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Steam Registration Servers Overloaded
duckle writes "The Inquirer reports that "The World has come crashing down around Half-Life 2 players today, as Steam's authentication servers in Europe have died.", and deemzzzz_k writes "It looks like even Valve wasn't quite prepared for Half Life 2's popularity. HL2 requires registration to unlock the game and although the Valve/Steam homepage claims that it fixed registration issues the servers are still overloaded. Registration is "delayed" and temporarily unlocking the game takes 20-30 minutes over a 1.5MB DSL line." This seems to primarily be an issue for folks who bought the game from a store; I purchased the game via Steam and was playing at 12:15 am PST on launch day.
Steam ran out of steam.
Thanks, I'll be here all week.
If I wrote something witty, you would say I stole it from somewhere.
...we can Slashdot them, too!
I'm glad when companies inconvenience their paying customers like this. Because, afterall, I'm sure the mandatory registration will prevent piracy. I just searched and see an activation patch already on IRC.
People who say "money does not buy happiness" are just people without money trying to make themselves feel better.
(For the record, I got a store-bought version).
At 7PM EST, I tried installing, setting up a steam account and unlocking the game with my CD Key. The whole process took about 3 hours.
The steam registration mostly returned back cause it couldn't even hit the master authentication server most of the night. Unlocking the game took between 45-60 minutes (on a fast cablemodem line).
Wasn't this expected though? Its like when a MMORPG releases and they can't handle the load. Do they just expect a few hundred people to get the (arguably) most anticipated game of the year on its opening day and the rest to just trickle in until Christmas??
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
So if you paid for the game at the store you may or may not get to play it for a while. This is so going to suck for valve. the fall out is going to be huge.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I'm in Poland. I've had no problems in the morning, my friend has just unlock his copy.
The whole idea of Steam to begin with is just utter shit. I have a Powerbook so I don't play very much Half-Life, but it simply amazes me what hardcore gamers are willing to put up with from Valve. There are lots of perfectly good other games; why the HELL should Valve even be allowed to do this? If it's M game, I should be able to play it, even if I don't have an internet connection. I don't doubt people who pirate the game are going to figure out ways around the authentication mechanism, and in the mean time it just pisses the hell out of people who really did buy the game. Scrap the whole thing.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
I ordered online through Steam last night and it took about 30 minutes to unlock. I had already pre-downloaded.
On a slightly unrelated note: what's with the mid-game/mid-level load times? Are they just slow for me, or does anyone else feel like they may as well be downloading the game textures from Steam as you play?
The facts have a liberal bias. --The Daily Show
I think this problem underscores the frailty of requiring a product to be unlocked over the Internet. While it's one way of ensuring digital rights management, Valve could certainly have put in a backup system (a la similar to Microsofts 1-800 registration number).
-Teiresias
I'm in the UK. I got everything installed and running in about half an hour. I got the Steam account setup, but when it couldn't connect to the server, it told me it was busy but I could still play the game anyway. It connected and finished the process during the night after I'd already played the game for about 5 hours. It's a brilliant game, and I think they've done really well with Steam considering the size of the load they have taken. I have no complaints.
Most of you are lucky you never had to recover a password off of the Steam network. A friend of mine purchased the game online, and since then he uninstalled CS to focus on his studies. Now he can't recover his password!
If he uses the 'lost password' procedure in Steam he gets an Operation Incomplete error, and so far he hasn't managed to get a single human person to assist him at Steampowered. I was never a big fan of activation, but this cinches it.
Bullshit on that one. It took my system 10 minutes to unlock - after 2.5 hours of attempting to contact the Steam servers. If it can't get the private key for the data, it can't really decrypt it.
Nothing like paying for a single player game months in advance and then not being able to play it. Valve has managed to delay the game even after the release!
Half Life 2 is not the same as Halo 2.
Because everyone *knows* that companies weren't coming up with whacked-out registration schemes before valve was hacked...
Make sure you shake all the bugs out by then...OK guys?
I have a hard time believing Valve underestimated demand - they knew how many pre-orders they had from Steam, and they knew how many boxes shipped to all of the retailers. Retailers regularily share projections of what sales will be by week (especially since they have to know how much product to order). They had models to follow, and NPD and others track sales weekly, so they probably knew at a minimum they would do the same, if not better, than Doom3 in August.
The fact of the matter is, their system can't handle the load, plain and simple.
"It looks like even Valve wasn't quite prepared for Half Life 2's popularity."
