Legal issues with Steam

[Wraithen]

I was just thinking about how if you have Steam and you're online, your copy of any game using it will always be up to date.

But what if Half Life 2, or some future release, were banned for some reason? Is there any chance you could lose your purchase? I can't see any reason you should, you paid for it after all, but what is some parents movement got all dicky about it and demanded Valve stop people having access to a game? Could some stupid American court order them to remove the content from your Hard Drives if the game became somehow illegal?

Or to a lesser extent, what if a level of a game insulted some religious group and was removed from "new" copies (happened in Hitman 2, sort of) would you open up Steam one day and find a beloved level missing?

The moral of this story? Back up your Steam files regularly :farmer:

 

[JohnnyBeverage]

There is nothing to worry about. If some parent has an issue with the game they can delete steam and deny their child internet access. I cant see that as being necessary but who knows.

 

[Link]

Valve would more than likley shift steams base of operations abroad. Bugger all they can do about it then.

Anyway, if Valve were forced to stop uploading HL2 or what have you, I expect we would see a patch that allowed anyone who owned it to use it without steam.

 

[koopa]

Or to a lesser extent, what if a level of a game insulted some religious group and was removed from "new" copies (happened in Hitman 2, sort of) would you open up Steam one day and find a beloved level missing?

Yes, I think you probably would.

 

[Choscura]

parents movement getting dicky? about a game? this is the kind of thing that i hate. anybody with half a drop of common sense would laugh their asses off at any parents movement who wanted to ban a piece of media just because the parents weren't responsible enough to check it out thoroughly in the first place. this is more common with tv, with parents getting upset about shows that are 'inappropriate' so they can't just sit their kids in the living room and have the tv babysit for them while they wittle down their life savings on sex toys and lame-ass hotlines.

 

[Wraithen]

There is nothing to worry about. If some parent has an issue with the game they can delete steam and deny their child internet access. I cant see that as being necessary but who knows.

That's the problem, SOME parents aren't happy dictating their own children's lives, they want to do it to every child. If they don't like a game they don't say, "I won't let my child play this game," they say, "No one, anywhere can play this game... and give me money."

 

[CR33P]

I don't think half life 1 or 2 is violent enough or close to reality enough to cause problems, it's the really sadistic sh1t that causes a stir - anyone played postal 2 and seen the anti-video game protestors bust into the running with scissors HQ and start gunning everyone down because "games are bad, they make you mad" - hilarious