Steam and its anti piracy ... confused.

[Xendance]

I went over my friend's house [He doesn't have B.O or red teeth or green teeth.] and was looking around his computer. When I opened the Start menu, I saw 'Counter-Strike 1.6'.

I asked him if he finally bought the game, but he replied "Its a crack."

I'm finding it hard to word this now...

Steam says (?) it prevents piracy, but like this incident, and all the other pirate threads Shasta explodes on, how is this backing up what Steam are saying?

Take it easy on me... Clear it up.

 

[-Psy-]

I'm sure Valve will **** him over.

 

[Xendance]

I'm sure Valve will **** him over.

It was stupid. I mean, who ever put it up for download, got the Condition Zero bots, and stuck them in 1.6. The gun is always left handed, no way to change it. "Invalid CD Key."

What a sucky pirate.

 

[Gunner]

Who cares? SO he has a crappy pirated version of an eight year old game big whoop. It's not even the source version. Let him be.

 

[Xendance]

Who cares? SO he has a crappy pirated version of an eight year old game big whoop. It's not even the source version. Let him be.

Thats not the point?
What I'm asking is, Steam says it can prevent piracy... so how come he managed to pirate that?

Yeah...

 

[staticprimer]

Because no system is perfect, and pirates are a determined bunch and will always find a way.

 

[Cole]

Xendance, pirates are always going to find ways to get games. You can't stop them all. However you can prevent a large majority of them. This is what steam tries to do.

 

[hool10]

Oh yes there are many, many, many of those people out there. One day Valve can press the button to ban all these people though. You don't know when it will happen and risking a lot. I don't know why some people are so anal about paying for a $10 video game.

 

[Dekstar]

Any cracked steam games cannot play on legitimate servers with legitimate players. Instead they get horrible servers made specifically for cracked clients.

 

[Asus]

Any account that is attempting to use a pirated game gets banned. A number of times Valve has banned thousands of accounts at once. example

Although there are ways without using an account. And I think that relates to what dekstar said. Or maybe both. idk

I really do think Steam is the best shot at getting rid of piracy. Not just because it's anti-piracy stance but because there are also many features that encourage users to use Steam and buy games. Unlike rootkits in CDs, DRM in downloaded music or HDCP with HD content.

 

[Xendance]

Any account that is attempting to use a pirated game gets banned. A number of times Valve has banned thousands of accounts at once. example

Although there are ways without using an account. And I think that relates to what dekstar said. Or maybe both. idk

I really do think Steam is the best shot at getting rid of piracy. Not just because it's anti-piracy stance but because there are also many features that encourage users to use Steam and buy games. Unlike rootkits in CDs, DRM in downloaded music or HDCP with HD content.

How do Valve know who is pirating, and who is not?

 

[Asus]

How do Valve know who is pirating, and who is not?

Santa works for Valve. It's that simple.

 

[CyberPitz]

Let them pirate their games. They won't get the full falvor of the game, so they are missing out.

 

[-Psy-]

How do Valve know who is pirating, and who is not?

Probably some kind of way to compare the different games...

 

[giant384]

How do Valve know who is pirating, and who is not?

verifying files.....what else?

 

[VirusType2]

I don't really like Steam. Never have. Hear me out.

I don't play mult-player. I don't want advertisements beamed onto my computer. I don't like the internet required installation.

I just want to double click an icon to play a game whenever I want. I don't want to load Steam to check for new advertisements.


However, good for Valve if they can drastically reduce piracy. They deserve to get paid for their work, like the rest of the video game companies out there.


So they are getting more money and more customers. But does anyone else think that they were being greedy with the price of HL2? It was $59 and stayed that price for .. what I remember as being like a year or two. You got us by the balls, give us a break.


There are some advantages though. I do like not having to put the disc in the drive. I like how they patched it so where you don't need to have internet access to play offline anymore once you have installed the game.


Now EA has moved in, and I just didn't get into Episode 1.. well let me play more than one level of Episode 1 before I judge it. It just felt worn thin to me.

