Valve 1, Warez Kiddies 0

[oldagerocker]

Actually, Steam is not the first to do this, either. Sony did this with Everquest - charging users $9.99/month to play their games. Steam will likely charge somthing like that, or up to $19.99/month from what I have heard - for accessing Steam.

A monthly subscription will not be mandatory. It will be an option for all Valve content per subscription time, much like mmorpg's. But games will still be avaliable individually at usual prices.

 

[DeVry Student]

A monthly subscription will not be mandatory. It will be an option for all Valve content per subscription time, much like mmorpg's. But games will still be avaliable individually at usual prices.

But you will have to pay a monthly subscription to get the most out of Steam... right?

 

[AudioStar]

What happened to my steam account???












J/k

 

[Rodzilla]

I'm just thankful I hadn't installed a no-CD crack. Sure, they may be against license agreements, but I much prefer having a hard-copy of games, especially with some of the DRM policies Valve has, at least this way I have a tangible proof-of-purchase. Now I'm 100% for banning those that didn't buy the game, but throwing those that bought it and then used a no-Cd crack so that they didn't have to have the CD in every time, while Steam purchasers never had to have a CD to begin with, and then saying "oh, there weren't many of them anyway, so who cares!" is total bullcrap.

Sure, no-CD cracks aren't permitted as per the EULA, and whether it's legal or not, it's still an awful business practice to ban paying customers who simply wanted to play your game without the hassle of having the CD in the drive.

 

[DeVry Student]

I'm just thankful I hadn't installed a no-CD crack. Sure, they may be against license agreements, but I much prefer having a hard-copy of games, especially with some of the DRM policies Valve has, at least this way I have a tangible proof-of-purchase. Now I'm 100% for banning those that didn't buy the game, but throwing those that bought it and then used a no-Cd crack so that they didn't have to have the CD in every time, while Steam purchasers never had to have a CD to begin with, and then saying "oh, there weren't many of them anyway, so who cares!" is total bullcrap.

Sure, no-CD cracks aren't permitted as per the EULA, and whether it's legal or not, it's still an awful business practice to ban paying customers who simply wanted to play your game without the hassle of having the CD in the drive.

What about Fair Use?

Edit: And don't forget that having a CD rom in the CD-ROM drive constantly is generally considered a bad idea.

Suppose what would happen if a power surge happens - I have heard (and had) some stories of CDs being shattered into as many pieces in the drive during power surges or sudden power outages. This usualy totals out the CD and the drive.

Then again, Fair use. Does Valve allow one to back up the CD-ROM discs? If so, is the backed up copy playable - and would it even "unlock".

Of course, who am I to complain. I have a good job that pays $30 / hour - and I can afford to buy a new computer game (and re-buy it) every few months. Then the $19.95/month Steam subscription that will soon be in effect...

(Actually, I am a full time student at DeVry, and do not even have a part time job at this time since the homework is unpredictable)

 

[Rodzilla]

What about Fair Use?

What about it? Are you agreeing or disagreeing, and how does fair use even apply here? I'm assuming you're agreeing with me, and that you're saying fair use should allow you to use no-CD cracks. Frankly, fair use only comes into play on a case-by-case basis in court, and it would be more applicable to copying the CDs you bought and using a copy in the drive instead of the original... Fair use essentially applies to making copies of a copyrighted work; whether it applies to no-CD cracks or not is a stretch...

Edit - Uh...so it looks like you're disagreeing with what I said? I'm really confused, because it looks like you're disagreeing with what Valve did, and I just disagreed with them myself...maybe you should re-read my post again. And while I have had several computers with damage caused by shattering CDs in the drive at my job a few years back, it had nothing to do with power surges, but is in fact extremely rare and is caused by a combination of structurally unsound CDs along with poor-quality CD drives.

 

[Anable]

The reason Sony can charge (and by can I mean do this and have customers) is because they offer persist information across games that require an insane amount of central servers, bandwidth, and technical support. Valve does not offer anything other than a verifcation and distribution system with Steam so it's very very very unlikely that it will become a "pay-per-play" system. Look at Planetside, Sony's own creation. It's dying because people refuse to pay a monthly fee for FPSs (even when some of the same persistant information attributes are applied to it).

Long answer short: Steam will never have a mandatory monthly fee.

 

[DeVry Student]

What about it? Are you agreeing or disagreeing, and how does fair use even apply here? I'm assuming you're agreeing with me, and that you're saying fair use should allow you to use no-CD cracks. Frankly, fair use only comes into play on a case-by-case basis in court, and it would be more applicable to copying the CDs you bought and using a copy in the drive instead of the original... Fair use essentially applies to making copies of a copyrighted work; whether it applies to no-CD cracks or not is a stretch...

Online product activation is fine with me. Online activation with a CD key... well... I'm not comfortable having that CD key stored at a central server... but it's ok. Online activation, a CD key, and CD in-the-drive-all-the-time... is sort of annoying. If Valve respects their main contributers, they should decide on one form of copy protection that gets the job done without taxing the user's ability to install the game.