Funny, they were more than prepared to take the money from customers before checking to see if they had enough servers to handle the load. When their distributor was filling orders, they could've come up with a rough estimate of what they expected to sell and made sure they had enough servers. Somebody just didn't do their homework.
I bought the game from a store yesterday. It only took 20 minutes to install off the 5 CDs, you would think they could make it on DVD. And whats with not giving us jewl cases for a $55 game? Cheap paper sleves are for Drivers, not AAA title games.
[/rant].
Where was I? Before it would let me play it forced me to create a steam account, something I've boycotted since Counter Strike 1.3 and has a lot to do with why I stopped playing CS. Never-the-less I created an account and waited as it tried to unlock my game. It told me that it was unable to register me, but it would let me know as soon as it was able to. I guess at this point I was "in line to register". Then it actually allowed me to play! I tried it again after disabling my network connection and it told me that it could not verify my CD key and that I could only play while I was online. I'm kinda pissed about that and hope they get that fixed soon. If the cable goes out and I cant play HL2 I'm going to be very very bored, I might even have to go outside
From my first 20 minutes playing reaction I've got to say this game is so much more open-ended then Doom3, and though I'm a huge id fan I've got to hand it to valve, this looks like its going to be just as fun to play as HL1. I could spend an hour just throwing television sets out windows at the police on the ground.
Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the
From now on companies will think this is a ok to do and in the future all singleplayer offline games will require this yey im so happy.
Most of that unlocking time is the decryption and hard disk activity, not Steam network activity.
That is true, however it remains Valve's fault. The cd's basically just copy over the exact same files as in the preload that you could get from Steam... which means that when you stick the cd's in your drive you have to do two install processes, at least. First you have to disc swap install the cds (5) which takes awhile. Then you have to register for Steam. Then you have to wait while it decrypts everything, on top of unpacking the entire game just like a regular install does in a single step. The decryption and adding extra steps to the install process are quite a pain in the ass, let me tell you. It took me over an hour to get the game running, and I consider myself lucky because the only problems I had were closed ports, which I quickly fixed. Some of these other stories I've heard, especially with Steam registration, would absolutely enrage me if it had happened to me. We payed for this game, we expect it to at least PLAY!
I submitted this story last night, and it didn't get posted.
Half-Life 2 is just a game. This attitude of "gotta have it right this second" doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It's not like people are throwing their money into a pit and never seeing results, it just takes a few extra minutes, hours, or days even. Come on, go outside, smoke a cigarette, pet a cat, read a book, reload slashdot, eat a sandwich, hit on a girl (or a guy) (or both). The servers will eventually be up and running, and you'll be able to unlock the secrets of the Combine in no time flat.
:-)
In case you're wondering, I pre-ordered it over Steam and it unlocked without any issues at 3 AM PST, three hours after the unlocking began. I still couldn't play it until after I got home from work and did the dishes and scooped the cat's litter...
And now it is even clearer that this is nothing but an insult to those who actually buy games instead of pirating them. Who are inconvenienced by this? Certainly not pirates. They download a cracked version anyway. This is apparently supposed to prevent piracy, but it obviously fails miserably!
No, the real losers here, again, are customers who actually paid for the game. They are the ones who need to connect to the Internet to activate the game. They are the ones who have been stuck all day, unable to activate the game, even for single player!
I held off buying Half-Life 2 exactly because of this online activation nonsense, and I was right in doing so. I hope to play the game, but I am very hesitant to give my money to a company like Valve, a company which lies to and deceives its customers, and adds hurdles that do nothing but inconvenience them, while pirates are completely unaffected.
If I sound like a troll, it's because I am extremely disappointed, and I am angry at Valve for being so stupid as to think that they can prevent piracy by forcing their customers to jump through hoops. I am angry because this is the way the industry is headed, and I don't like it.
Now games have started trying to decide for you which software to have installed (Doom 3 vs. various CD image programs), and they want you to activate it online, even for single-player... This is how the PC gaming industry will ultimately kill itself. By basically punching its customers in the face, while pirates remain unaffected.
Clever signature text goes here.
(Disclaimer: I am quite aware that steam is technically H2O (gaseous) and air is actually a mixture of gasses. Please do not let scientific accuracy interfere with the intended humourous value of the preceding comment.)
While I agree with you that it's a pain.. Why blame Valve? Isn't this just a reaction to rampant piracy in the community?
