At SMU’s Game Business Law summit Jason Holtman of Valve addressed the business model underlying the company’s digital distribution network known as Steam. During his talk he attacked some of the thinking that underlies established video game sales models, suggesting that offering DLC for free is a valid way of boosting sales to earn more money and even going so far as to suggest that pirates aren’t the amoral cheapskates many label them as. He retitles them, calling them ‘underserved customers’.

“We take all of our games day-and-date to Russia,” says Holtman, explaining that piracy in that country (and likely many others) is due in part to the lag time between a game being released elsewhere and in Russia. Gamers are seeing trailers and screenshots of games that might be a long time in getting there, if ever and they want to play them as soon as possible, so they turn to the only avenue open to them: piracy.
“We found that our piracy rates dropped off significantly,” Holtman says as he points out that Valve makes sure their games hit Russian shelves the same time they’re released in the USA.