Newell: Piracy is a non-issue for Valve

Valve boss Gabe Newell has challenged the notion that software pricing is the driving force behind games piracy.

Instead, Newell insists that piracy can be conquered with a sufficiently strong service offering.

"We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy,” he told The Cambridge Student, as spotted by GameSpy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem.

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 US 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.

Our goal is to create greater service value than pirates, and this has been successful enough for us that piracy is basically a non-issue for our company."