Sure.. it'll probably be cracked eventually, if not already.. but I dont see how we can blame Valve for trying to protect their product.
If CD keys were really effective, then we wouldn't be seeing this latest escalation.
I know.. I know.. just a 50 dollar game.. but I think it goes deeper than it simply being "Valve's Fault".
The requirements on the box say Internet connection required and I have no problem with that.
Unfortunately, my internet connection behind a (non configurable) firewall will not work with Steam.
They did not tell me that before I bought the stupid game, and now that I've opened it and cannot return it, I'm screwed!
I have no problem with authentication, but please give me some other method of authentication other than a program that will not work behind a firewall!
I hope I'm the minority, but don't plan on me buying anything else from these guys.
The deluxe version with HL2 t-shirt, HL 1:Source, and CounterStrike: Source came on DVD. I preordered a month ago and recived it yesterday.
IT ROCKS!!!!!!!!!
Science is the Real TRUTH!
I heard their brand new fiber line was cut by a falling minivan full of screaming children.
perl -e 'foreach(values %SIG){$_="IGNORE";}while(){}'
I was wary about Half Life 2's mandatory activation before this. My initial concern was what would happen if I want to load this game up again five years from now to play it again on a new PC? Will Valve be available to activate it? Apparently I was being too optimistic. Now I have to worry about whether I'll be able to activate it on the day that I buy it.
The whole thing struck me as very silly. If I'm playing online, then I don't have a problem with providing them a CD-key to connect to their server. But if I'm offline, why the hell should I have to register with them? I recently moved and my DSL isn't active yet, so I can't play this game. That's just silly.
My (horribly biased) suggestion: Valve should admit they screwed up, and release a patch that activated the game usnig a regular old CD key. If this doesn't get straightened out soon, they may be hearing the phrase "class action" a lot.
I really, REALLY don't care about CS:Source or any of the weeny online games that have been made with Half-Life, but I remember playing and enjoying the STORY of the first version.
And I can break out my install CD, install it and play it whenever I'd like, no internet required. Same thing with the game I play most often, Master of Magic, which is so old I don't even think there are any remaining fan pages online.
I'd like to play Halflife 2, but as long as it's associated with all that online registration and updating bullshit there's no way I'm going to bother with it. Basically, I want to buy a game and own it, not buy a game and install it and let it download 2GB of crap I don't want or need... but only as long as Valve keeps the serial validation servers running.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
Valve is trying to protect their product, yes, but they've also created massive headaches and delays for those trying to install it, pissing off many fans. If Valve had not made the anti-piracy measures so bad, they would be making more money. This is just ENCOURAGING piracy! Why buy the game and go through all of this shit when you can download a cracked version and play? Valve will feel this one in the morning. I know I would've gotten Half-Life 2 if they didn't include all this crap.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
And every geek on here that screams and moans and whines about Microsoft activation ran out and bought the damn game the minute it was on the shelf, I'm sure.
Slashdotters: Walking the Walk and Mumbling the Talk since 1997.
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A month or two ago I was feeling nostalgic and loaded up my (legal, paid-for) copy of HalfLife. I wanted to play online (Natural Selection, in particular) so I had to download Steam and register my product, which I was happy to do. The benefit of automatic updates seemed well worth creating an account and giving them my serial number.
:)
But... it took a couple DAYS for my registration to go through. And crawling their bulletin boards showed that this had been a common problem for months.
The disregard for paying customers is the main reason I won't be buying HalfLife 2 or any of their other products any time soon.
That, and the fact that I'm now playing EverCrack II.
Maybe cool from a vinctiveness standpoint, but not for notoriety. Who would you brag to?
Script Kiddie #1: Dude, I totally DOS'd Valve. Steam was down for like hours.
Script Kiddies #2-9: You bastard. I spent 3 hours waiting to activate Half Life 2. Your life is now forfeit.
Script Kiddie #1: Aaauugh! Somebody help! Gaaah! My eye!
What if I don't have the Internet? What if I want to play on a lan that doesn't have Internet access?
I guess you'll learn to read the System Requirements next time:
Minimum System Configuration
* 1.2 GHz Processor
* 256MB RAM
* DirectX 7 capable graphics card
* Windows 2000/XP/ME/98
* Mouse
* Keyboard
* Internet Connection
Some people have alluded to this already, but this just goes to show that "Digital Rights Management" present more of a violation of digital rights than a management system.
