‘Piracy is a service issue’ claims Valve boss

Piracy is a service issue and not a pricing issue, says Valve boss Gabe Newell.

Speaking at the North of Innovation conference in Seattle, Newell said the best way to stop illicit file sharing is by not using anti-piracy technology and improving a game’s offerings.

“The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting anti-piracy technology to work,” claimed Newell, as quoted by Geekwire.

“It’s by giving those people a service that’s better than what they’re receiving from the pirates.”

He said that despite the perception of places like Russia having a reputation for illicit file sharing, that country is now Valve’s second largest continental European market after Germany.

“The people who are telling you that Russians pirate everything are the people who wait six months to localise their product there,” he said.

“So that, as far as we’re concerned, is asked and answered. It doesn’t take much in terms of providing a better service to make pirates a non-issue.”

Newell also discussed at the conference how large Counter-strike discounts made sales of the franchise jump by ‘4000 per cent’.