He probably put it in the worst way possible to make his point.

I don't blame the industry for making changes to thier business model so that they can collect their true return on investment. Piracy is more rampant now adays. 15 years ago you used to have to meetings in dark places on the internet, complimented with complex instructions and pieces to fit together to get some pirated software to work on your machine. Today, its so easy to obtain and install illegal software you have fucking soccer moms doing it.

If developers turn to an A la carte content service (which they are already taking steps toward), then so be it. It just means you will be paying 15 dollars up front, and if you dont like the game then dont pay for the 15 bucks on the back half to buy the "expansion" that continues the story.

As far as I'm concerned, a lot of games are already sold as unfinished. A lot of games need patches to fix critical bugs, where more time should have been spent on quality assurance (I'm looking at you Demigod *shaking fist*). If you want a good development model, look at Blizzard or Valve. It's ready when its ready.

Also, I don't like the idea of having to pay for DLC. If I bought a game for 50 bucks I should have to expect to shell out 20 bucks for a frickin map pack (yeah, looking at you Halo 3) and an extra car (NFS series). I always get the feeling that I don't have a complete game unless I buy all of the extra crap. I'm okay for paying for a new gaming content that requires hours to beat (like the GTA addons, or even Borderlands), but those are essentially new games in my opinion.

In terms of piracy and DRM, I've been a fan of CD-KEYS used to be able to play online. So one could play a game in single player without paying, but you can't play online (on regular servers) without a legit purchase. I remember Quake 3 doing that and I don't regret purchasing that game back in the day (even bought it again with the ID super pack on steam).

Like it or not, piracy will always persist. I say that's just a cost of doing business. But if companies are smart, they would just lower their prices to try and attract those people. When the price becomes low enough, there is really no excuse to pirate it. Steam is a great solution. With all of Steam's sales, I personally would rather just buy it and let Steam automatically install it (and update it) for me instead of having to track down cracks and apply hacks just to apply updates and the such.

Agreed. Steam rocks. I love having so many of my games just a download away. CDs and DVDs suck balls. I won't deal with them. I'd rather download warez than deal with fucking scratched DVDs or towers of cases.

Okay that's an exaggeration. Some games are worth dealing with DVDs/CDs. Sort of. Chances are I'll still download the warez even if I buy it legit.

And I do that. I download warez as a means to get a feel for the game. If I like it I buy it. If I don't put many hours into it, I delete it and move on.

Mass Effect 1 & 2 both, I downloaded as warez first. Now? I have them both on Steam.

Rock on, Steam.