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Half-Life 2 Release Date Broken
NextWish writes "Despite being clearly marked, numerous stores have begun selling HL2.
This guy even got a phone call from EB telling him to pickup his pre-order, so he did what any one would do - He picked it up. (Pic #1 / Pic #2)" Update: 11/12 19:30 GMT by Z : Thanks to the anonymous reader who sent us a link to The Inquirer story discussing Valve's savvy regarding cracked or advance copies.
Why is it that many games are still released on CDs? I heard that it's because Americans would have trouble if they sold just DVDs.
[/troll]
But seriously, why do games manufacturers still produce CD's rather than DVDs when DVD drives are so cheap now!
He's sporting a "Radeon X800" from the looks of the pamphlet next to the keyboard in the second pic. Which reminds me: I heard somewhere that ATI's are relatively bad gamer cards and was wondering, what with D3 and HL2 around, what are the gamers using these days?
The crackers will have it opened up any minute now.
Gamers are using both ATI and nVidia cards, in nearly equal numbers (if I recall the Valve survey correctly). To be honest, the two companies are competing to be the most powerful for brand recognition, not for use. As much as I want one for status, and I'll readily admit this, I do not need an nVidia 6800 sucking down electricity as fast as Homer eats donuts. I'm not running predictive weather simulations on my graphics card.
If you want to have a reasonably priced, competitive, computer system for gaming, you're going to have to do some research. You'll have to see whether the specific game you want to play runs better with nVidia or ATI drivers, you'll have to determine which midrange card is cheaper, and you'll have to decide between a cheap 256mb card or a speedy 128mb one (both bus and GPU speed). There are so many marketing ploys in effect right now, it's difficult to do a good job. Regardless of what you do, somebody will criticise you. I presonally use an nVidia card. [flames below]
This isn't a troll, I'm just wondering what the motivation is behind companies doing that.
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This is a little different than just straight DRM. Whether you install from CD's or pre-order through steam, you can't play until Valve says so. Why? Becasue not only is the content encrypted (which could be cracked) but it's missing vital parts of the game that can only be downloaded from Steam/Valve.
Even if the gfc encryption is broken you wont be able to play until valve lets you download the rest of the game! How in the hell is a cracker/hacker gonna get around that?
I think Valve's STEAM distribution system is going to revolutionize the industry much like iTunes is doing for music. It's a shame they couldn't let HL2 out quicker
Companies can release the day they go gold to pre-empt the pirates (you can pay to get it quicker), and it will ultimately allow smaller studios to regain their foothold in the industry.
www.lonseidman.com
Yea, Valve now has the ability to make sure everyone gets it together, but at what cost? Must I now always be a slave to them just to play an offline game that could run perfectly fine without their meddling? I'm not at all the least bit comfortable with where this is going - I should have more control over my computer and my games than this.
Look at the number of people playing CounterStike. As of several months ago, EVERYONE playing CounterStrike had a Steam Account.
Valve was really sneaky with Steam. It started as some sort of throw-away download system. Make on account, make 10 accounts, forget a password..who cares, just make another account, etc It also appeared to be a ladder system, like gamespy stats or something. It wasn't that, but appeared to be.
But it changed to a hugely risky (for the consumers part) content management, DRM, product activation system. I recently installed it. It asked what Valve games I had and if I wanted to play them. I own HL1, so I said 'Sure, I'll play that." It then said, "This CD-Key is now inextricably tied to this account. Don't lose your password or you can never pay Halflife 1 again."
It's really scary. I hope it fails...but fails in a way that they still try online content delivery.
--Welcome to the Realm of the Hawke--
I don't know how many other people have my attitude, but I will not be buying HL2 simply because of its copy protection.
I can afford most new titles, but I refuse to buy, in protest, any software that has a copy protection system that limits my fair use of the product I have paid good money for.
I believe that if I pay the massive price (and it is expensive compared to say a movie which also takes a large amount of time and money to manufacture) I should not have to 'jump through hoops' to be able to use it for the fair purpose of just playing the bloody game. I can't stand the , now standard, CD must be in the drive to play attitude. But that alone will not prevent me from purchasing the software. However, this activation bullshit is rediculous and it doesn't feel like I have purchased the software at all, it feels like I have rented it off valve, and at the given price, this is just rediculous and not acceptable.
I find it extremely greedy and if that is how they are going to treat someone who is willing to purchase their software, well I am not going to purchase it.
What I wonder is if there is as many (or more) people who share my attitude as their will be people who would have normally pirated the game and will now purchase. If this is the case, Valve will actually loose out, not to mention the cost of developing and implementing these anti-piracy measures.
-GoaT
Great copy protection scheme they have, no doubt. But, what if someone who purchased Half Life 2 didn't have access to the internet and therefore couldn't activate the game via Steam? Maybe this is unlikely that someone who would own a PC capable of running the game wouldn't have an internet connection, but I'm sort of curious how that would be handled.
Maybe I'm alone, maybe I'm completely different than anyone else, but I don't like the idea of buying a game and knowing I might not be able to install and play it in a couple years.
The same idea applies to games which have a large online appeal but are designed to prevent you from using unofficial servers.
Shoot Pixels, Not People!