On a side note:
Do the people that act immature/use illiterate grammar and whatnot, realize that those actually help when asking a question?
When I saw the topic title, I thought: "Ooo, another new user... waiting to get flamed"...
ehehe, sorry for slightly hijacking your post.
Do the people that act immature/use illiterate grammar and whatnot, realize that those actually help when asking a question?
When I saw the topic title, I thought: "Ooo, another new user... waiting to get flamed"...
ehehe, sorry for slightly hijacking your post.
My Guess, perhaps there is a CD-Key generator program like there are for other games to illegally use a CD-Key until discovered and shut off. Such a generator program may have come up with your number without the packaging on your HL2 box ever having been opened.
B
Brak710101
Guest
I belive most stores police for PC software is that you can return it from another copy of the Exact game. So, just take it back, dont mention about the Cd-key problem.
R
robbed
Guest
They finally replied and suggested that I return the product to the retailer for exchange as they sold me opened software....
Sent this reply:
I can have my sister attempt this, but there is no guarantee that this will succeed for some very legitimate reasons. I still have some serious philosophical objections to "resolving" the issue in this way, which I will explain.
First off, the retailer may or may not be willing to give any satisfaction when attempting to return a piece of software where the package has been opened. Generally retailers have explicit policies whereby such software CANNOT be returned. Why should the retailer choose to believe that somebody other than myself opened the software? I might just be seeking to rip off an additional CD-key. I cannot prove to them that the game didn't install on my machine and use up the key. You have this information, they do not. I will print information from this discussion for my sister and hope that may help, but who knows.
I suppose worse yet, I cannot even prove to you that I am not dishonest. As I've thought about it, there could be a bunch of lame scams whereby somebody who just wanted a free CD-key could wind up complaining to your company in exactly the manner that I have as a guiltless victim. (They could have a friend buy the game and install it and then give the CDs to a them). It is infuriating that I cannot distinguish myself from somebody committing fraud in this case.
My other main objection to this resolution is that the thief evades responsibility. Somebody did something completely rotten, fraudulent, and illegal. They're playing the game that they stole, and you seem to be willing to go ahead and support that. At the least, since you have strict control over the ability to use the game, you ought to discontinue the thief's ability to continue fraud.
It may be convenient for your company to view this as a crime against the retailer in which you have no part, but where the rubber hits the road this approach is problematic. My sister might or might not be out of luck, and about $60, depending upon the kindness of the retailer or their willingness to stand up for their error conditional on their view of whether or not my sister is dishonest.
The rotten copy of the game that was sold to my sister is also a problem. I'd wager dollars to donuts that, regardless of the explanation that my sister might give to the retailer, they're going to place the copy of the game back on the shelf for sale. Either they did that in the first place, or the game package was compromised inside the store. When the copy is sold again, some other innocent person will wind up in exactly the same position that I did.
Your anti-piracy policy is ending up shifting the burden for software thievery from your company to innocent end users. The thievery may occur in lower numbers with the prevention of casual copying piracy, but things are in a position where a moderately determined thief can trick a retailer pretty simply and apparently get a free pass at the expense of others. I suppose when push comes to shove the publisher simply runs the revenue numbers comparing results of casual copying piracy versus results with the costs of enforcing the strictest activation scheme ever known in a piece of entertainment software. There aren't enough honest people for your analysis to lead anywhere else. But the irony is that you take out the pain on the least deserving when the actual piracy occurs. I'm not sure if the publisher's long-term analysis adequately accounts for the loss of goodwill in their customer base, particularly such loss in the portion of legitimate paying customers who would not consider pirating the game. Such people might actually comprise a greater fraction of your customers than realized. There seems to be an awful lot of irritation in dealing with the activation scheme even amongst legitimate customers who haven't faced nearly the nightmare that I have.
Given the slow initial response time to even try to figure out this problem that was not of my causing, and the seeming lack of a clear solution where anybody ends up taking responsibility for the problem, I'm pretty certain that I will never again feel comfortable purchasing a game that incorporates the Steam activation process. I'm going to see this issue through to some conclusion where I play the game that I expected to have for Christmas, because I've invested too much energy and there has been too much consternation in my family over the issue for all of this to be for naught. But Half-Life 3 couldn't be a great enough game for me to risk going through this kind of situation again.
Things that you might want to address if you don't want to enrage legitimate customers:
1. Your product is far too easily compromised. Unsealing the package and taking a digital picture of the CD-key could probably be accomplished within about ten seconds inside a retailer. If you're going to sell a product that is so easily destroyed, the packaging needs to be more secure. You sell this in a box with a flimsy small tape flap where it is not possible to determine if the box has previously been opened.
2. The packaging of the product needs to be in tune with it's fragile one-time use nature so that even clueless retailers with potentially low-skill employees might have a chance to prevent reselling of a piece of garbage. What you're trying to sell through retailers is more like a scratch-off lottery ticket than a box of CDs. It's sort of a nasty trick to even provide the CDs implying that there is a functional set of software in the box. If you provided this thing in a package like a sealed gift card with clear warnings on the packaging that the damn thing was null and void and useless with the packaging compromised, you might have a chance for retailers to be alert enough to protect themselves and your customers from outright fraud.
