So how's Steam doing in stopping piracy? Surprisingly poorly, according to Mike Russell over at Ritual. According to him, technical support requests for pirated copies of Sin Emergence: Episode One are five times more prevalent than from legitimate copies.

Some of the excuses from pirates wanting to know why their crack isn't working are truly hysterical:

"What's Steam?" one asked. "I don't have one," replied another when asked for his Steam ID. "Oh, my copy didn't come with an installer," replied yet another user, "it's in a folder on a DVD. I just drag it to my machine and then run the game."

Mark Russell takes no guff from pirates, though! What does he do when he encounters a pirate?

Actually, I contact their ISP [laughs]. I know it sounds silly, but ISPs have been a lot more responsive towards pirates than law enforcement has been. Most law enforcement sees piracy as petty theft. It's under a hundred bucks, it's piddly crap. But ISPs, they're really responsive towards pirates, because most pirates are the people who are munching all the bandwidth. So if they have, essentially, a legitimate excuse to boot a pirate off, they'll take it.

If only an ISP furries were so easily jettisoned. Florian Eckhardt

Ritual's Mike Russell on Piracy [Shacknews]

Contact information for this author is not available.