News Valve: "Pirates are under-served customers"

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2009/01/20/valve-discusses-pc-game-piracy/1

Valve has commented that pirates are customers too, albeit underserved ones, who usually turn to piracy as a last resort.

 

I agree, some are Under served customers. Others are as Impar would put it, freeloaders who would not purchase the game any way. So the question becomes how to convert the under served customer to a sale and not worry about the freeloaders since they're never going to be a sale either way.

tbh this has been discussed to death and the answer which i think makes most sense is Nexxo's approach to grading the product cost wise to attract as many customers as possible.

 

Shame that Valve apparently gets this but is content to damage their own business model with the new European prices on Steam.
Now games are more expensive on Steam than in the shops let alone from other online retailers. The prices are okay in the UK but the
rest of europe (even countries that don't use the Euro such as Switzerland and Norway) have to pay a euro price which is a straight
conversion from the US (1$ = 1Euro)... Mass Effect 45 Euro??

Looking at a few forums around the net, people are now refusing to buy games from Steam and I wouldn't be suprised if many of those pirated the games instead.
Piracy is wrong, sure but when you are seen to be over charging your customers it's gotta be harder to keep them from pirating your games just to spite you.
I myself will just vote with my wallet and get the game where it's cheaper but I don't think visibly overcharging helps the situation.

I love Steam and reckoned it was a great way to handle the piracy thing (by making the games easier to buy than to steal) but I think we've taken a step backwards. I'm not even suggesting I should get to pay in Dollars but as an EU citizen, surely I should be able to purchase from the UK store?
Either way, charging 30% more than the local shop isn't gonna drive people to Steam and won't stop some people from pirating instead by not offering them an easy alternative (as the wise Nexxo pointed out)

http://steamunpowered.eu/comparison.html

 

Ahhhh, I love Valve even more now. They've been going the right way for some time now side by side with Blizzard.

 

I'll admit I pirated doom3 because it was out in the states before here, im f*cking glad I didnt buy it too - straight to the recycle bin.

 

WTF????!!

Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3

EU 65,79
US 29,99

And there is no excuse for "shipping costs" here.
Does anybody knows a hack for steam to pretend I am from the US when I buy a game?

 

Prices are all in dollars so it's $30 in the US store and $65 in the EU store. $65 being 45 pounds (50 Euro in my steam store). This is possibly part of the reason why it isn't available on the UK Steam store as EA are asking way too much for it and don't want to sell it at a lower price. You can get it on amazon.co.uk for under 20 quid and about 30 from HMV,etc

As for the Hack, they will ban your account if they find out. The only current solution is to have a US or UK friend gift you the game. Otherwise you have to pay more to use Steam than to walk to your local shop or log onto play.com

Oh and when I bought a game as a gift for my gf I was charged VAT. I should be charged VAT I know but it means that the prices are even higher than they look (Audiosurf went from 10 Euro to almost 13) when you add the VAT that is included in the price you pay in the shops.

 

the most obvious reson for pirating in russia is the price... the wages are low and a simple game that just came out can cost a few day's earnings....

think its the same with poor students paying for their own rent, food, fun, studies.... speaking from my own experience.

 

Seems amusing that Valve is blaming regional releases when Mirror's Edge has been available on Steam for North America since 14th January yet is still not available for the UK! I know that's EA's fault, but that's a rediculous time gap considering it's supposed to have been out in shops on physical media in the UK since 16th...

As for prices, it seems like it depends on what game as to whether it's cheaper or not... when the Steam store was all dollars only, Bioshock was $54.99 (with VAT charged on top of that!) which became £15.99 after currency change. I can't remember the exact price, but Tomb Raider: Underworld was cheaper on Steam even after VAT than it was listed on Play.com.

 

that is the problem with lots of places were piracy is huge...

PLUS, steam making prices higher for us Euro payers = FAIL

 

Tomb Raider is 49.99 Euros (which converts to about £45.62) on steam now. Oddly enough the UK store price is only £22.99... making the EU store version twice the price. So a customer in Ireland pays twice as much for the same files downloaded from the same server....

Even worse, it's only $40 in the US store which isn't even a 1$ = 1 Euro price.

 

Here's an idea guys, for your underserved customers.. Stop charging them in ridiculous Euro prices, and stop forcing VAT on those that don't pay VAT on digital distribution wares.

I _was_ going to buy Mirror's Edge from Steam. €50 + VAT (which I according to laws here do not pay)? HAHAHAHA. Suck it, Valve. You used to be the good guys.

 

Well not ALL of them, but to some degree Valve is right - as always.

 

Think the main reason Valve dont suffer from piracy as much is the fact they make good games, when will developers realise people will only spend there money on a game thats worth paying for.

 

This is only a piece of the pirate puzzle. Lack of region releases, lack of demo, "full version" demo, price, game quality etc are factors.

 

This has been puzzling me for a while, if a game sucks, why bother pirating it?

 

Note that Bioshock was apparently never $54.99 in the US as it launched over there at $49.99 and apparently dropped eventually to $19.99 in the US, while it remained $54.99 to UK steam customers. And the best the exchange rate ever got to was almost $2:£1 which made it about £27.50, with VAT yet to come when they started charging that on top.

 

Curiosity, lack of belief in a reviewer...could be any reason. I've played games that got 5.0s in reviews just to see how bad it was.

 

<blockquote>Mass Effect - $59,21 / not available / $19,99</blockquote>

That hurts. Bad.

3 times the price???

 

ok I guess <blockquote> doesnt work in here.... =)