 

[Asus]

Other games have advertisements in-game and they don't use a system like steam. I'm sure Valve could implement ads without Steam.

I know there are issues where people are prevented from enjoying the game because of Steam. Although Steam has been pretty transparent from my experiences playing SP games. And hopefully "internet required" issues are limited to a vocal minority and not most of Valve's customers. And I say vocal not to portray negatively but because it's good to get Valve critical feedback.

I used to want the game CD in hand. Although I love steam and it's been pretty dependable for me and pretty convenient. What's a CD?

 

[VirusType2]

Other games have advertisements in-game and they don't use a system like steam. I'm sure Valve could implement ads without Steam.

I know there are issues where people are prevented from enjoying the game because of Steam. Although Steam has been pretty transparent from my experiences playing SP games. And hopefully "internet required" issues are limited to a vocal minority and not most of Valve's customers. And I say vocal not to portray negatively but because it's good to get Valve critical feedback.

I used to want the game CD in hand. Although I love steam and it's been pretty dependable for me and pretty convenient. What's a CD?

That reminded me of another advantage of Steam, to it's credit. You can play your games from any computer, anywhere in the world with your Steam account username and password. Obviously an internet connection is required for the download.

Completely useless to me so far, but I have to say, for those that would use something like this has to be totally sweet.

Imagine flying across the world to stay with a friend or relative for a few weeks, and being able to install some Steam based games to kill the boredom. I think this is best suited for those who didn't plan to be staying a while, or whatever. Since you could do this with your other games if you brought the discs and key-codes.

 

[Kyorisu]

That reminded me of another advantage of Steam, to it's credit. You can play your games from any computer, anywhere in the world with your Steam account username and password. Obviously an internet connection is required for the download.

Companies need to catch on to the idea of tying the serial key to your user account and not the computer.

 

[Asuka]

I don't really like Steam. Never have. Hear me out.

I don't play mult-player. I don't want advertisements beamed onto my computer. I don't like the internet required installation.

I just want to double click an icon to play a game whenever I want. I don't want to load Steam to check for new advertisements.


However, good for Valve if they can drastically reduce piracy. They deserve to get paid for their work, like the rest of the video game companies out there.


So they are getting more money and more customers. But does anyone else think that they were being greedy with the price of HL2? It was $59 and stayed that price for .. what I remember as being like a year or two. You got us by the balls, give us a break.


There are some advantages though. I do like not having to put the disc in the drive. I like how they patched it so where you don't need to have internet access to play offline anymore once you have installed the game.


Now EA has moved in, and I just didn't get into Episode 1.. well let me play more than one level of Episode 1 before I judge it. It just felt worn thin to me.

EA has nothing to do with valve in any way shape or form. ALL that EA does is make the Boxes for valve. Thats it. EA has no control over anything Valve does.

Valve = Boss!

BTW i love steam!

 

[giant384]

EA has nothing to do with valve in any way shape or form. ALL that EA does is make the Boxes for valve. Thats it. EA has no control over anything Valve does.

Valve = Boss!

BTW i love steam!

right-o also why the hate for steam??? its means all your games will be in one place. if you happen to lose your cds you can just download from steam. also steam helps valve create even better games and support an abundance of computer hardware so they make there users happy. sure it might suck for people without internet, but most people today have internet and if you cant get internet then thats your loss. Also using steam has no ad filled crap. the only advertising they have done is in 1.6 and that was for there own product. thats it......no where else do you get ads or adaware.

 

[Xendance]

right-o also why the hate for steam??? its means all your games will be in one place. if you happen to lose your cds you can just download from steam. also steam helps valve create even better games and support an abundance of computer hardware so they make there users happy. sure it might suck for people without internet, but most people today have internet and if you cant get internet then thats your loss. Also using steam has no ad filled crap. the only advertising they have done is in 1.6 and that was for there own product. thats it......no where else do you get ads or adaware.