When I pay for a game, I should have access to play the game from the moment I own it until the end of time. The ability to continue playing the game should not rest in the hands of the company from which I purchased it.
Take for example, the current EFF battle against Blizzard Entertainment. If Blizzard decides to discontinue battle.net in the future, should legitimate paying customers be the ones who suffer? After all, they paid for a game with the expectation that Internet gameplay was one of the many features available to increase replay value. Thus, if they want to take matters into their own hands and create custom servers to allow continued online play, that should be their right.
The same goes for Steam. After all, when Half-Life first was released, they used Won.net to host their online gameplay. I cannot count the number of times that I was unable to play (despite having a legitimate CD-Key) because either the Master CD-Key server was down, unreachable, lagged, or just malfunctioning. Now they've moved to Steam and everyone who has the original Half-Life game finds their CD has been rendered obsolete!
For this reason, users should have the right to do more than simply "make a backup copy". They should have the right to crack, break, and generally f*** up copy protection. They should have the right to run private servers for online play. Bottom line -- they should have the right to decide whether or not they can continue normal use of a program which they purchased fair and square. After the money changes hands, the game belongs to me -- not the company. So get your grubby hands off, you greedy bastards.
I understand that people who purchased the game via the brick and mortar stores kinda got the raw end of the deal, but I was very satisfied with the way buying this game worked.
I bought the game from a store yesterday. It only took 20 minutes to install off the 5 CDs, you would think they could make it on DVD. And whats with not giving us jewl cases for a $55 game? Cheap paper sleves are for Drivers, not AAA title games. [/rant].
I don't know about the rest of the world, but in the UK it was released on DVD. At least we're embracing the future - I vaguely recall the same thing happening with Far Cry. For some unbelivably stupid reason the publishers assume that America lacks DVD technology.
We should have lost disc swapping 5 years ago.
PocketGamer.org - For the gamer on the go!
...and get the .torrent!
See you in the swarm!
If they choose to make the retail, boxed, version require online activation it is their responsibility to ensure that their servers can take the load. If they can't that's their failing and their fault exclusively. No one forced them to do this, you can make plenty of money without a draconian copyprotection scheme. UT2004 was patched to not even do a CD check, and only checks the key in multiplayer mode (when you have to be on the net anyhow) and it sold plenty.
I have no sympathy for companies that think they need bitchy-ass copyprotection and then can't properly implement it. It is YOUR job to make the experience easy for your customers.
Not only that, the more your protection messes with their experience, the more incentive there is to illegally copy the game. An illegal copy will just work. No activation, no registration, just install and go. If the servers are all backlogged to hell, makes an illegal copy look much more tempting.
"While I agree with you that it's a pain.. Why blame Valve? Isn't this just a reaction to rampant piracy in the community?"
Why not blame Valve for taking the wrong approach (by annoying paying customers) to solving what is, in fact, unsolvable?
Steam is vaporware!
put the what in the where?
There was part of the agreement near the end where you had to promise that you would not give the game to a terrorist or any national from a country that supports terrorists.
Dang, and that was always my favorite side in CS.
Seriously though, did anyone else think that was odd?
throwing servers at a problem is a very management-esque way of dealing with things. this is not the case.
i am not allowed to share, but if you have any idea how much bandwidth steam is doing, sustained, right now, it would blow you away. i know for a fact valve spreads its servers out through many providers to lessen the load on each node, but in the end there is only a finite amount of upstreams they can get traffic through.
i also know for a fact that other providers who they have contracts with had to shut down valve's connections since steam was completely detroying their network. how is it Valve's fault when the over-excited sales guy @ MegaColo signs them up for a couple of gig-e connections that turn out to be duds?
all it takes is one overloaded router @ MegaColo for them to decide that the popularity of HL2 is destroying their network, and Valve is shit out of luck, port admined down, take your servers somewhere else. again, THIS HAS HAPPENED. 24 hours before hl2 went live bandwidth ramped up dramaticly and many providers started showing their true colors.
Valve is working to resolve these issues trust me, last night at 3am i was moving around linecards so we could accomodate another connection.
posting anon, i don't work for valve but i work for someone they have contracts with.
I was thinking that if I was a criminal, I would already be playing.
One of your few valid criticisms...
In order to play, you have to have Valve's spyware program running on your system.
You must have a different concept of "spyware" than I do. Can you explain how exactly Steam is spyware? They tell you what it reports to Valve. You choose to install it (you don't have to buy HL2). It is simple to uninstall it. Choice, valid information, and easy uninstallation are 3 things not found in real spyware.