3. Given the situations that your policies facilitate, you need to have a faster response time on these issues.
4. You need to take more responsibilty for your physical product. Nobody completely stands behind this extremely fragile physical product. Your policy ends up supporting thieves over legitimate customers.
Sent this reply:
I can have my sister attempt this, but there is no guarantee that this will succeed for some very legitimate reasons. I still have some serious philosophical objections to "resolving" the issue in this way, which I will explain.
First off, the retailer may or may not be willing to give any satisfaction when attempting to return a piece of software where the package has been opened. Generally retailers have explicit policies whereby such software CANNOT be returned. Why should the retailer choose to believe that somebody other than myself opened the software? I might just be seeking to rip off an additional CD-key. I cannot prove to them that the game didn't install on my machine and use up the key. You have this information, they do not. I will print information from this discussion for my sister and hope that may help, but who knows.
I suppose worse yet, I cannot even prove to you that I am not dishonest. As I've thought about it, there could be a bunch of lame scams whereby somebody who just wanted a free CD-key could wind up complaining to your company in exactly the manner that I have as a guiltless victim. (They could have a friend buy the game and install it and then give the CDs to a them). It is infuriating that I cannot distinguish myself from somebody committing fraud in this case.
My other main objection to this resolution is that the thief evades responsibility. Somebody did something completely rotten, fraudulent, and illegal. They're playing the game that they stole, and you seem to be willing to go ahead and support that. At the least, since you have strict control over the ability to use the game, you ought to discontinue the thief's ability to continue fraud.
It may be convenient for your company to view this as a crime against the retailer in which you have no part, but where the rubber hits the road this approach is problematic. My sister might or might not be out of luck, and about $60, depending upon the kindness of the retailer or their willingness to stand up for their error conditional on their view of whether or not my sister is dishonest.
The rotten copy of the game that was sold to my sister is also a problem. I'd wager dollars to donuts that, regardless of the explanation that my sister might give to the retailer, they're going to place the copy of the game back on the shelf for sale. Either they did that in the first place, or the game package was compromised inside the store. When the copy is sold again, some other innocent person will wind up in exactly the same position that I did.
Your anti-piracy policy is ending up shifting the burden for software thievery from your company to innocent end users. The thievery may occur in lower numbers with the prevention of casual copying piracy, but things are in a position where a moderately determined thief can trick a retailer pretty simply and apparently get a free pass at the expense of others. I suppose when push comes to shove the publisher simply runs the revenue numbers comparing results of casual copying piracy versus results with the costs of enforcing the strictest activation scheme ever known in a piece of entertainment software. There aren't enough honest people for your analysis to lead anywhere else. But the irony is that you take out the pain on the least deserving when the actual piracy occurs. I'm not sure if the publisher's long-term analysis adequately accounts for the loss of goodwill in their customer base, particularly such loss in the portion of legitimate paying customers who would not consider pirating the game. Such people might actually comprise a greater fraction of your customers than realized. There seems to be an awful lot of irritation in dealing with the activation scheme even amongst legitimate customers who haven't faced nearly the nightmare that I have.
Given the slow initial response time to even try to figure out this problem that was not of my causing, and the seeming lack of a clear solution where anybody ends up taking responsibility for the problem, I'm pretty certain that I will never again feel comfortable purchasing a game that incorporates the Steam activation process. I'm going to see this issue through to some conclusion where I play the game that I expected to have for Christmas, because I've invested too much energy and there has been too much consternation in my family over the issue for all of this to be for naught. But Half-Life 3 couldn't be a great enough game for me to risk going through this kind of situation again.
Things that you might want to address if you don't want to enrage legitimate customers:
1. Your product is far too easily compromised. Unsealing the package and taking a digital picture of the CD-key could probably be accomplished within about ten seconds inside a retailer. If you're going to sell a product that is so easily destroyed, the packaging needs to be more secure. You sell this in a box with a flimsy small tape flap where it is not possible to determine if the box has previously been opened.
2. The packaging of the product needs to be in tune with it's fragile one-time use nature so that even clueless retailers with potentially low-skill employees might have a chance to prevent reselling of a piece of garbage. What you're trying to sell through retailers is more like a scratch-off lottery ticket than a box of CDs. It's sort of a nasty trick to even provide the CDs implying that there is a functional set of software in the box. If you provided this thing in a package like a sealed gift card with clear warnings on the packaging that the damn thing was null and void and useless with the packaging compromised, you might have a chance for retailers to be alert enough to protect themselves and your customers from outright fraud.
3. Given the situations that your policies facilitate, you need to have a faster response time on these issues.
4. You need to take more responsibilty for your physical product. Nobody completely stands behind this extremely fragile physical product. Your policy ends up supporting thieves over legitimate customers.
filmguy123
Newbie
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2004
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- 40
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don't worry about trying to RETURN it, just do a flat out exchange. Most places will do this with software, ie it says "no returns on opened software, but we will exchange it for the same item." - its been almost 30 days so you better hurry and jump on it.
