Valve Locking Out Gamers Who Buy Orange Box Internationally

Via Opposable Thumbs, a post on the Consumerist site notes that some enterprising gamers who bought the Orange Box in a territory different than the one they lived (to save a few bucks) have now found themselves unable to play the game. "One user, Todd, explains that thousands of crafty North American gamers looking for a deal have 'bought the product (and hence, the serial numbers) at well known international game stores' at a significant markdown. Activation of the purchased titles went off without a hitch. However, Valve apparently has taken issue with the region-specificity of some international versions and has begun locking out accounts of those living in North America, but owning international serial numbers with the message that the purchased game is in the 'incorrect territory.'" Worse, folks who tried to 'make it right' by buying a local copy have found they're basically SOL. I've been a big fan of the Steam concept since it launched, but this is the sort of thing you need to communicate to your users before you sting them.

Comments

F Globalization!

[gerf]

I'm an American, currently working in Mexico for 2 months. I recently bought a brand new laptop with a 8600M GT 512MB video card, and I've been looking for games to buy and play, since I haven't played many games since BF1942 and Counter-Strike.

I've been seriously considering purchasing the Orange Box, and even signed up with Steam (they can check this fact against my unobscured email). I even watch some forum threads about TF2 and Portal, and played the Portal flash game. But, with a possible disconnection, they've just lost a sale unless they can absolutely prove otherwise. Ya hear that Valve? LOST SALE RIGHT HERE BUDDY.

And now it starts.

[anlprb]

Remember all of the Xbox Live players out there who love digital distribution? Well, here it is. You do not OWN ANYTHING. You can try to pry my CDs/DVDs/BlueRay Discs out of my cold dead hands, but that would be theft. Delete a bit on my game to not make it play, that is protecting your revenue stream. Why is the digital download so damned attractive? You don't get box art, you don't get a manual. You don't get the right to play your game on a non-networked machine. Now, you know why volunteering your computer to be part of a corporation's distribution network is a bad idea. Hmm, let's give away my bandwidth, HDD space and processing power to Company A when what do I get in return, disabled products. Ohh, and this is just the beginning. It will only get worse. This just proves, I am not a tinfoil hat theorist, it is true, today, not someday, it is here. Welcome to not owning anything.

          This is why I play games on the consoles, you buy the game, you play the game. I want imported games, buy imported console, hook up to TV, play games. No one can come into my house and take my games away from me. The reason I stopped playing PC games was I was always treated like a darned criminal, especially when I paid for the game. The cracked games don't have the nagging that the retail versions do. Now, they are playing this game. This is just lovely. When did I stop being the person who put food on your table and became just another game citizen to keep on taxing with no accountability to? I stopped playing Valve games after steam came out. You could see the writing on the wall, this was going to end badly, just a matter of time.

Re:Probably a requirement

[NormalVisual]

You as the end consumer are NOT bound by agreements between other people. The place where you bought it from may have sold something to you in contravention of their contracts with THEIR partners, but that's not your problem... or it SHOULDN'T be your problem... and if law and/or reality contradict that, then the law and/or reality is in error and needs fixing.

Wish it had worked that way with me and VMware. Last year, I bought a shrinkwrapped copy of Workstation 5.5 from an Amazon vendor, registered with VMware, etc., and life was good for a while. It's a great piece of software, and probably the single most useful package I own. Fast forward a bit to the 6.0 release. I participated in the pre-release beta, and was really looking forward to picking up the retail package. VMware offered 6.0 as a $100 upgrade from 5.x, so of course I jumped at that. However, I found I was unable to register on the site with my 5.x key and when I contacted VMware about it, they said they'd had some kind of issue with the vendor, and had invalidated all of his licenses instead of pursuing whatever direct legal action would have been appropriate. They refused to work with me *at all* on the upgrade pricing, even though I had a legitimate shrink-wrapped package and by their own admission, a legitimate license key. To add insult to injury, they insinuated that the problem was my fault because I didn't check the VMware web site before purchasing to make sure the vendor was a VMware Authorized Reseller.

It'll be a cold day in hell before I do business with VMware again, and I've recommended Xen to more than a couple of folks since then.