You have to sign yourself up on two different services.
Not sure what you mean. I created a Steam account, bought HL2 via Steam, downloaded it, unlocked it. I started downloading it a few weeks ago, so it was just a matter of unlocking it when the day hit.
An internet connection is mandatory as you play the game.
This is false. An internet connection is mandatory to unlock the game initially.
keep the disk in your computer while playing
Not sure why this would be, if it is true, since anyone that bought it via steam of course does not need to do this.
Updates are mandatory.
Right-click on HL2 in Steam, select Properties, and change the automatic update setting. I do not see any indication that updates are mandatory for HL2. I can imagine they are for any online games, to prevent cheating.
If you click the "play" button, you have to wait 50 minutes before the game actually starts
If this is true, I think your system is not up to the task of HL2 to begin with.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
I, along with countless others (judging by the hl2 forums), managed to have my game unlocked for playing withing *minutes* of the official release time.
That's simply *impossible* without the online distribution and online unlocking mechanisms that Valve put in place. Unless you live *in* the store, and have an incredibly fast CD drive and ability to swap CDs at a superhuman rate. Even then, I doubt you'd be able to beat my time.
You people are whining because you were delayed in some cases by 2 hours?!? Get a grip!
So their servers were unable to cope with an initial spike. So what? Do we pile on the abuse whenever some poor schmo's webserver gets slashdotted? So Valve did underestimate the peak of that spike. So what?
And finally, I'll always support Steam because it means the money is going straight to the developer. That's a good thing in my books.
ps. I've never had a problem with the password resetting system either, and I've used it a number of times.
You guys have some low ass standards for informative.
Wrong. It is their fault for going overboard. And it's completely up to them if they want to go this route. Just like any product, it is still up to the consumer masses to make their likes and dislikes of their experience with the product. And if that includes installation hoops...
Why are there only 19 people folding@home for slashdot?
Read this, print it out, and take it with you when you try again to return the product. I'm reasonably sure there's something in it to the effect that stores are prohibited by law to refuse a refund for a non-functioning product, even if it's an open game.
[insert standard "IANAL" disclaimer here]
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
- Install the game from 12x DVD-ROM drive (DVD edition of the game): 5 minutes.
- Activate/Unlock/Enable the game I bought: 45 minutes. (I'm wtf'ing at this
point already.)
- Start the game off a SCSI 3 RAID 0 Array of (4) Atlas 10K IIIs on a system
with 768MB of RAM: 2 minutes (More wtf'ing ensues.)
- Have the game crash and hardlock a dual CPU computer: 45 seconds to fully
lock up & require a reboot.
- Reboot: 2 minutes
- Attempt to start the game and have steam tell me, "Sorry this game
is unavailable right now, please try again later.": (Extremely irate WTF'ing
ensues!) I bought the fucking game, I installed the fucking game, why can't
I PLAY THE FUCKING GAME!?!
- Attempt to start the game again, (watching task manager): hl2.exe appears
after 5 seconds, then vanishes.
- Attempt to start the game again, (watching task manager): hl2.exe appears
after 5 seconds, then vanishes.
- Attempt to start the game again, (watching task manager): Game starts,
requires 2 minutes. (head shaking ensues)
55 minutes after I start installing the game, I get to play it.To Valve: Steam is an atrocity, I just bought the collector's edition and I'll probably crack the game anyway so I can run it without the atrocity that is steam and without the disc. (The disc is required by the way, at least to start the game if you installed from a DVD).
Question everything
I read somewhere at Steam, or maybe in the *gulp* users manual, that you need to connect to the Internet to register. And if you click the little box on the Steam login window that reads "Remember my password" then you can use Steam in an off-line mode and play your games disconnected from the Internet.
This is all theory, I haven't actually tried it yet.
"Sure - it shoves a rod up your ass, but it sure beats dealing with Vivendi."
In this instance I'm sick of people picking sides, as if they had to absolve either Vivendi or Valve of all wrongdoing. I'm sorry, but both companies are buttholes for playing this middle-man game that in the end only winds up screwing the consumer. Buy from Vivendi: Valve gets less cash and you have to unlock the CD. Buy from Valve: they screw the giant Vivendi but you have to download over a gig of data and the servers are inundated. Moreover you don't actually own anything.
Both companies are trying to screw eachother at the expense of the consumer, pure and simple.
