Gabe Newell: "We don't worry about Piracy" (2009) [video]
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Nov 23, 2025 at 11:01 AM EST
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E.g., I don't need an account to pirate, but I need an account to purchase games on Steam. I don't need a launcher or extra software / external services to play pirated games, but Steam requires the launcher, which requires internet, which requires the Steam servers to be up, etc. I can archive pirated games long term and they're likely to continue working as like as computers exist to run the code, but many Steam titles will stop working when Steam shuts down. I can transfer pirated games to my kids or whatever when I'm done with them (or in my will when I die), but Steam doesn't allow either individual title transfers or wholesale account transfers.
It was always baffling to me that they simultaneously hit the nail on the head with identifying that there are advantages of piracy beyond cost while also seemingly going out of their way to not offer most of those advantages.
The vast majority of steam games run just fine when not started via steam. A few AAA titles might require it but in many years of running steam I've never encountered it as an issue.
Family sharing works fine, and how is steam going to prevent you from giving your acct to your kids? You're okay with violating copyright law but not the steam TOS? Pirated/Cracked games also often had a limited lifetime, updating would break them as cracks were highly version-dependent. Steam with cloud saves, auto-updates, built-in workshop, and the many sales is overall a much better user experience.
AFAIK many of them still rely on Steam, though. They'll run when you manually run the exe, but will they run on a machine that doesn't have Steam installed and doesn't have internet access? I know some will, but I'm skeptical that just being able to start the game from the exe means it's not linking in Steam services and will work in such a scenario.
> Family sharing works fine, and how is steam going to prevent you from giving your acct to your kids?
They've banned accounts in the past for being transferred. Why wouldn't they do that again? Also, doesn't it seem a bit silly that the solution to a service shortcoming is "just violate the rules of the service"? Why not just offer transfers and make the service better? And, AFAIK, you're probably technically violating copyright the same by transferring the account to your kids as you are by pirating. Your kids don't have a license to the game, only you do (and it's non-transferable).
Regarding family sharing, not all games support it. Additionally, that wasn't always an option (namely, back when Gabe made this statement). And that ties into another issue with Steam: you're at the mercy of what Valve chooses to do. If, in 2035, they decide that they're going to charge a monthly fee to access the games you bought, you're just up shit creek. If they decide to remove family sharing, drop support for your platform, etc. I don't understand why I would want a license I bought in 2006 to rely on a service's decisions in 2035.
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