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Valve Cracks Down on 20,000 Users
An anonymous reader writes "Valve have disabled 20,000 steam user accounts belonging to users who have been caught using a pirated version of the game, or have attempted to use a cdkey to bypass the securom protection found on the retail version of the game. The Steam Forums have been swamped with people now claiming they are unable to play, many claiming they have had their accounts disabled for no reason. A Valve spokesman says, 'The number of people who actually had bought HL2 and used the CD key cheat was VERY small. VERY small. Most people just tried to rip off the game and not bother buying it.'" People are discovering that when you buy any product that is subject to "activation", you haven't really bought anything.
I know that a lot of people will have huge problems with this.
I still don't see why though- most people knew about Steam going in (everyone who tried to use the crack knew about Steam).
Someday, circumventing copy protection won't be seen as a white-hat activity. But it will be seen as people trying to cheat others out of compensation for their work.
No reason to lie.
I can understand someone who bought a real copy of the game using a no-cd crack so they don't have to have the CD in all the time (I do this for most of my games - I HATE having to swap CDs all the time), but using a cracked CD key? There really doesn't seem to be an excuse for this.
My Linux Command of the Day site : LCOD
So, you try to pirate Half-Life 2, and they lock you out from playing it... That's all well and good. But if you've got other products you've legitimately purchased through Steam you can no longer access those either because you tried to pirate Half-Life 2? That sounds like a great reason to never use Steam. If you ever do something they disapprove of with one of Valve's products you could lose access to hundreds of dollars of software that is completely unrelated.
Why aren't they just blocking those users from Half-Life 2 instead of revoking (shall we say "stealing" since they like to mis-use the word too) ligitemately purchased licenses for other products too?
Is this license agreement on the box in a place where I can view it before I purchase it? Not the last time I checked.
Your correct but this reminds me of the Registration backlash against TurboTax 2002. TurboTax lost market share due to having to contact the TurboTax server to get authentication for the tax product. People know that software companies fade over the years and to have something so important tied to a company that may not be there one day turned many customers off to the product. Many sought alternative ETax solutions. And as any license issue, Money talks louder than the Pen.
Now am I expecting people to associate the longevity of a game with the required longevity of tax returns? Of course not but I was thinking about purchasing HL2 but I think I'll pass until the dust settles instead of the risk/hassle of the validation scheme.
I bought Half Life through steam and was pleasantly surprised by how smoothly it went. I was expecting a nightmarish problem judging by Valve's earlier problems with network security.
However, regarding activation. Maybe if so many people in the "community" weren't so busy pirating the games Valve wouldn't need to go through these hoops.
What I'm more concerned about overall is, what happens when people have their steam accounts stolen? How is Valve going to deal with that. I could probably use Visa to get my $59 back, but what a tremendous pain in the ass.
Oderint dum metuant
I bought HL2 the day it came out. The steam servers were so swamped that it took me over 2 hours to get the damn thing activated. Frankly, I do find the idea of being treated like a potential criminal every time I launch the game offensive. It's like having a store run a criminal record check every time you wander in to buy something. I'm not going to argue about the license - Valve certainly does have a right to protect their interests, but I'll certainly think twice once I see any product using Steam as a prerequisite to using it. They can do what they like, and me and my money just won't get involved. (btw - the post above about still needing the damn CD is right - what the hell for? If anything good could have come out of Steam it would have been able to stop having to swap CD's back and forth).
So, what happens in 5 or 10 years when you want to play the game and can't install it on a new machine because Steam is gone or has been replaced? I understand their attempt to thwart piracy, but perhaps they should try a different approach. Perhaps innocent until proven guilty?
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
What happens if I buy the game on ebay that somebody already played. Will steam not allow me since it's already registered to the previous user? More importantly what happens when VU shuts down valve and steam B/C profit margins aren't high enough or some other BS reason, and there are no servers to validate my copy? I don't want to buy a game that might not work in a few years.
Is this license agreement on the box in a place where I can view it before I purchase it? Not the last time I checked.
This is where the line is drawn; you simply don't know the licence details before buying. As far as you know, as a consumer, you're buying a boxed game which you expect to own, to do whatever you want with it. Sell it, play it, sit on it, burn it with gasoline. Can you even return the game if you don't accept the licence?
Michael put it with little subtlety, but he's right. You buy something and you have absolutely zero control on how it works, when it works and for how long. Hence, you don't really own it. This is fine if you're buying the game online via Steam, where the licence should be agreed on before the purchase. Not for a boxed game.
You can't just dictate whatever terms you want to people. They'd like ot pretend you have a contract with them. No, sorry, it's not. A contract requires an exchange of things (goods, money, whatever) and requires both parties to agree and sign. Saying "You agree by opening the box" isn't valid. Also contracts must be open to negoation. If you are leasing an apartment and disagree with a clause in the lease, you can strike it out, inital the change, and send it back to the management company. They are not required to accept these changes, but they have to negotiate it.
EULAs try and do many things that are just unenforaceble. Basically they want the best of both worlds. They want it to be a physical good when it suits them, but a licensed product when it suits them. Doesn't work that way. When you sell a product on the shelf, with no contract signing, you are selling a good. Things like the doctrine of first sale apply, even if you write an EULA that says they don't.
This is different from something like an MMORPG. Here there are two parts: the good and the service. The game they sell you is a good, and you are welcome to keep it, even if you never use it online. Their servers, however, are a service, you pay for the right to use them. Being a service, they can put restrictions on that without a contract, since if you don't like it, you are free not to use the service.
