Games were already cracked before companies like Valve started pulling them from players' libraries. If games are cracked anyway, why would studios and publishers care one way or another?
I think in many cases, movies and video games piracy is a matter of convenience. If pirated media is more convenient -- not just as in "free", but because it's less encumbered and doesn't pull this crap on you -- then paying for legal media will become less appealing.
There's a baseline of piracy, sure, but there's also making the lives of paying customers more difficult so that piracy becomes the preferred option.
Exactly. Steam is more convenient than manually maintaining a large gaming library and keeping it up to date, and collecting titles on sale. However if it develops a reputation of killing games once a publisher decides to (???), the value-add is greatly reduced. I have a probabilistic expectation that my Steam library will work ten years from now, and stuff like this GREATLY reduces my estimation of the probability.
They can demand contracts that would allow them to. We have no way of knowing what exactly valve's distribution contracts allow them but so far games have (AFAK always) remained available for download if you purchased them before they were removed from the store. Key activations generally also still work - e.g. you can hunt down a physical copy of the original Prey and activate that on Steam and download it there (unless you get scammed and are sold a copy with a key that was already activated). And it is very much in Steam's interest to keep the pretense that what you are doing is buying something like a physical product that you can keep forever (*).
The difference for this game is probably that in addition to Steam the game requires Ubisoft-hosted DRM servers which Valve has no control over.
(*) For as long as you live, unless someone forces Steam to allow transferring subscriptions to other people.
Game companies want to avoid people downloading cracked games. If every game someone wants is available legally, then that person might decide to be 100% legal. But if some stuff isn't available legally, that person might turn to cracks for those, and then once on the cracks, continue using cracks in other situations.
Fallout 3 best example.
I bought the CD from the UK, shipped to Germany.
Disc was defective.
With tricks I managed to install it, barely.
Returning wasn't an option.
Years later I see it on Steam and buy it, to find out it's the German version, no English text or audio and censored too.
Valve didn't have a refund policy back then. So I threw away money because of this.
I them downloaded the Gog version off the internet. I already paid for this game, twice.
Another reason is the 2 hour no refund policy.
If I spend a lot of money for a virtual product and those 2 hours are absolutely not enough to see if I like a game or not, I expect a lot more time than 2 hours to be able to evaluate if a game is worth the purchase.
That's why I download a pirate copy 1st because most games are not worth the money. Most games are lazy, optimized for marketing and the 2 hour period and after that the quality drops hard.
If there are no pirate releases I won't buy it.
Guardians of the Galaxy for instance. 60 eur. Recently cracked. I'm glad I didn't give in and spend 60 eur for this. I played it for 2 days and uninstalled.
Warhammer Total War 3.
Bought it from a Hong Kong shop.
It was released unfinished and I bought it ONLY because I bought the 1st and 2nd iteration on Steam. I don't have all the DLCs.
TCO of the trilogy including the DLCs which are for the most part nothing but reskins with minor changes is over 250 eur.
For what's essentially one game.
Last time they got my money. That's a scam in my book.
I'm still waiting on them to release the grand map called Immortal Empires.
It will eventually get cracked.
And then I'll download the while thing including all DLCs. I already paid 190 eur for the 3 and some DLCs. My freaking 10 year old Samsung Pro 840 SSD cost that much and still serves me well. It's a lot of money. No one was interested in playing part 1 once part 2 was out, likewise no one will be interested in parts 1+2 once they release IE.
Fool me once...
If you buy a lot of brand new AAA games with all the DLC it'll be expensive. If you buy a few games, old games, games on sale, and play them for a long time, it's a lot less expensive. You also don't need as expensive of hardware to play old games.