I have a question for all of the forum viewers here. Should our society even be at the point where a company has more power than a local court joursidiction, and is allowed to revolk someones license granted rights, without any physical evidence that the end user has violated it directly (except for, in this case, a single modified file) - and do this without even issuing a warrent, warning, or even sufficent investigation to wether this user has in fact purchased the questioned item/product/service?

Also, should a company require a ordinary-joe at home software / computer game user to install a program that tracks their system files, much like a Trojan Horse would, monitors their Internet activity, and even reads-in their EMail addresses and CD keys... on a private Telecommunication medium, to send personal, "product related" information to a centralized server?

This is the same issue that the RIAA, and some record companies are facing. Wether the DMCA gives this right to any company - is a question that should be decided by consumers, not corrupt burocratic officials that take campaign contributions from companies in Las Vegas (such as Orin Hatch, Republican, Utah)

 

[Dr. Freeman]

good!
this makes me feel all warm and tingly inside every time Valve does something like this :thumbs:
now hopefully some of the blatant cheaters loose their accounts as well.. that would be quite something

 

[PeaceOfficer]

Really? Last I checked we don't have ANY statistics. Steam has and will continue to change things whether you see it or not is another story.

Like I stated Steam won't stop piracy but it certainly will limit it.

No you dont see it, steam changes nothing. You dont need steam to play, period. Valve is heading in the wrong direction with steam. Steam is a wasted effort. The 20k accounts they banned made little difference.
Whether or not I see it is in fact another story, one which you couldnt begin to understand. But let me point you in the right direction so you can better grasp my original statement....ok ready here's your hint> http://www.cybercrime.gov/

 

[Cole]

WW3 I have a feeling will be about gamers vs the world. Gamers all over the world will make "Pirate Death Camps". They will try and go throughout the word killing Piraters, and putting them in death camps. I have a strong feeling...

 

[SpaceRain]

Heh, I bought the game, so I suppose I should be happy about this. I'm not, however. Imagine this on the front page of halflife2.net instead: "Valve caught 20,000 people stealing HL2 and they have all had their harddrives erased." Obviously that would be illegal, but that's hardly the point. The point is that most people would be like: "OMG, you rock, Valve! Scores: Valve 1, Warez people 0. Go Valve!"

I realize that since we bought the game this is not our problem, but what about the people that bought the game only to find the CD-key didn't work? What were they supposed to do, scan everything and send it to Valve, hoping it wouldn't take more than a couple of months? If you think anyone here could do that, then you must have forgotten how excited we were to finally be able to play this game. Most of us would rather just buy another copy so we could play. Those who couldn't afford that really didn't have much choice, so they found a CD-key on the net that got it working. It's really Valve's fault in the first place, not their own and they already bought the game, so it's not like they're stealing anything. Now they've had their accounts closed and no longer have access to all the games they bought, even though they've never stolen a single game. And the news says that this is only a small part of the 20,000 accounts. Are we supposed to be happy about that? "Yay, the accounts of 20,000 people have been closed and most of them had done something wrong! Go Valve!" I'm not condoning warez in the least, in fact I'm glad that people aren't playing games for free that I paid for, and of course Valve should remove access to the games they find people have stolen, but they can't just take away all the games people paid for also, that's just ridiculous and I don't care what the EULA says, because it also says Valve can disconnect the service at any time they want to, you really think nobody would complain if Steam suddenly and permanently didn't work starting from tomorrow? Of course we would, we bought these games, we have the right to play them, regardless of what the EULA says.

I even have all my games on separate Steam accounts, so I can sell one game without selling all of them and of course everybody should have done this, especially if their enclosed CD-key didn't work and they had to find one of the net. Some people weren't clever enough to do it that way and people have commented on that here too, saying stuff like "If you used your own and other people's CD-keys on the same account you're an idiot and you deserve to have your account closed!". WTF? There are many idiots out there, do they all deserve to have their Steam-accounts closed?

This is exactly the same as if you bought 10 games in a store and decided to steal the 11th game. Is this wrong? Obviously and the police should take care of it! What SHOULDN'T happen is that the manager of the store shows up and takes the 10 other games you paid for, because that's just wrong. "If you were stupid enough to store all your legal games in the same house as the one you just stole, you are an idiot and you deserve to have all your games taken away."? Someone at Valve found a way to take away all the games people paid for without ending up in jail, but that still doesn't make it right.

However, now that I think about it, if it's illegal to register another person's CD-key on your own account, then Valve should sue the people that did it. I realize this would be impossible, but think about it, maybe the people who just had all the games they've paid for taken away are better off that way? I mean if the alternative was a lawsuit, this is like a $200 settlement at most. Ah, I can comfort myself with this thought, when I think of all the poor people that have had their bought games taken away because the CD-key that came with their new game didn't work and they found one on the net and were stupid enough to register on the same Steam account.

