Valve don't fear PC piracy
Developer only looks at opportunities
Steam operators Valve Software are taking a very pragmatic approach to piracy, Jason Holtman telling the Game Business Law summit (GameDaily) that pirates are just "under-served customers".
Holtman says that publishers need to look at the opportunities offered by the PC and the benefits of online distribution models like Steam.
"There’s a big business feeling that there’s piracy. Pirates are under-served customers," he offered, continuing by suggesting that "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.'"
The exec concluded with an example: "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."
