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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.
Buying what you want, where you want, when you want at the lowest price you can find is for corporations. Why do users keep thinking globalization should benefit them. It's really silly.
...is why I didn't like the idea of Steam the first time I heard of it (not this specifically, but the idea of things like this happening). If I bought the game, it's mine, jackasses. They have no right to be disabling people's games after taking their money.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Glad I wasn't swayed by all the glowing reviews.
Worse, folks who tried to 'make it right' by buying a local copy have found they're basically SOL.
"Basically?" I've been following this on the CAG forums and if you try to enter another serial after you've been locked out, Steam won't accept it because you "already own the game." Since there's no way to remove the other serial, it means that you're not basically SOL...you're just SOL, plain and simple.
Goo goo g'joob.
to protect deals with distributors.
Reading some of the various "deal" forums it amazes me what people will go through to save a few dollars, yet turn around and brag about their $300 cases, water cooling, and thousand dollars worth of video cards.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
So with Steam, one of its ballyhooed features is that I can get on someone else's Internet-connected computer, install and sign into Steam, and have it download my games and let me play them there... but now they say I can only do that so long as I haven't left my home country?
"In Russia, we don't have American Express. We have Russian Express: `Don't Leave Home'." -- Yakov Smirnov
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
If you didn't get what you believe you paid for, ask the vendor for a refund. If the vendor refuses or ignores you, ask your credit card company to charge it back to them, and they can pick up the tab for their DRM silliness. I happen to love Steam, but not more than my rights as a consumer. Steam is working very nicely for me now, but I know my rights and if Valve take away my games (which they can certainly do if they feel like it), I am within my rights to charge back everything I've paid them in the last two years, and there's nothing they can do about it. This is the only way to tell companies that their DRM isn't working - be on your guard and don't let vendors forget their responsibilities to play fair.
Matthew @ Bytemark Hosting
Should we accept region coding now for all software? Is this good for the consumer?
It just encourages people to pirate the software. No more steam!
In my opinion, they also have no right to deny users their right of first sale.
They also have no right to require an active Internet connection in order for users to play offline, single player games.
They also have no right to make the game "phone home" every time the user wants to play.
They also have no right to force-push updates to single player offline games every time the user wants to play.
But that hasn't stopped them.
It has just stopped me from buying their games.
Actually, that's how it works everywhere.
After digging around on the Steam forums a bit, I'd like to clear up some misconceptions that people seem to be getting.
1) Orange Box purchased through Steam (online) is NOT REGION LOCKED IN ANY WAY.
2) Codes from retail boxes in America, the EU and most other places are NOT REGION LOCKED.
3) Codes from Thailand and Russia ARE REGION LOCKED. This is done because Steam games are sold in those countries at a tiny fraction of the US retail cost. The boxes are marked (in the appropriate language) that they keys will not work in other countries.
In other words, people are getting "burned" because they bought keys from companies that buy the Thai/Russian retail boxes, opens them up, and sell you the codes for several times what they paid, which is still cheaper than the rest of the world pays. They companies know that the keys don't work anywhere else, so the people are getting basically scammed by the companies selling them keys, not Valve.
They're not military servicemen living overseas or families on vacation in Europe, they're cheapasses who fall for a scam because they're too eager to get a "great deal".
Karma: Contrapositive
It doesn't matter how evil the DRM, when Valve does it, it's OK!
More than a decade after MPAA invented region-coded DVDs explicitly to protect deals with distributors, it's still an affront to us. But when Valve does it, hey, it's "just something they put something in to protect deals with distributors".
Product activation and phone-homeware is just as bad an idea when it's called "Steam" as when it's called "Windows Genuine Advantage".
Cozy deals to fuck over the consumers in favor of artificial segregation of distribution channels are just as defective by design whether they're called "Steam" as when they were called "Region-coded DVDs".
The Steam may be delicious and moist, but it's still a lie.
Steam is no triumph.
I'm making a note here - EPIC FAIL.
It's hard to overstate dissatisfaction...
Valve's DRM scheme,
It does what it must, because it can.
For the good of none of us, (except the ones who wear suits.)
But there's no use crying over software that breaks
You just keep on paying 'till you run out of cake
And the damage gets done, and the DRM's won
For the people who are selling lies.
No cake for you!
