Sid is working for Firaxis, the company he founded several years ago. Their first game was Alpha Centauri. Their latest is, in fact, a new version of the classic Pirates!
which should be in stores now.
But the moment they prevent a legitimate customer from accessing the system, and refuse to give them any remedy as specified in the law, they are in trouble.
I agree completely, but that isn't the case here. Valve has offered to unlock the accounts of anyone that can show they legitimately purchased a copy of the game. I've been watching the Steam forums, and most of the people that claim their account was locked, even though they own a copy of the game, are also admitting to either using a no-CD crack or downloading the warez version because they thought it was taking too long to authenticate. I assume that if those people contact Valve, they can probably get their accounts unlocked. But you can't say they aren't completely innocent in the matter. I have yet to see anyone post that Valve completely screwed them over for no reason.
Whoopsie, did I type "circuit"? I meant "district." Central District of California, to be precise. My mistake. Thanks for catching that.
At any rate, the case still doesn't apply to breaking a license agreement, because the decision of the court was that Softman had never assented to the agreement by installing or using the software. They were buying bundled packages of software, breaking them up, and reselling the individual programs. If your complaint was that you couldn't resell an unused copy of HL2, it would apply. But if you install and play the game, your are required to assent to the license agreement.
No. You own a copy of the software, exactly the same as if you own a copy of a book. You don't have to believe me or anyone else on the matter. Check out for yourself how the appeals court for Valve's area has ruled that software purchase it is a sale, not a licence, even with the EULA.
To summarize, a software license agreement, in which the developer set out liability limits, was held as a binding contract and the plaintiff's case was dismissed. The decision was further upheld in both the Superior and Supreme courts of Washington State.
What's the consumer's recourse? A lawyer. Right. People in general will hire an attorney, waste (more than likely) several months of their life and miss work all to pursue consideration from a judge on a $50.00 game.
I said that was an option, not the only option. And you don't generally need a lawyer or several months for small claims court. The better option, and the one Valve is actually encouraging, is for any user that feels they've had their account incorrectly terminated to contact Valve and provide evidence that they own a valid copy of the game. I suspect that anyone who can do so will find Valve very willing to rectify the situation.
A proper and legal way to punish someone that wronged you is to take the person to court, not to inflict what you consider due process upon them. In all honesty, it sounds very vigilante-ish.
Valve isn't prosecuting people. They are simply revoking licenses to use their property. Sort of like denying someone access to your home. It is their responsibility to prove they deserve access.
People just need to get over the idea that they own the software they use. Read a EULA sometime. Whether or not a EULA is legally binding is a completely different discussion.
No, they are referring to the number of people that bought a legit copy of the game, then used a no-CD crack on it. I would imagine they know exactly how many there were. And the "very small" is in comparison to the number of people that were caught using a completely illegitimate key to activate the game.
You didn't buy a game. You haven't bought a game in probably about 10 years (about when game developers started including EULAs). If you think you've been buying games, you're deluding yourself.
What you've been buying all these years are licenses to use a piece of software. The company that owns the software (in this case, Valve) can revoke your license any time they want, if they feel you have violated the license agreement. The difference now is that, for the first time, Steam allows them to do so with real and immediate effect. You are free to contest a revocation by contacting the owner, or by taking your case to a court of law, if you feel you did not violate the license agreement.
If you want to argue whether or not software should be licensed, that's fine. But this is the way it currently works, so you'd better get used to it.
Sure it is. If your Steam account is closed by Valve, you could take them to court over it. You'd probably lose, though, unless you could prove they were in the wrong.
Cracking a CD check does not count as legitimate use. It is a violation of your license to use the software, and if the owner of the software can show that you have broken the agreement, they can revoke your license. This is the first game that makes use of a system which allows the developer to easily see who is using a no-CD crack, so I imagine a lot of people are going to be in for a very rude surprise.
Meanwhile, I'll be happily playing my Steam-downloaded copy of the game without ever needing a CD in the drive.
propaganda
noun ...
2 : the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person
3 : ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one's cause or to damage an opposing cause; also : a public action having such an effect
Use of the term 'propaganda' is not necessarily bashing anything. There is actually an entire sub-branch of the military dedicated to propaganda, which the original poster was referring to. They drop leaflets out of airplanes explaining to enemy soldiers that they have no hope of winning, and the best thing to do is surrender, and hey while we're at it, here's the proper way to surrender so you don't get your brains blown out.
Actually, they didn't, which was dumb. What they did do was get a court order to bar Valve from selling the game for a lower price over Steam, because that would have really hurt their retail sales.
This is part of it, but I also think a big part of the decision to release HL2 worldwide simultaneously has to do with Vivendi Universal's lawsuit against Valve. If they don't release the game in, say, Europe at the same time as it is released in the US, more people in Europe might be motivated to buy through Steam instead of going to the retail store. That means more lost sales for VU.
