a problem with pirating and STEAM

[john121]

if you can download the game from steam, and get a CD key to play the game on or offline, what's to stop people from putting it into a zip file along with a CD key and loading it onto kazaa or winmx? i understand you won't be able to play it online, or get the tools to build your own levels (i think). Can anyone stop this? I prefer going legit and buying my games, Valve deserves it as other people who put time and effort into making these games, but I get ticked if I just bought HL2 for 50 bucks while my neighbor just gets his cable modem and downloads it in one night off of kazaa.

 

[KagePrototype]

if you can download the game from steam, and get a CD key to play the game on or offline, what's to stop people from putting it into a zip file along with a CD key and loading it onto kazaa or winmx? i understand you won't be able to play it online, or get the tools to build your own levels (i think). Can anyone stop this? I prefer going legit and buying my games, Valve deserves it as other people who put time and effort into making these games, but I get ticked if I just bought HL2 for 50 bucks while my neighbor just gets his cable modem and downloads it in one night off of kazaa.

Once a cd key is registered with a certin Steam, I don't think that cd key can be registered by any other account after that. So smply placing a cd key online won't work, because you need to register your product to play it in the first place.

 

[Hazar]

Not to mention that you have to login.

whoops he already said that.

 

[Adrien C]

Once a cd key is registered with a certin Steam, I don't think that cd key can be registered by any other account after that. So smply placing a cd key online won't work, because you need to register your product to play it in the first place.

Humm, Well, I once entered a friends pass-word, and it worked for some reason, he can also play online.

 

[NeptuneUK]

what about the SP only half-life?

 

[The Dark Elf]

moved to the steam section

 

[Dreglor]

what about the SP only half-life?

same everything is registered and stored on remote server that are (hopefully) secure
and if some did get into them it won't really matter if they got all cd keys for every single hl2 owner they woun't be able to use them with out some hacked version of steam to get it to run

 

[Fat Tony!]

what you can do is install it on your computer using a disk, lend it to someone else, then lend it to someone with the cd key, they can register it online with steam and download the rest of the files and then they can play it without the disk....i think, then the other person can have the disk back and play it without using steam.

 

[The_Nexus]

if you can download the game from steam, and get a CD key to play the game on or offline, what's to stop people from putting it into a zip file along with a CD key and loading it onto kazaa or winmx? i understand you won't be able to play it online, or get the tools to build your own levels (i think). Can anyone stop this?

NO..absolutly nothing for SP MP will most likely be private hacked server exe as per usual.
This will have some sort of variation becasue of the steam "speed bump"

But the basic pricipal stands

They can secure it all they want.
It will be hacked and pirated.

Just ask a car securuty system designer of this principal

My speculation on this topic is thus: Valve has with HL1 gave stupendous 6 year supoort and ooodles of mod support and mods...no other video game in history even comes close to Valves definition of sticker value. Even the most rebellious pirate can respect this, i think there will be less pirating of this game becasue of valves past principals of sharing....valves HL1 attitude reminds me of the days of the philosophy Home Brew Club , and principalled pirates respect this attitude.

 

[The_Nexus]

As memtioned above by another poster, someone will or alrasy hacked steam in preparation.

Most likely scenario:

SP dl on steam -- cracked exe..path some dll maybe--cdkey-steam hack
MP exe, dll. cdkey, hack steam to fool steam into thinking its checked with valve for auth, may have to disconnect from net in process 1st time---private server exe.

specualtion of course.