Steam has no "ad filled crap?"

If you dont choose to, every so often your bombarded with "BUY THIS GAME 10% OFF LOL!!"... not that I'm complaining, of course.
Steam can suck sometimes. I dont think I ever got with Counter-Strike 1.5 "This game is currently unavalible."

 

[VirusType2]

right-o also why the hate for steam??? its means all your games will be in one place. if you happen to lose your cds you can just download from steam. also steam helps valve create even better games and support an abundance of computer hardware so they make there users happy. sure it might suck for people without internet, but most people today have internet and if you cant get internet then thats your loss. Also using steam has no ad filled crap. the only advertising they have done is in 1.6 and that was for there own product. thats it......no where else do you get ads or adaware.

I wasn't even aware that you can re-download the game if you lose the disc.

That's really sweet, seeing as I lost disc 1 somewhere for months, however I found it after all.


Since then I bought 1 huge CD case to put my 6 small CD cases + random disc sleeves of CD's into, so it's easier to find and keep track of everything.


I put the big case in the desk drawer, and the key to my house is outside unde3r the plant... JUST KIDDING> lol

 

[giant384]

Steam has no "ad filled crap?"

If you dont choose to, every so often your bombarded with "BUY THIS GAME 10% OFF LOL!!"... not that I'm complaining, of course.

ads rarely come up in steam. ive only seen one pop up each time i start up steam and thats it.

 

[Stigmata]

And it's not advertising so much as a new product announcement, as far as I'm concerned.

The only fear I have with Steam is losing my account via keylogging. Everything else about it I've got no problem with.

 

[CyberPitz]

And it's not advertising so much as a new product announcement, as far as I'm concerned.

The only fear I have with Steam is losing my account via keylogging. Everything else about it I've got no problem with.

Hell, I'm not even worried about that. I'm way too safe for that.

.....
....
*knocks on wood*

 

[Insano]

ads rarely come up in steam. ive only seen one pop up each time i start up steam and thats it.

You can disable those product announcements.

Steam -> Settings -> Messages -> Untick the two boxes.

Tadaaaa!

 

[leib10]

The only thing I would change about Steam is the requirement to login (and be connected to the internet) before you can play games that have already been installed on your computer. If your internet is down, tough shit, you're not playing any Steam games.

That being said, I like Steam. It's more convenient to download the games rather than go to the store and buy it, and there aren't any CD's you have to worry about losing. You can download your purchased games to as many computers as you want. It will automatically download updates for all of your games. Steam is the future, IMO.

 

[Krynn72]

Steam sucked at first, but now I fecking love it. I dont even know where my disks are for any of my games, but every time i reformat, I can just download them. Plus I can let my brother/friends play when im over their house by simply logging in (after the initial download of course). Its pros far outweigh the cons.

And yeah, pirating steam games is lame, since you would just get a gimped version of it. GG valve.

Also, there is an "offline mode" for those who dont like the internet.

 

[ríomhaire]

The only thing I would change about Steam is the requirement to login (and be connected to the internet) before you can play games that have already been installed on your computer. If your internet is down, tough shit, you're not playing any Steam games.

Steam has an offline mode, you know. It works perfectly. I've used it countless numbers of times.

 

[Illegal Amigo]

I think the main point of Steam is its ease of use. Sure, there are illegal means of obtaining source games, but at what point do you realize you'd rather pay twenty bucks to legally buy and download HL2 than mess with torrents, unrar the data, run a crack (that may be a virus) and enter a keycode and then know that you'll never be able to update it unless some hackers in Eastern Europe decide they want to? Steam makes it easy.

Like some of the other posters, I hated Steam when it first came out. What you realize though, is that it is a convenient medium for buying games. It's doing for video games what iTunes did for music, and you have to give Valve credit for that. It's an online store--that doesn't suck.

 

[MorganFreeman911]

I agree with your statement, Amigo, except for iTunes. I loathe that peice of shit. It's so confusing and they make you install a bunch of useless software with is.