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Valve Bans Another 30,000 Steam Users

Posted by Zonk on from the you-get-what-you-pay-for dept.

bryhhh writes "Valve has announced that they have banned another 30,000 steam accounts which had been used to try to illegally gain access to Valve games without a valid purchase. Only last month 20,000 accounts were banned for the same reason, only this time Valve states that, 'The accounts that are disabled today will not be reactivated'."

20 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. The real reason... by Repiv · · Score: 3, Funny

    Gabe sat on the account server! On no!

    Anyway, those bans sucked last time. My friend who legally got the game ended up banned.

  2. No complaints by Richie1984 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It seems Steam is really proving useful in preventing illegal use of Half Life 2 and, once certain bugs are ironed out of Steam, I can see it being used across the board as the main deterrant of pirating games. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is another discussion entirely.

    The only things I would be concerned about are ensuring that of the 30000 banned, all of them are actually banned for valid reasons and not due to any error. Valve has said they wont reactivate these accounts, so once it's gone, it's gone.

    --
    I'm not stressed. I'm just terribly, terribly alert.
    1. Re:No complaints by 88NoSoup4U88 · · Score: 4, Insightful
      preventing illegal use of Half Life 2

      If you're aiming at the multiplayer part of the game : Such thing has allready been established by giving out CD-keys, and authenticating them with a master-server before one can connect to a server.

      For the single player part there is allready a non-Steam version floating around Warezland, so it isn't really countering it much.

      I much more appreciate Steam for it being able to instantly supply me the latest patches to the game, and not ending up searching for the right files.
      Also their stance on the mod community, and some of statements VALVe made in the past about how they see Steam to be in the future : Sounds very promising.

      The only thing that I don't like about Steam is the possibility of it going to have a subscription fee : It's just -too- easy for them not to do it.

      The day Steam will be subscription-based, will be the day I'll stop using Steam : Until then, I think VALVe did a great overall job on Steam/HL2.

    2. Re:No complaints by ShawnMcCool42 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It'd be counter intuitive for them to start charging for steam. The purpose is for them to make more money by offering a publisher-free avenue for game distribution. Should they start charging there will be little reason for the consumer to value steam as functional. It'd be like being charged a toll at the front door of your local mall.

    3. Re:No complaints by 88NoSoup4U88 · · Score: 2, Insightful
      But you aren't seriously thinking that Steam will ever supply games made by id Software, Epic Games ?

      I am already doubting if it will ever reach beyond their own userbase ; I see Steam to be a viable platform for 'amateur' modmakers to get a bit of a financial reward for your hard work (but i might have conflicting interests ;) )

    4. Re:No complaints by damiam · · Score: 2, Interesting
      It seems Steam is really proving useful in preventing illegal use of Half Life 2

      WTF are you talking about? If anything else, Steam has pissed people off and increased piracy. Pirated versions of HL2 don't need steam for the single-player game.

      Steam may be somewhat effective in preventing multi-player use of pirated games, but Blizzard's battle.net system works just as well, has been around forever, and isn't nearly as evil.

      --
      It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
  3. RTFF by HavokDevNull · · Score: 4, Informative

    According to a mod on the Valve forums

    Banned is different than "disabled"

    Banned = VAC caught your account cheating

    Disabled = You tried to steal HL2 (the first 20,000)

    big difference between the two IMHO...

    --
    Sig
    1. Re:RTFF by realdpk · · Score: 3, Informative

      "And you dont have to worry about no-cd patches, as its already a cd'less game."

      Huh. What? My copy requires I put in the CD to play, even though I'm signed up through Steam. Another reason I don't play this game very often -- what a pain.

      How do you get it so you don't have to put the CD in to play the game, other than a no-cd patch?

      Or does what you're saying only apply to those who bought the game online?

    2. Re:RTFF by mdbales · · Score: 2, Informative

      Have you tried it recently? The last patch removed the CD check due to some problems that users reported.

  4. Re:Good riddance... by 88NoSoup4U88 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    replying to my own, since I remember reading this last week ;

    Since one of the latest patches presumably fixes the requirement for the CD to be in your 'puter ; I am still thinking that anyone who bought their game (either in store, or over Steam) are allowed to screw around with their files (no-cd .exe's / modified .exe's), and no ban can be justified by this.
    As soon as multiplayer files are being manipulated , I think banning is in line, as it compromises the game's fairness (not that VAC is able to stop anything this time around.....)

  5. it's mine i can do whatever... by sponga · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Quote: Moofie http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=129610&t hreshold=1&commentsort=3&tid=204&tid=98&tid=133&mo de=thread&pid=10811750#10811793 "Since I bought it, I can crack it legally. Anybody who thinks different, well, they're wrong." Valve doesn't seem to agree with you....

  6. Is Anyone Surprised? Didn't Think So... by Primis · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What a joke. Anyone dumb enough to use Steam in the first place and then gets their account deactivated, wrongly or rightfully, gets what they deserve for being blind, dumb sheep with no sense of what they're dealing with. And I can guarantee you out of the 30,000 they have deactivated, the number of paying, legit customers they deactivated is in at least the hundreds. That's the way it always works.

