this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2023
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They were never competing with cable but with piracy. Of all media sellers it seems Gabe Newell was unique in understanding that
What did Gabe do differently? I can’t recall any specifics
He noted piracy was an issue of service and ease of availability, not price. Case in point, it’s far easier for me to wait for a Steam sale and have a legal game than it is for me to go through all the effort of waiting for a decent crack, torrenting the game, and then waiting for the crack to the patch because of something that doesn’t run well.
I used to pirate games to “sample” them, and now it’s simply easier to just buy through Steam. If I hate it…oh, well. It only cost $10 through a Steam, GOG, or Humble Bundle sale.
Video streaming used to be somewhat like this when everything was through Netflix. One place to get everything you wanted was far easier than trying to acquire things through piracy.
Now, however, you’ve got to have 6 different streaming services to get what used to require only one, and with the price of hard drives going down every year, it’s actually easier to torrent what I want and just have things in my personal collection that’s never going to just get removed suddenly because NBC Universal decides that they want a piece of the pie as well.
You can ask a refund for any Steam game after a few hours of play. Refund is full, no questions asked. I've done it multiple times with games that just didn't click for me.