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Is the Half-Life 2 EULA Illegal?

Posted by Zonk on from the deep-thoughts dept.

Ant writes "Many people are having problems connecting to the Steam servers to play Half-Life 2, and now the legal agreements that surround a purchase of Half-Life 2 have been examined. The German Consumer Association has found that the packaging on Half-Life 2 is misleading. In a report made following complaints from the public, they said that the mere listing of an internet connection under the 'other' category in system requirements did not accurately describe the true extent of the internet tie-in with the game, and ordered Vivendi to amend the packaging and untie Steam from HL2 or face a hefty fine."

3 of 164 comments (clear)

  1. Internet Connection by Vraylle · · Score: 5, Informative

    The "mere listing" of an internet connection as a requirement IS misleading, and not just for the reasons they mention in the article. I made the mistake of trying this with my aluminum-line, out-in-the-boondocks 26.4k connection. I returned the (opened) software to the store and told them the system requirements were misleading. Internet Connection!=broadband

    --
    Mutant Freaks of Nature: "Frighteningly Addictive"
  2. RTFA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Its not about an internet connection being required, its about the fact that the box doesn't mention having to install Steam to play it and how "internet connection required" != Steam.

  3. Steam has no LICENSE agreement but a SUBSCRIBER on by dupont54 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's simple: by buying HL2, you just haven't bought a game. Not even a user license. What you have paid are "subscription fees". And what you have is just a subscription to some content on an online (?buggy?) service. And don't believe it is a lifetime subscription. Just read the damn SSA, it is definitely not a no-brainer.

    And it's getting really fun when you start comparing with the retail HL2 EULA. There are contradicting themselves on such little details like change of terms and billing, termination and transferability. But bad luck, the evil SSA is suposed to superseed the nicer retail EULA.

    I know I'm paranoid and that Valve may not do something of terrible taste, like for instance adding recurring charges to Steam in order "to defray" bandwith costs (a bit like they are charging $10 if you want to re-sell the game, to "defray the costs" of this operation). But they claim in the SSA to have that kind of rights. And I find this legal trick with the SSA/EULA to be already of VERY bad taste, especially for a company whose marketing line is to be THE company who really cares about its fan base....

    And is there any official clarification on theses issues from Valve? Well, on the Steam forums, apart the "We are tired of these legalese chats" from the mods and the "We are experiencing a troll infestation" by a Valve representative... nothing really meaningfull. (Apart maybe the funny "our $10 re-sell fee is *consistent* with VU after-90-days warranty" which was very rapidly deleted...)