valve trying to shut down the leak - futile?

[doa_master]

Hell its not just websites..... its all over p2p networks

 

[uncle-argyle]

I project by the end of the year it will be on more 16 year old's pc's than porn and mp3's.

 

[Non-Sequitur]

Thanks for informing us.

 

[Kincaid]

I project that by the end of the year this forum will have shut down from an inability to cope with the excess bandwidth required for 'leak' and 'beta' threads.

 

[Nathaniel]

where's the discussion? I only see a one sentence statement of facts...

yes, trying to shut down EVERYTHING relating to the leak is futile... there, discussion ended :/

 

[Kincaid]

There was discussion? Or a requirement of such? I dunno... you're going to have to buy beer just to get me to stick around for this...

 

[Sushi]

What else is Valve supposed to do? Sit there and watch people download their leaked beta and do nothing about it?

 

[Non-Sequitur]

Originally posted by Sushi
What else is Valve supposed to do? Sit there and watch people download their leaked beta and do nothing about it?

That's about all they can do. I think they should just concentrate on finishing the game.

 

[LoneDeranger]

Originally posted by doa_master
Hell its not just websites..... its all over p2p networks

Really? They have illegal stuff being shared on P2P networks?

 

[smwScott]

Can Valve completely stop it? Of course not.

Can they help? Hell yeah.

They can use scare tactics and threaten people with law suits. They can press criminal and civil charges against the websites that host the leaked files. They could find and aggressively prosecute the hacker(s) chiefly responsible and make an example out of them. They could use Steam to scan for the files. Also, this is a bit extreme, but they can randomly pick 2-3 people who downloaded it and sue them.

This would probably cut the amount of people downloading it in half, and I doubt anyone would hack Valve again. But the question is whether it's really worth it. Any of their competitors who could make good use of the Source code will get it no matter what Valve does, so the damage is done there. And this leaked beta hasn't hurt Valve at all really, it's more like free advertising.

 

[Tlaloc]

They can use scare tactics and threaten people with law suits. They can press criminal and civil charges against the websites that host the leaked files. They could find and aggressively prosecute the hacker(s) chiefly responsible and make an example out of them. They could use Steam to scan for the files. Also, this is a bit extreme, but they can randomly pick 2-3 people who downloaded it and sue them.

Well, if they did this, they would lose a lot of fans... and this is almost a fact. If they are scanning my harddrive with steam or sueing my friends who happened to d/l these files then they will lose a fan.. and many others i assure you... And more people will retaliate against them.

There's nothing they can really do at all.. except keep going and hope for the best... They can trust this community in that we will all buy the game and promote it like we did with the first Half-Life.

 

[uncle-argyle]

They should take all there money and just sue everyone (including me) for keeping this post alive!

 

[Direwolf]

Yeah, they cant stop it, but they can provide enough deterence to make 90% of people not see it as being worthwhile. As long as they dont carry it too far this the best route.

 

[doa_master]

i think the only way to stop it is the put loads of crap on the networks like the RIAA did with kazaa

 

[WiredShock]

Originally posted by doa_master
i think the only way to stop it is the put loads of crap on the networks like the RIAA did with kazaa

Their must be anther way around this like say instead of shutting down kazza what you need is some kind of Central server that checks every file thats being tranfered.

 

[inevident]

Originally posted by Tlaloc
They can trust this community in that we will all buy the game and promote it like we did with the first Half-Life.

warez are something no game company can circumvent, because once the full game is out on CD, people rip it, and share it.

Basically Valve only needs to find who stole the stuff in the first place, and the main people sharing all the content. It's not about people playing the beta They just lost some of the WOW factor, but hey, its no different than watching the E3 videos