Gabe Newell's 2009 piracy comments are trending again

A low-resolution clip of Valve co‑founder Gabe Newell speaking about piracy in a 2009 ABC Good Game interview resurfaced on January 2, 2026 and is drawing fresh attention for a simple, stubborn argument… people will pay if you give them a product on their terms.

The upload, now the most-viewed variant of the segment on YouTube, isolates Newell’s point that piracy is primarily a service problem. As he put it, “We don’t really worry about piracy,” and later, “People are happy to pay money if they’re getting what they perceive as a great product delivered on their terms.”

Newell’s core claim was that piracy often succeeds because pirates solved distribution problems that legitimate businesses left alone. He used Russia as an example: if a localized release isn’t available there when players want it, they turn to pirate sources that do localize and deliver quickly. When the official product matched availability and localization, Newell said, piracy in that market dropped.

Newell told the interviewer, “The reason that we think that we don’t have issues with piracy is that there’s misconceptions in the industry about what piracy is.” He argued that many people who pirate systems still own decent hardware and pay for internet, so the motivation is not pure thrift but access and convenience.

That argument helps explain why Valve built Steam as a multi-entry platform with features that favor the customer: cross‑device access, easy reinstalls, and broad discoverability. Recent moves around the Steam Machine and continued emphasis on portable access echo that philosophy, see our coverage of Valve’s Steam Machine revival and the company’s pricing targets for more context on how Valve thinks about hardware and reach. You can also compare that approach with Valve’s handheld efforts and the Steam Deck’s continued relevance.

The clip doesn’t make Valve immune to criticism, nor does it erase legitimate concerns about platform bloat or account rules. But as a short thesis on why players grab pirated copies, Newell’s point still lands, if an official outlet provides timely, local, and easy access, many would rather pay than jump through hoops.