In a recent interview with TCS, Gabe Newell explained why Valve is so successful. Recently we posted how Ubisoft were abandoning the PC market due to piracy, and imposing heavy DRM on their customers, but according to Newell that’s not really the right way to go about it.

He said that there is a general misconception about piracy, and it’s not really the high cost that forces people to pirate. It’s about the delivery service and how convenient it is to people with purchasing power:

“In general, we think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem,” he said.

“For example, if a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate’s service is more valuable.”

Ubisoft said that, “95% of people will pirate our game.” It’s a ridiculous thing to say without releasing any sort of data and they have also cancelled Ghost Recon: Future Soldier for the PC.

Newell explained a lot more as to how they were providing better services and creating a sense of brand loyalty. He mentioned that piracy is basically a “Non-issue” for Valve.

“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.”

“Prior to entering the Russian market, we were told that Russia was a waste of time because everyone would pirate our products. Russia is now about to become our largest market in Europe,” he revealed.

If only Ubisoft and others could learn a thing or two from this man, the gaming industry would be in a much better position.

Source: Gamingbolt