publishers and has dumped considerable cash into the goal of unseating Steam. I think it comes down to features: the EGS store has generally been a sub-par experience, and they purposefully refused to implement features like Community Scores, Forums, and other metasocial features that make Steam what it is.&lt;p&gt;They underestimate the value of player reviews, community scoring, forums, guides, workshop and so on. Even if most of users of most games don&amp;#x27;t avail themselves of those features, they&amp;#x27;re important features for retaining the most die-hard of users; who in turn form the core of the social draw to use Steam.</text></comment>
<story><title>If buying isn&apos;t owning, piracy isn&apos;t stealing</title><url>https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/08/playstationed/#tyler-james-hill</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>flohofwoe</author><text>Of course, but since the Steam model works so well one wonders why everybody else is stumbling along instead of &amp;quot;just&amp;quot; copying it. Steam is pretty much the only platform where I don&amp;#x27;t care that I&amp;#x27;m constantly bombarded with &amp;quot;targeted ads&amp;quot; for instance, I&amp;#x27;m actually most of the time interested in what the Steam recommendation algorithm has in store for me.</text></item><item><author>dindobre</author><text>I also appreciate Gaben, but we can&amp;#x27;t rely on enlightened despots, it just leaves room for bad actors to eventually ruin things.</text></item><item><author>flohofwoe</author><text>It can&amp;#x27;t be worse than in the mid-90&amp;#x27;s (at least in relative numbers, of course absolute numbers will be much higher because the market is so much bigger now).&lt;p&gt;Ever since services like Steam existed I have pretty much pirated zero games, it&amp;#x27;s just too much hassle compared to clicking the Buy button on Steam (and if it&amp;#x27;s too expensive, the next season sale is always just around the corner). In comparison, my 90&amp;#x27;s self owned pretty much zero bought games.&lt;p&gt;Or as our Lord and Saviour Gaben ;) said:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It&amp;#x27;s by giving those people a service that&amp;#x27;s better than what they&amp;#x27;re receiving from the pirates.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Still spot on.</text></item><item><author>dindobre</author><text>The social contract is so broken that I&amp;#x27;m not surprised that piracy is rampant. I justify it (and I make games). It has all become a matter of leverage, I truly believe that if some companies (or people) could point a gun to our heads they would, and it shows in the way they operate.&lt;p&gt;And no, it&amp;#x27;s not always &amp;quot;it&amp;#x27;s just profit&amp;quot;, sometimes it&amp;#x27;s a shortsighted chase of the next stock value high with complete disregard for the future since lack of accountability is pretty much built-in into the higher classes of managers</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sophacles</author><text>I wouldn&amp;#x27;t even call it &amp;quot;bombarded&amp;quot;. I only get ads when i click on &amp;quot;store&amp;quot;, as in I signal &amp;quot;I&amp;#x27;m interested in spending money, what do you have?&amp;quot; - that&amp;#x27;s actually a reasonable time to get ads.</text></comment>