Valve Bans Another 30,000 Steam Users

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'."

Comments

No complaints

[Richie1984]

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.

Re:No complaints

[88NoSoup4U88]

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.

RTFF

[HavokDevNull]

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...

Re:Appeal?

[snuf23]

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.

Refunds?

[rsilvergun]

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.

Re:No matter what steam does for you...

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

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.