    Valve has completely ignored the history and fact that these schemes DO NOT WORK, and when you try to do something like this to combat illegal copies of the game you only 1) Piss off your normal customer base by making it even more inconvenient for them, and 2) you INEVITABLY make mistakes and you punish/cut off paying customers. Oh yeah, and I forgot... the people who REALLY want an illegal copy will still get it no matter what.

    Valve has become a joke, and Steam is a joke. And no amount of Tychos gushing in their blogs and news posts about how "great" a system of delivery a model like Steam is will prevent its eventual failure. No content system which lets a company deactivate accounts on a whim can survive because there WILL be mistakes, and those "mistakes" will go from Paying Customers to Former Paying Customers. And once you lose them, they will never ever come back, and they will make it their personal goal to drive as many other people away form it as possible.

    Time to get a new idea instead of rehashing the same old one that's been tried and failed for nearly a decade now, guys...

    -- Primis.

  7. Accountability? by Primis · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Also... has anyone thought of asking/callng for Valve to make publicly available how and WHY they're deactivating people? And by that I mean specific records and details? In other words, some proof so that they can be audited? This extends beyond Good Budiness/Bad Business and seems to have wandered into an area where someone should really be regulating/overseeing Valve.

    Otherwise, is there any accountability for them to not just deactivate paying customers once they have their money? I can't imagine they would care much if it's a paying customer or not, seeing how it's very likely the next product they release wouldn't be for 3 or 4 more years anyways...

    -- Primis.

  8. Re:Appeal? by snuf23 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I had a problem when I purchased Sim City 3000. You were supposed to logon to a website, enter your key and get additional content.
    Well, I tried that - but someone had already used my key to setup an account. Keep in mind the copy I bought was a sealed store-bought copy, not second hand. I guess someone used a keygen and got my key.
    I tried going through support and sending them a scanned image of the CD case with key. Nothing. Just a standard thank you for contacting support message.
    I feel for anyone who got their account wrongfully banned/disabled.

    --
    Sometimes my arms bend back.
  9. Refunds? by rsilvergun · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If I buy it online, and you ban me, do I get a refund? How about if I send you the box I got at EB? Better question: If I'm banned from Steam for pirating HL2, does that lock me out of HL1? This is why I don't want activation in games (or the OS, for that matter). Presumably, if you piss off the company, they can lock you out of dozens of your legit products. Imagine pirating 1 EA game (or having your kid do it) and finding every EA game you own doesn't work anymore.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  10. Re:Good riddance... by Alrua · · Score: 2, Informative
    What are you talking about? I got the regular preorder HL2 edition and it comes with CS Source.

    CS: Source != HL1: Source

  11. Re:Appeal? by zarthrag · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You have a right to take it back to the store and excahange it, in that case. You can simply cite the product as "defective". Walmart is especially good about this, mainly bc they don't yet have any notion of the value of a CD key.

    --
    Why can't all fpga/microcontroller manufacturers just release free optimizing compilers???
  12. No matter what steam does for you... by zarthrag · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Please don't mod me troll for this, But if you changed "Valve" to "Microsoft" and "HL2" to "Windows XP", there would be ALOT more cries of foul-play.

    I don't approve of Valve suspending accounts that are potentially associated with even ONE paying customer. Steam is a (overall) good thing, but I think it's gonna go a little too far.

    --
    Why can't all fpga/microcontroller manufacturers just release free optimizing compilers???
    1. Re:No matter what steam does for you... by ObsessiveMathsFreak · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But if you changed "Valve" to "Microsoft" and "HL2" to "Windows XP", there would be ALOT more cries of foul-play.

      This is all too true.
      I saw a troll making a very long post about this once. His basic point was that, unlike the rest of slashdot, the games section is populated by windows pc gamers, more so that regular tech heads. Most of these are young and innocent when it comes to IP issues. Kind of like a missing link between regular users and frequent slashdotters. Anyway, these gamers do love their games and the companies that make them and will brook no critisisms of them. They're also more likely to be confused by comments slamming windows XP, as they still regard it as "Way cool! I have a computer with XP!"

      Steam is ridiculous. It's only working because half life 2 is huge. I really can't see it working for other games. The only reason consumers put up with it is because of the hype. the hype is also the reason comments critisising steam are modded as troll in the games section.

      Paranoid people might consider the gamer influx into slashdot to be the forerunner of a mighty luser invasion. I consider it just a diversification of the slashdot ecosystem.

      --
      May the Maths Be with you!
    2. Re:No matter what steam does for you... by iainl · · Score: 2, Insightful

      In which case, I must be in a minority of a minority. I don't have any real problems with the XP activation at all, as it has been remarkably painless every single time I've used it, even when I've had to phone my code through rather than use the internet authentication.

      But Steam really annoys me, because it gets in the way. Authenticating Steam takes a lot longer than even the five minute phonecall of XP, let alone the 30-second internet method, and what is more Steam requires that you keep doing it. Microsoft don't kill your XP machine if Windows Update doesn't like the look of your auth string, either, it just refuses to let you have the service pack. Finding someone has stolen (or generated) your Half-Life CD-Key can kill all your Valve games.

      --
      "I Know You Are But What Am I?"