I don't have a DVD drive. I've been incrementally upgrading the same computer since 1995, and I've just never felt I had enough use for one that I should buy it. I'll admit that it's starting to get annoying with most games coming on 3 or more CDs these days (Far Cry came on 5!!!), but HL2 isn't a very good game to make your point with, as you can buy and download it through Steam and not even have to deal with discs of any sort.
In the US we had Erector sets, which is essentially the same thing. And no, I don't think they are manufactured anymore, but you can still find places selling them occasionally.
What ever happened to the Gran Tourismo games they were supposedly going to port to PC? They made an announcement about this a couple years ago, then nothing...
I don't own a console system, and don't intend to buy one, but I do enjoy the odd racing game. Maybe I should go pick up Need For Speed Underground 2. I'll just have to try and ignore all the fugly body kits and 747 wings.
If the game is good enough that I still want to play it 6 years down the line, I expect Valve will still be making a profit, and will still be supporting it, much as they have done with Half-Life and its many mods.
I don't understand this viewpoint. All games these days have copy protection in one form or another. For the most part, these schemes are more of a hindrance to the legitimate users than the dedicated pirates. Steam actually gets rid of all the annoying problems caused by current copy-protection, and goes a long way towards actually preventing piracy. No requiring the CD in the drive, no hardware issues, no worrying about losing your key or having someone else use it, game content delivered as soon as it is available, patches downloaded automatically... And the best part: an online distribution system like Steam may help release game developers from their dependence on huge publishers. Frankly, I think more people should be rejoicing about Steam and the way it is changing the games industry.
A guy I shared an apartment with in College got hooked on M59 when it was first released. He would play at all hours of the night and day. I can still hear the screams of whatever monsters he was killing reverberating through the thin wall separating our bedrooms. He eventually fell into the trap of skipping classes to play, and flunked out. Stupid freshmen.
Powell ducks answering on the Oprah thing by saying it's "still under review at the commission". She won't be fined. She's too popular.
I found that interesting. My theory is that she definitely won't be fined before the elections next week. Afterwards, we'll see, but a Bush apointee being held responsible for fining Oprah would have a HUGE impact on the female voters.
I'd be interested to hear why people think Pascal never caught on like C or Java did? My understanding is that nowadays one of the Borland tools implements what is essentially an OO-version of Pascal?
Pascal never really reached the level of popularity of C due to issues with convenience and efficiency. Reading from and writing to hardware is much easier in C. You are less confined as to what you can do, and you can therefore pull off some tricks to speed up operations. Also, C has been around longer, and the compilers available were much better at producing fast, optimized code... There's probably more to it than that, but it has been so long since I did anything in Pascal, I'm having trouble remembering all the reasons I hated it;o)
The major selling point for Java is hardware independence. You write your code once, and it can run on any system for which there is a compliant JVM. There was nothing else like that when it first came out, and nothing else has been around long enough to reach the same level of popularity.
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Sid is working for Firaxis, the company he founded several years ago. Their first game was Alpha Centauri. Their latest is, in fact, a new version of the classic Pirates! which should be in stores now.
I agree completely, but that isn't the case here. Valve has offered to unlock the accounts of anyone that can show they legitimately purchased a copy of the game. I've been watching the Steam forums, and most of the people that claim their account was locked, even though they own a copy of the game, are also admitting to either using a no-CD crack or downloading the warez version because they thought it was taking too long to authenticate. I assume that if those people contact Valve, they can probably get their accounts unlocked. But you can't say they aren't completely innocent in the matter. I have yet to see anyone post that Valve completely screwed them over for no reason.
At any rate, the case still doesn't apply to breaking a license agreement, because the decision of the court was that Softman had never assented to the agreement by installing or using the software. They were buying bundled packages of software, breaking them up, and reselling the individual programs. If your complaint was that you couldn't resell an unused copy of HL2, it would apply. But if you install and play the game, your are required to assent to the license agreement.
Excellent point, except your example is from a California circuit court. Valve is in Washington. Here's a case that is slightly more relevant: M. A. Mortenson Company, Inc. v. Timberline Software Corp. & Softworks Data Systems
To summarize, a software license agreement, in which the developer set out liability limits, was held as a binding contract and the plaintiff's case was dismissed. The decision was further upheld in both the Superior and Supreme courts of Washington State.
I said that was an option, not the only option. And you don't generally need a lawyer or several months for small claims court. The better option, and the one Valve is actually encouraging, is for any user that feels they've had their account incorrectly terminated to contact Valve and provide evidence that they own a valid copy of the game. I suspect that anyone who can do so will find Valve very willing to rectify the situation.
Valve isn't prosecuting people. They are simply revoking licenses to use their property. Sort of like denying someone access to your home. It is their responsibility to prove they deserve access. People just need to get over the idea that they own the software they use. Read a EULA sometime. Whether or not a EULA is legally binding is a completely different discussion.