Just explain your situation and bring the email. If for some strange reason they don't exchange it there or give you problems, go to a different one of their stores, and not to be a liar but just say you got it for your birthday this weekend (and your sister bought it during the Christmas shopping time) and your CD-Rom would simply not read the disc, and your drive is a little old and you've had the problem before. Usually switching it out solves the problem because supposedly it has something to do with the way the disc was manufactured and your drive is finicky. Just say you want to do a flat exchange and you should have zero problems. This, by the way, is not bogus - we have this problem with our old DVD player and have had to go back and exchange a brand new disc a couple times and then it works.
Couple tips: Go get the game off the shelf first and bring both copies up the counter. Use power language. Not "Can I get this exchanged", it is simply "I need this exchanged." If they give you a problem get the manager, don't back down, remember you are in your rights. Even if the return date is past due stick to it. If the manager gives you problems ask who signs his paycheck and get that managers number. Act a little mad, don't back down, and tell them you will get satisfaction on this.
Haha all that said... if you go back for the exchange I can't imagine you'll have a problem. Which, BTW, is probably what the thief would have done... bought the game, exchanged it, and now has 2 CD keys one for both of his comps, or split the game with a friend and got a key for both of them... something like that.
Just explain your situation and bring the email. If for some strange reason they don't exchange it there or give you problems, go to a different one of their stores, and not to be a liar but just say you got it for your birthday this weekend (and your sister bought it during the Christmas shopping time) and your CD-Rom would simply not read the disc, and your drive is a little old and you've had the problem before. Usually switching it out solves the problem because supposedly it has something to do with the way the disc was manufactured and your drive is finicky. Just say you want to do a flat exchange and you should have zero problems. This, by the way, is not bogus - we have this problem with our old DVD player and have had to go back and exchange a brand new disc a couple times and then it works.
Couple tips: Go get the game off the shelf first and bring both copies up the counter. Use power language. Not "Can I get this exchanged", it is simply "I need this exchanged." If they give you a problem get the manager, don't back down, remember you are in your rights. Even if the return date is past due stick to it. If the manager gives you problems ask who signs his paycheck and get that managers number. Act a little mad, don't back down, and tell them you will get satisfaction on this.
Haha all that said... if you go back for the exchange I can't imagine you'll have a problem. Which, BTW, is probably what the thief would have done... bought the game, exchanged it, and now has 2 CD keys one for both of his comps, or split the game with a friend and got a key for both of them... something like that.
baron insig
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a kid at my school was gunna dled pirate hl2 and i was wondering if he does( i can easily get him to tell me) if there is anyway to report him and get his crackzored account banned the lil cheapskate!
R
robbed
Guest
One piece of welcome news - they replied one more time to indicate that the thief's account was deactivated for fraud. If I can get the product exchanged that will close this transaction for me. But no more steamy games in my future...
filmguy123
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robbed - keep in mind not to blame it on steam, or Valve. This would happen with most multiplayer games that require a CD key.
Look on the bright side - you said you were so concerned with justice being done for the thief. Without steam and a check like this that would not have been possible.
Yes it was an inconvience and I'd be very upset as well... but not at Valve/steam. In reality, this system benefits:
- the company as it protects them from lost sales
- the software entertainment industry as a whole, as it would not be half as successful if the layperson could pirate games as easily as people pirated (and still do pirate) music.
- You, since it benefits the economy as a whole, which benefits your paycheck; and of course... we know that when Valve benefits, we all do (as evidenced by Half-Life 2).
Anyway, yeah just go exchange it at the store and you shouldn't have a problem... let us know how it all works out.
Look on the bright side - you said you were so concerned with justice being done for the thief. Without steam and a check like this that would not have been possible.
Yes it was an inconvience and I'd be very upset as well... but not at Valve/steam. In reality, this system benefits:
- the company as it protects them from lost sales
- the software entertainment industry as a whole, as it would not be half as successful if the layperson could pirate games as easily as people pirated (and still do pirate) music.
- You, since it benefits the economy as a whole, which benefits your paycheck; and of course... we know that when Valve benefits, we all do (as evidenced by Half-Life 2).
Anyway, yeah just go exchange it at the store and you shouldn't have a problem... let us know how it all works out.
I don't understand the need for all this discussion, the answer is published clearly on www.steampowered.com - you send Valve the box, keeping the cd's yourself. Valve now know you own the game, so they cancel the account of the fraudster and activate the game on your steam account (I don't think they issue you a new key) and return your box. Pain in the butt, but better than arguing with a store gnome.
It's an airtight solution to the piracy problem. Provided you keep your boxes in the safe.
Actually the real solution seems to be never to buy Steam games retail.
It's an airtight solution to the piracy problem. Provided you keep your boxes in the safe.
Actually the real solution seems to be never to buy Steam games retail.
