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Half-Life 2 Retail to Require Steam Activation
An anonymous reader writes "In a recent Gamespy interview with Doug Lambardi it was revealed that the retail version of Half-Life 2 will require product activation. This isn't just restricted to multiplayer, you will have to create a Steam account and activate your retail purchase before you can even run single-player. "
About how this authentication is going to affect future installations. Will Steam keep track of some unique product id (like a CDKey) and tie it to a specific install?
ie. You install HL2 and the next day some hardware/OS failure requires you to reformat/reinstall. Will you be able to re-authenticate on the same CDKey? What about if you delete an old install and want to re-install on a new PC?
What if you trade in your HL2 at EB for some reason (runs too slow, too buggy, you plain dont like it), will the next person who buys it even be able to authenticate and play it? This could effectively destroy the pre-owned market (at least for this game). Which would be total BS; if I want to sell my game, I should be able to. Is that not my right as a consumer?
Go look at the Steam website faq. They specifically state that CDkeys cannot be transferred between Steam accounts. Without a doubt, Valve (and probably every publisher out there) would love nothing better than to ensure that everyone who plays their game has to always buy a full priced new copy. There is just too much potential for abuse here...
Maybe I'm way off base, and I'd love nothing better than Valve to prove me wrong. I was on the fence about buying HL2, now I'd say my mind is made up...
They originally said you could install the game and play singleplayer without 'activating'. But once you wanted to update the game or play mutiplayer you had to activate it via Steam.
Ok, I'm a new developer. How do I fund my game? Pre-sell it through a Steam like program collecting money at the pre-sell, then coming out with it 3 years later? No.
I go and talk to a game publisher, they loan me money, then when the game does well, the loan is paid off. If it doesn't then thats another story. The publisher also has people to decide if the game idea will do well, by testing it on play testers and such.
I am not saying existing publishers are great. I'm just mostly trying to say getting rid of them completly to me seems like a very bad idea.
This is all overly simplistic, but I think it gets the point across.
* My understanding is that you were going to need Steam for offline play of HL2 since it was announced.*
that is not true. they said you would need steam for updates and online play, but if you wanted to just play the single player game out of the box then you wouldn't need a net connection(this would be the sensible thing, as some don't have net even).
among other things this makes it basically impossible for there to be a 2nd hand market for these as well(_this_ is what they're after.. making it impossible for even legally to buy it cheaper than store from someone who already played through it).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.