I actually wonder if they'll also lock you out if you pay more for the game in fact. I ordered the US-import of orange box to circumvent the german censoring (no gibs 'n' blood, they're so cruel!) and also (even more than to circumvent censorship) to have a "original" Half-Life experience with English dialogues, texts, etc. I did not rip off any money and the US dealers got their normal share of money - I'm paying about 10 Euros more for this imported version than I would pay for the German version in German stores. If they kill my serial off, I'd sue them right away if I had the money :/
My Blog: "sum it up - News, emotions and science"
In reality I should have 400 billion dollars. Damned errors.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
Valve has violated the Uniform Commercial Code as well as numerous state and federal laws. No amount of legalese or EULAs will allow a company to willingly violate the laws and scam consumers in this manner. My advice to any victims of this scam is to do a chargeback on their credit card and to file a complaint with their local Attorney General's Office as well as the Federal Trade Commission.
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.
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.
One Token Ring to Rule them All, One Search Engine to Find Them, One WAN to bring them in, and TCP/IP Bind them...
Because you can't afford a politician. That's why.
I see your informative link, and raise you a pithy comment.
This just reminds me of how Valve moved Counterstrike to Steam and required us to register with the CD Keys. Unfortunately, their CD keys were not unique and if someone registered with your CD key before you then you were out of luck! To hell with them.
They fail some critical parts of contract law:
1) Contracts must happen before the deal. Contracts cannot be ex post facto. This is why you sign contracts before you buy a house or car, and why people talk about prenuptial agreements. If it doesn't happen before the exchange, it isn't valid. All terms must be agreed upon up front by both parties, you can't tack them on later. Since EULAs don't come up until after you bought the software, they aren't enforceable.
2) Along those lines contracts must involve an exchange. There's no such thing as a one sided contract. No exchange, it's not a contract and not legal. That's why if you do something like quit your claim to a piece of property to give it to someone else the contract will read (I, yournamehere, for the sum of ten dollars and other valuable consideration do hereby quit all claim..." and so on. Without that exchange in there, it's not legal, even if the intent is just to give it to them.
3) A contract must be open to negotiation. You are not allowed to make it a one sided thing of "Here it is, you have to accept it as is and I won't talk to you." You HAVE to negotiate. You don't have to accept what the other side wants, but you have to be available to the negotiations. You either have to be able to meet with them, or they have to be able to send you a modified contract and so on that you can then review and accept or reject. Well you can't do that with EULAs so again, they aren't contracts.
4) There are various rights you cannot give up. You cannot, for example, sign yourself in to slavery. I can draft a contract that says you'll be my slave, it can be an exchange, we can negotiate it, and you can sign it. You still aren't my slave, you can't sign away that right. EULAs often say you are giving up rights you can't sign away. That clause in unenforceable and having blatantly unenforceable clauses is a great way to have the whole contract tossed.
EULAs are just companies being stupid. Half of it is usually shit they don't have to say, like "You can't copy this." Well duh, that's copyright law, don't need a contract for that. The rest is irrelevant because you already bought the software, it's way too late for them to restrict it. They want a cotnract, they need to get one beforehand.
With some major packages, that'll happen sometimes. We've bought engineering software that required a signed contract. That one is enforceable. You sign a contract prior to the sale agreeing to terms of the sale, that's legal. However EULAs aren't. That is the reason why our lawyers, who have to be very careful since we work for the state, tell us not to worry and just click through. However real contracts we may not sign, those have to be sent over to legal and generally get torn apart.
I somehow read that as "Valve Locking Out Gamers Who Buy Orange Box Intentionally. That threw me for a loop.
You're nothing; like me.
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=222993&p=43
Whirpool is an aussie forum for discussing all kinds of things over here.
Anyhow an online store 'just over the pond' in Thailand called Zest has been selling a lot of games lately, they often open the product, give you the CDkey via email and dispose of the rest, or you can pay to have the whole lot shipped.
Sounds shady but well apparently it works and very few cases of people having CD key issues.
It's hard to know where to stand on this, I can certainly see why Valve have done it. In order to stop piracy in dodgy countries like China and Thailand they simply drop the price, way way low, if I recall Microsoft were thinking (or did?) the same thing with Windows at one point..?
Technically it's still a valid key, however it was intended for that country.
All that being said Organge box (stupid bloody name) is cheap as chips right now. Despite being a tightass consumer, when you think about 45$ US for the preorder is like 55$ AUD, that's fantastic value in my mind. (yes, I purchased on steam)
However! other companies besides Valve like EA are also blocking these online sales and they DON'T release with nice prices like Valve. You want Crysis? 100$ AUD (or 91$ US) and we speak the same damn language, it's not like they need to re-author it (color/colour jokes aside) or make a 220V power supply (software here, not hardware)
I don't agree with those prices at all.
