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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 bought the game, used my key, and it works great. Don't bitch if you didn't buy the game. Simple as that.
Oh, that's just great. I have to trust this thing to parcel post, wait however long it takes them to process the return, and mail back a cheque. It takes 2-3 months for a mail-in rebate on something you bought and kept, why would I think a refund because you don't want it will be any faster?
Fortunately, I know about the issues so I won't be taking it home from the store in the first place.
On this product, anyway; something that doesn't make a big splash on the right parts of the 'web I might not.
Not to say there aren't positives, but there are a few inherant problems with things like Steam.
1. Abuse. Hypothetically, let us say that some members of "Clan Uber" are actually friends with people in Valve. Someone online says some mean things about Clan Uber, and then mysteriously finds their Steam account banned the next time they are online.
Don't think this would happen? If you've ever played Ragnarok Online, this sort of thing happens all the time. There are a few guilds that have formed friendships with the GM staff, and people have been banned mysteriously from the game after "crossing" members of these guilds.
2. False positives. In their gusto to fight pirates, it is entirely feasable that Valve may make a mistake here and there and leave legit customers banned from Steam.
3. End of Service. Many people assume that if Valve sees themselves about to go out of business, a patch would be released for HL2 to make it playable without Steam. However, they are in no way obligated to do so. If Valve (and thus Steam) ever shut down, it is possible that all copies of HL2 would be rendered unplayable.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
But what about people who buy it in retail?
The boxes at Best Buy that I saw had very little text on the outside.
In fact, they didn't even make mention of the fact that you're buying a disc full of useless random bits, and that you have to create a steam account decrypt it online to play at all.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!