Think if the logic Valve applied here was applied to a physical good, like a dishwasher. You go and pay for it up front, no contract, and take it home. Then, one day, it stops working so you call for warentee service. They say "Oh no, it's not broken, we just deactivated it. See you violated your license for using it, so we are turning it off. You'll need to go buy another one if you want to use it."
That's how stupid this shit with the software is. It's not a service, it's a good. You are purchasing it with the expecation that oyu are able to use it as such. You can use it in any way you like, reverse engineer it, resell it, whatever. All you can't do is make a copy of it, or a derivitive work. Those are copyright infringement.
Either way, I hope it blows up in their face. I can gaurentee I will not be buying a copy as a result. I'll stay with the Unreal Engine series, as Epic aren't assholes about things like this. Likewise, I'm recommending to all my friends that they do not purchase it.
Should such a time come when Valve wises up and gets rid of this retarded protection, I'll reconsider, but at this point, there's no way they are getting my money.
Valve is a for-profit business selling a piece of closed-source software Valve isn't selling any software, they're selling the license. If Valve goes away, or the Steam servers die, or they decide to drop support for HL2 in a few years what then? I can still play my legally purchased copy of Quake and even Half-Life, but I know 10 years from now I most likely won't be able to go back and replay HL2. Michael's comment was perfectly valid. When you buy HL2 you're not purchasing anything tangible. Frankly I'm shocked at how many geeks I know who are OK with the fact that their $60 game will expire at some point in the future.
Here's where you're wrong:
If you violate the terms and conditions, the company can suspend or revoke your license to play the game.
This should actually say:
If * the company says that * you violated the terms and conditions, the company can suspend or revoke your license to play the game.
Whether or not you violated the terms and conditions is not at all relevant.
Story contents aside, why wouldn't michael just post that IN THE FORUM? I think the objection here essentially lies in his ego being so large to think that his opinion is so important that it needs to be in the article text as opposed to posting a comment like us underlings get to do. Forget about Half-Life, forget about steam - the editors are abusing their privilages by posting their personal comments where they don't belong.
"The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his." - Patton
I won't even looked at HL2 because of this. I read their "policy" on that forum and it basically sounds like if you screw up, they cancel your account for a year or five. Why anyone would put up with that I don't know, paying 50$ for a game that, if their servers crash, or someone bought copied and returned to the store, or they make a mistake AT ALL, cancels your ability to play it sounds like idiocy to me. It seems like it should be a pleasant diversion not some fscked up nightmare of registration servers and copied CD keys. Maybe I don't understand the new math, but aren't we customers? Why would anyone put up with this crap?
andy
True, but that's what hardcopies are for.
True, but that is not an excuse. If you use a program, say Quickbooks, to manage your company's financial data, and then you want to get into your data, and you own a legitimately purchased copy of the software bought and paid for with your own money, you'd better damn well have access to your data whenever you damn well please, irrespective of the software company's wish for you to buy the $200 upgrade every other year.
I did not buy the "license" to use this software until the software developer arbitrarily decides my time is up. I bought the fucking software. I should be able to use it however I want, for as long as I want, on any and however many computers of mine that will run it.
I'm so sick of software makers restricting my freedom to use software the way I want to use it when I've paid for it. Same goes for DVDs. I'm SO SICK of sitting there waiting for the FBI, Interpol, Mossad, Secret Service, MI-6 and the Office of Navel Lint warnings that I've read time and time again. I want to skip them, dammit. Don't tell me what actions are and are not "permitted" by the disc. It's my fucking disc!
Back to decaf for me ..
It's not a lie. It's the truth with lossy compression.
Holy Crap, do you work for valve or something? You seem to have been completely duped into accepting this notion of buying a license. Suckers like you are going to ruin it for everyone. If consumers accept this, we're going to see more and more software subject to cancellation on the whim of corporations. Perhaps more likely, when companies fold or even just get bought, we may be stuck with useless software. For me that is unacceptable, and where games are concerned it will push many people toward consoles where activation isn't an issue.
The trouble with product activation is that it's implemented in such a painless and convenient way (in the majority of cases, where it works properly) that people fail to see this process for what it actually is: repeatedly asking permission from the manufacturer to use the product you purchased, after you purchased it. It seems the process is too automatic, too obscure not only for Joe User, but surprisingly, technically literate Slashdot readers who you'd normally expect to understand abstract threats to their freedom.
Perhaps if people had to actually speak to the company and say the words, "could you please activate my software?" and say it a few more times for other software packages, and a few more times after reinstallation, it might hit home. Perhaps if they had to wait on hold for thirty minutes, desperately seeking permission to use the software they purchased, it might sink in. Perhaps if, in a fit of nostalgia they decide to reinstall an old game only to be dismayed they can't play it because the activation system no longer works and no patch is available, they will get the message.
Indeed, whenever I've had to phone Microsoft to activate Windows XP, or Intuit/Reckon to activate Quicken, it's not the annoyance of being put through a five minute exchange of serial codes that sticks in my mind, but the more profound emotion of resentment of being put in that situation in the first place. I resent having to obediently request permission to use something I'd spent hundreds of dollars on. I resent having to repeatedly ask permission during the life of the product, according to criteria set by the company. I resent not knowing if I'll still be able to use the software a few years down the track. I resent that many of my friends, who paid nothing for their pirated/cracked copies, don't have to suffer the same indignities or worry about such things.
The most important issue about activation is not whether it's convenient or inconvient, but the way it fundamentally changes the relationship between the customer and a company selling proprietary software. For the life of the product, the customer is now dependent on the company to repeatedly affirm the most basic right of any software user. Not to peak at the software's source code or modify it, but simply to run the program they purchased legitimately.