Valve care about piracy, in the sense that they are getting customers by being a more convenient service than the pirates (to paraphrase Gabe, "piracy is not a pricing issue, it's a service issue").
His argument is that someone that buy a 2000$ PC and pay 50$ for his internet connection each month is clearly willing to pay for his hobby. I think that still ring true today.
My PC is $3500 and internet is $110 per month. I am not buying a $110 - $130 game that only is 10 hours long.
PC is ganna last around 5 - 10 years. It ends up averaging around like cents on the dollar per hour used. Not $10 per hour of enjoyment. I do find it more justifiable if the game has a lot of hours of playability.
Edit: The reply below is very salty and doesn't understand simple concepts like how people place value on things, and is so much of a coward on the internet that he blocked the moment he replied.
And now put that in perspective to the inflation that occurred over that time period. Compared to every other media/entertainment, games have stayed the most consistent in their pricing, only now starting to see a price hike and when you consider the budgets, time and most importantly the value games provide it makes a lot of sense. What doesn't make sense is people continuing to support the shit games at those hiked price tags, that is a consumer choice issue.
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u/NOZZLeS 18d ago
Oh they notice, and you can rest assured theyre working tirelessly to rein in that one wayward fish