I frequent US-centric forums all the time and it kills me to hear of the bargains you guys get as consumers.
Price match this, rebate that, sale this, 2 for one on that.
I mean you get a brand new game, sure it's 50 or 60$ US but within 2 weeks a smart consumer can have it for 30$ US (40$ AUD)
Over here, the new stuff starts at 120/110/100$ AUD (109/100/91$ US!) and may drop if we're lucky to 70$ US in a month or two - what the fuck people what the fuck.
So ultimately, this isn't cool for some tightasses but really go complain to EA about blocking regional games from Thailand, because those cockhats DON'T offer a cheap good download service like Valve yet they are doing the same thing.
Why the hell would I pay that much money for a game so I can get screwed by a DRM system that has done nothing to hamper piracy of the games in question?
Actually, Steam does a LOT to hamper piracy. It's far more effective than other company's solutions.
The key is that Steam requires you to connect to their online server in order to decrypt the game's files ... sure, eventually someone will crack the encryption, but it takes a lot longer to do so. What's more, a lot of Steam's games are online multiplayer only, which means that unless you have a cd-key that was validated by Valve, you can't play the game even if you get around the encryption. It's only possible (and even then, difficult) to pirate single-player versions of Steam material.
Additionally, I don't see how you're "getting screwed" by Steam. The prices are all at market price (or in some cases, slightly lower than market price), and the client itself is very unobtrusive. Now, throw in the fact that you can install Steam on any computer, log on with your username, and start downloading any of the games that you've previously paid for, and suddenly buying a game on Steam seems more attractive than buying a physical disc. After all, discs can break, and if you don't back them up, you're fucked.
What about military members? We are assigned all over the world for up to years at a time. What about the poor guy who buys a US license and is stationed in Korea or England? Or is in Korea, buys a copy in Korea, and then gets stationed back in the US?
What about guys who deploy elsewhere?
Region dependency is just as stupid as most other DRM restrictions. Maybe even worse, since they're explicitly disallowing people from using legit originals. That sucks. Bad move.
I was going to buy the orange box but I'm in the military and might have to move or deploy before Valve fixes their rectal-cranium inversion on this issue. No way in hell will I buy something that could be disabled just because I move.
That's because it's a lie.
I got 10% off by buying through Steam before it came out, so I don't know what your quarrels with Steam are. I had the TF2 beta just like everyone else who bought the Orange Box for 10% off. I unlocked the Orange Box the very morning the game was released, and was able to play immediately. What's so wrong with this? Instead of paying the inflated, never-dropping prices of Best Buy, I can get it ahead of time for a discount by buying software from the people who spent their years of effort and money to develop it.
The issue here isn't with Steam, it's with how the company handled the problem. Even if Steam wasn't involved, using a CDKey system, keys would have been deactivated. Everyone bashing Steam needs to realize this (the majority of bashers probably don't even use it - I actually really like it).
To re-iterate what the real problem was: the *majority* of people (sure one or two may have legit complaints) affected tried to buy the game for a discounted price, had their games de-activated, can get a refund and buy it properly now. For the few people affected, I don't think this is that big of a deal - don't be so cheap on a company that's offering 5 very awesome games for the price of one, and one that even offered a discount beforehand.
Shit out of luck.
Little correction - actually, despite pulling this on the PC release, the 360 version has no region locking whatsoever. Many other games do, but The Orange Box isn't one of them.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
When I went to buy the Orange Box last night, I was informed by the store owner (it pays to buy from small game stores) that I would need to download a large portion of the game via the internet. Over dialup. This is apparently required to ensure that I'm not pirating it.
Fuck that.
If they don't want to sell me a game, so be it. I'll spend my money elsewhere. I really wish people would stop rewarding companies who do this sort of thing. They don't deserve it.
It's against Slashdot moderation rules to mod people troll just because you disagree with them.
It's obvious that they make more money this way, but the question here is: do you really want a free market or not? Suppose I bake bread. One customer is rich, and can easily afford to pay $5 for my bread, another is poor and can pay only $0.5. Should I sell each for what they can afford or should I set one price for everybody?
Are free market and globalisation only for the big players, or should they be for everyone? Suppose a company is looking for labour, and they can buy it here for $50 an hour or overseas for $10 an hour. They think they can save some money by importing labour from abroad (or having their work done there), but when they import the goods, the government suddenly says: "since you didn't buy your labour in the local market, you can't sell those goods here." That's basically what's happening here. It's a kind of protectionism.