Oh, and as for...
By the way, people preloading HL2 didn't have a problem playing it, only those who bought retail (Vivendi's domain) requiring activation.
I think my credit card is going to be double-charged because of Steam's screwed up billing system which errored out on the first try but still appears to have charged my card. It also took over 30 minutes from the time I started unlocking the game to the time I finally got to play it.
It's an amazing piece of software that is certain to win game of the year. But that doesn't mean Valve couldn't have done way better with Steam.
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
While indeed those who bought the retail version did suffer more, there was a period last night (around 10PM GMT) when you couldn't *log into* Steam at all, no matter which version you had.
There's a reason why I'm posting here instead of playing that game.
My own experiences were more like:
Insert disc1. wait...3 minutes
Insert disc2. wait...3 minutes
Insert disc3. wait...3 minutes
Insert disc4. wait...3 minutes
Insert disc5. wait...3 minutes
Fill in blanks for steam. wait... 5 minutes.
"Unable to find Master AuthenticationServer"
Retry.
"Connection Reset by Peer."
Swear. Retry.
[repeat any of 5 random error messages]
Swear. Repeat.
Email to Sierra Tech support. Email bounces.
OK. Try VUGames Tech support. web email form disabled -- it's there, you just can't type anything into it.
OK. Try emailing directly. Email bounces.
Swear. Swear some more. Give up and go out.
Next day. Try again. Ok it accepts my registration, but authentication servers are too busy to activate me for real, so it sort of puts me on probation and lets me play. Still waiting for Steam to recognize me as a legit user.
{Visitor 0} Status: Ready to play
Offline mode: ready
{Vivendi.Agent1} Now Close this window and disconnect your internet connection.
{Visitor 0} You must be joking.
{Visitor 0} If I disconnect my net connection, how will we continue our little chat?
{Visitor 0} Are you still there or what?
{Vivendi.Agent1} Ok then i will give you the procedure to run the game offline and you can try launching the game offline.
About 5 minutes later he coughed up the location of the FAQ on steampowered.com. Dude.
When I picked up my copy from Future Shop yesterday, they had flyers up everywhere saying that they will install Halflife2 for you for $19.99 (CDN).
Me and my friends laughed it off while we were standing in the checkout line, joking about dumb computer users, and how we could easily do the same thing for $10 or less...
After having gone through the horrific install process that is Steam (story too long to write here -- it involves hours, error messages, reboots, Steam interrupting me with survey messages - WTF!), a sobering thought came to me: that $19.99 flyer at Future Shop no longer seemed like a laughing matter.
If it was difficult for me, with 25 years of computer experience under my belt, imagine what it must seem like to the average Joe User.
You know there's something WRONG with your copy-protection system when Future Shop is offering a service to install your game for your customers!
A few minutes Googling the newsgroups came up with an answer: Valve had stupidly failed to test the installer with the option to install CS turned off. Back to square one, and another twenty minutes of feeding CDs...
Busy lines to get Steam content? Not pleasant, but understandable. Shipping your installer in this state, after five years of development? Valve should apologize.
The game rocks, but nobody should have to jump through 90 minutes of hoops after paying $50.
Why buy the game and go through all of this shit when you can download a cracked version and play?
Okay, lets see my choices:
* Buy legally by clicking on "Play Half-Life 2" in Steam and entering credit card, then best case play it in 5 minutes (if you pre-loaded), worst case play that afternoon (after it's downloaded, and saying that the auth servers are saturated)
* Find an IRC channel, then hunt around for a download site, find a torrent somewhere, wait for hours while there are too many peers and only one seed, have it slowly trickle down over a day or even more, unrar 50 different files, install it, find out that the crack that came with it didn't work, find a new crack, install, play, and then have a 50% that the developer can detect warez'ed versions and alter the game accordingly (see the new Vampire: The Masquerade game, which co-incidentally uses the same engine as HL2).
Knee-Jerking about anything that registers online and calling it DRM is just stupid.
Lets see what we've got - an online distribution method where you can download and play the game on as many computers as you want, where you can preload all the data before the game is released so that you don't have to download any data when the game is released, and where the artist gets the money instead of publishers and labels - and yet because you had to wait for half an hour to authenticate on the day after release (note: not when it was released), it's suddenly hellspawn on par with Microsoft DRM in music.
www.suprnova.org -> games -> half-life 2
bittorrent download, fast, and works.
That is how hard it is to pirate a game nowadays.