 

[Dipso]

What about Fair Use?

Suppose what would happen if a power surge happens - I have heard (and had) some stories of CDs being shattered into as many pieces in the drive during power surges or sudden power outages. This usualy totals out the CD and the drive.

Someone didnt watch 'mythbusters'

The likelyness of a cd shattering is incredibly small. It has to be seriously dammaged, and the drive has to be mallfunctioning in order for the cd to actually achieve a strucktural failure and shatter.

 

[Dipso]

Heh, I bought the game, so I suppose I should be happy about this. I'm not, however. Imagine this on the front page of halflife2.net instead: "Valve caught 20,000 people stealing HL2 and they have all had their harddrives erased." Obviously that would be illegal, but that's hardly the point. The point is that most people would be like: "OMG, you rock, Valve! Scores: Valve 1, Warez people 0. Go Valve!"

I realize that since we bought the game this is not our problem, but what about the people that bought the game only to find the CD-key didn't work? What were they supposed to do, scan everything and send it to Valve, hoping it wouldn't take more than a couple of months? If you think anyone here could do that, then you must have forgotten how excited we were to finally be able to play this game. Most of us would rather just buy another copy so we could play. Those who couldn't afford that really didn't have much choice, so they found a CD-key on the net that got it working. It's really Valve's fault in the first place, not their own and they already bought the game, so it's not like they're stealing anything. Now they've had their accounts closed and no longer have access to all the games they bought, even though they've never stolen a single game. And the news says that this is only a small part of the 20,000 accounts. Are we supposed to be happy about that? "Yay, the accounts of 20,000 people have been closed and most of them had done something wrong! Go Valve!" I'm not condoning warez in the least, in fact I'm glad that people aren't playing games for free that I paid for, and of course Valve should remove access to the games they find people have stolen, but they can't just take away all the games people paid for also, that's just ridiculous and I don't care what the EULA says, because it also says Valve can disconnect the service at any time they want to, you really think nobody would complain if Steam suddenly and permanently didn't work starting from tomorrow? Of course we would, we bought these games, we have the right to play them, regardless of what the EULA says.

I even have all my games on separate Steam accounts, so I can sell one game without selling all of them and of course everybody should have done this, especially if their enclosed CD-key didn't work and they had to find one of the net. Some people weren't clever enough to do it that way and people have commented on that here too, saying stuff like "If you used your own and other people's CD-keys on the same account you're an idiot and you deserve to have your account closed!". WTF? There are many idiots out there, do they all deserve to have their Steam-accounts closed?

This is exactly the same as if you bought 10 games in a store and decided to steal the 11th game. Is this wrong? Obviously and the police should take care of it! What SHOULDN'T happen is that the manager of the store shows up and takes the 10 other games you paid for, because that's just wrong. "If you were stupid enough to store all your legal games in the same house as the one you just stole, you are an idiot and you deserve to have all your games taken away."? Someone at Valve found a way to take away all the games people paid for without ending up in jail, but that still doesn't make it right.

However, now that I think about it, if it's illegal to register another person's CD-key on your own account, then Valve should sue the people that did it. I realize this would be impossible, but think about it, maybe the people who just had all the games they've paid for taken away are better off that way? I mean if the alternative was a lawsuit, this is like a $200 settlement at most. Ah, I can comfort myself with this thought, when I think of all the poor people that have had their bought games taken away because the CD-key that came with their new game didn't work and they found one on the net and were stupid enough to register on the same Steam account.

One of the many points ive tried making in this thread.

 

[DeVry Student]

... Second, the number of people who actually had bought HL2 and used the CD key cheat was VERY small. VERY small. ...

But Valve did acknowledget that they made a mistake, didn't they. Valve should be investigated by the Better Business Bureau for revolking software licenses of legal software users.

Perhaps we are too quick to jump to judgement these days.

 

[doom3fanboy]

I even have all my games on separate Steam accounts, so I can sell one game without selling all of them

Selling steam accounts is illegal.

http://steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=171740

Welcome to valves world. Maybe your account is banned next for even thinking about selling a steam account?

 

[Anable]

I have absolutely ZERO sympathy for people that legally purchased Half-Life 2 and then used the crack. None what so ever. If your key didn't work, it's your responsibility to report that to Valve rather than taking it into your own hands. If I buy a car and my key doesn't work I don't hotwire it instead, especially when this car is leased and not owned.

 

[Rodzilla]

If I buy a car and my key doesn't work I don't hotwire it instead, especially when this car is leased and not owned.

If you buy a brand new sports car, the car of your dreams, drive it home, park it, and then get in it to go somewhere and find that your key doesn't work...if you knew that you could simply take your neighbor's car key and use it to get your car to work, I think you'd do that. I also don't think you'd end up having the dealer come to your house and take your car back without refunding your money.

 

[Megacolon]

Steam = Nazi-Wear