No, they are referring to the number of people that bought a legit copy of the game, then used a no-CD crack on it. I would imagine they know exactly how many there were. And the "very small" is in comparison to the number of people that were caught using a completely illegitimate key to activate the game.
What you've been buying all these years are licenses to use a piece of software. The company that owns the software (in this case, Valve) can revoke your license any time they want, if they feel you have violated the license agreement. The difference now is that, for the first time, Steam allows them to do so with real and immediate effect. You are free to contest a revocation by contacting the owner, or by taking your case to a court of law, if you feel you did not violate the license agreement.
If you want to argue whether or not software should be licensed, that's fine. But this is the way it currently works, so you'd better get used to it.
Sure it is. If your Steam account is closed by Valve, you could take them to court over it. You'd probably lose, though, unless you could prove they were in the wrong.
Meanwhile, I'll be happily playing my Steam-downloaded copy of the game without ever needing a CD in the drive.
noun
2 : the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person
3 : ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one's cause or to damage an opposing cause; also : a public action having such an effect
Use of the term 'propaganda' is not necessarily bashing anything. There is actually an entire sub-branch of the military dedicated to propaganda, which the original poster was referring to. They drop leaflets out of airplanes explaining to enemy soldiers that they have no hope of winning, and the best thing to do is surrender, and hey while we're at it, here's the proper way to surrender so you don't get your brains blown out.
Actually, they didn't, which was dumb. What they did do was get a court order to bar Valve from selling the game for a lower price over Steam, because that would have really hurt their retail sales.
This is part of it, but I also think a big part of the decision to release HL2 worldwide simultaneously has to do with Vivendi Universal's lawsuit against Valve. If they don't release the game in, say, Europe at the same time as it is released in the US, more people in Europe might be motivated to buy through Steam instead of going to the retail store. That means more lost sales for VU.
I don't have a DVD drive. I've been incrementally upgrading the same computer since 1995, and I've just never felt I had enough use for one that I should buy it. I'll admit that it's starting to get annoying with most games coming on 3 or more CDs these days (Far Cry came on 5!!!), but HL2 isn't a very good game to make your point with, as you can buy and download it through Steam and not even have to deal with discs of any sort.
In the US we had Erector sets, which is essentially the same thing. And no, I don't think they are manufactured anymore, but you can still find places selling them occasionally.
What ever happened to the Gran Tourismo games they were supposedly going to port to PC? They made an announcement about this a couple years ago, then nothing... I don't own a console system, and don't intend to buy one, but I do enjoy the odd racing game. Maybe I should go pick up Need For Speed Underground 2. I'll just have to try and ignore all the fugly body kits and 747 wings.
If the game is good enough that I still want to play it 6 years down the line, I expect Valve will still be making a profit, and will still be supporting it, much as they have done with Half-Life and its many mods.
I don't understand this viewpoint. All games these days have copy protection in one form or another. For the most part, these schemes are more of a hindrance to the legitimate users than the dedicated pirates. Steam actually gets rid of all the annoying problems caused by current copy-protection, and goes a long way towards actually preventing piracy. No requiring the CD in the drive, no hardware issues, no worrying about losing your key or having someone else use it, game content delivered as soon as it is available, patches downloaded automatically... And the best part: an online distribution system like Steam may help release game developers from their dependence on huge publishers. Frankly, I think more people should be rejoicing about Steam and the way it is changing the games industry.
Thanks for the news!
Well, the features page says that it functions as an external HD, so I assume that means it appears as a standard USB mass storage device.
Ironic, because the page is full of direct links to images and media on other sites.
A guy I shared an apartment with in College got hooked on M59 when it was first released. He would play at all hours of the night and day. I can still hear the screams of whatever monsters he was killing reverberating through the thin wall separating our bedrooms. He eventually fell into the trap of skipping classes to play, and flunked out. Stupid freshmen.
I found that interesting. My theory is that she definitely won't be fined before the elections next week. Afterwards, we'll see, but a Bush apointee being held responsible for fining Oprah would have a HUGE impact on the female voters.
Why bother having people spay/neuter them when you could just engineer them to be sterile?
Pascal never really reached the level of popularity of C due to issues with convenience and efficiency. Reading from and writing to hardware is much easier in C. You are less confined as to what you can do, and you can therefore pull off some tricks to speed up operations. Also, C has been around longer, and the compilers available were much better at producing fast, optimized code... There's probably more to it than that, but it has been so long since I did anything in Pascal, I'm having trouble remembering all the reasons I hated it ;o)
The major selling point for Java is hardware independence. You write your code once, and it can run on any system for which there is a compliant JVM. There was nothing else like that when it first came out, and nothing else has been around long enough to reach the same level of popularity.