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Half-Life 2 'Interview' - False Activation Claims?

Posted by simoniker on from the have-people-nothing-better-to-do? dept.

An anonymous reader writes "According to a mini-interview with Valve's Gabe Newell at Nerdsahoy.com, Half-Life 2 will use a form of online product activation to prevent more than one install per copy." Newell also allegedly comments on distribution, saying "...our marketing will mostly lean towards [Valve's online 'content delivery system'] Steam as the method of acquiring the game." Update: 09/02 14:34 GMT by S : Unfortunately, many signs point towards this being a fake, fabricated interview.

3 of 91 comments (clear)

  1. That will obviously help reduce piracy by Soul-Burn666 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "it uses a system much like Windows XP"

    Newsflash: 20 days before the official release date of WinXP, a no-activation version was already installed in millions of PC worldwide.

    Maybe they could decrease the number of online gamers, even that was proven impossible. A huge percentage of online HL gamers use a pirated copy and a CDKey "they got from a friend".

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  2. I think it's working well. by Inoshiro · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "About the only thing left to try is hardware DRM, but even that's not fool-proof (X-Box)."

    Xbox Live! service + XBox hardware = no mods, no cheaters. There's the odd bugged game that can be used in various evil ways, but the actual combination of a locked-hardware set and a locked-network is fairly strong.

    Sure, you could possibly crack it, but it's so improbable as to be impossible.

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    Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
  3. Anyone else figure... by Drakin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    That the source is kinda dodgy? As one AC mentioned, it's not a site anybody's really heard about, and it was submitted anonymously. Combine this with the way it reads. While Mr. Newell often made amusing responces to questions, they tend to at least have more humour than what was found in this interview. Not to mention the way the questions were posed. 8/27/03 Interview with Mr Newell for comparison