Valve gives a Christmas present to pirates

[MJCfromCT]

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=212674

Today Valve disabled more than 30,000 Steam accounts which had been used to try to illegally gain access to Valve games without a valid purchase.

Valve takes such activities seriously and reserves the right to disable Steam accounts engaging in piracy, cheating, illegal activities, or any other activity in violation of the Steam Subscriber Agreement. The accounts that are disabled today will not be reactivated.

[gringo]

I am reading the forum as we speak, and there seems to be a bit of a riot breaking out there. There is a post about every minute at the moment. A bit of a slanging match.

everytime I read a couple of posts another three get added. It's quite fun really.


If that was sysopt there would have been a couple of serious warnings by now !!




:eek: :eek:

[Rabbitrunner51]

Serves them right.... go out and buy it like everyone else...

All this does is make a point ot the vandals that the people who paid good money for it won't be compromised....

I just hope that some who bought the game have no problems getting in and playing it....

No problems here so far:cool:

[CrazyCrusher]

thats good news,, servs em anyways, we are the ones that suffer in the long run because they have to up the price when fools like that down load pirated copies, loss of sales up in price.

[bubbalou32]

Isn't it little overkill to require an account for a single-player demo?

[bigtfromkc]

Does anyone know if having hl2 on two computers is illegal? I just got my new shuttle computer and was wondering how to get hl2 on it...I was about to burn everything to a dvd and move it over but I decided to just give redownloading it a try...

and well, all I needed to do was log in with my steam account and dload it again on the new computer. But it just seems to easy for it to be legal...

anyone else know the rules on this?

[gringo]

If I was you, have a look on the HL2 forums, and maybe post there asking the same question, because if Valve has another spree of blocking accounts, you might find yourself in the same situation next week with a copy of HL2 with you can use as a beer mat.

:t

[gringo]

When i posted yesterday I had looked on the Valve forum and it was 9 pages. It's now 46 !!


Now thats what you can call a hot topic.

I agree that with all the piracy around, it's the buyers that suffer, but with HL2 being the most secure game around with regards to not being able to crack, I think it was still a hefty price for a game that was guaranteed to me a massive seller.

If it works that if a game can be (almost) guaranteed secure from copying or cracking, then you should see that at the end in the price in the shops. Admittedly HL2 is an absoulutely brilliant game, but they definitely used the reputation to charge big bucks for the game.

A lot of people will say it's worth the money, but is that because we are all used to paying too much for our games ????

Just an opinion.

Merry crimbo all. I'm now off to get sloshed !!

[Phil2k3]

This is good news! I hope all games will be as strict as cs!

[MJCfromCT]

Originally posted by bigtfromkc
Does anyone know if having hl2 on two computers is illegal? I just got my new shuttle computer and was wondering how to get hl2 on it...I was about to burn everything to a dvd and move it over but I decided to just give redownloading it a try...

and well, all I needed to do was log in with my steam account and dload it again on the new computer. But it just seems to easy for it to be legal...

anyone else know the rules on this?

As long as you don't try to play both copies at the same time, its perfectly fine. This is the beauty of Steam. For example, I have HL2 on my home computer, and play on it for a few weeks. Then I go to a relatives house for vacation, but cannot take my computer. All I have to do is install Steam on the relative's computer, and download all the files over again (or if I had previously burned them to CD/DVD, all I need to do is copy the files over). When I log into my Steam account, the service will recognize that my account is associated with a copy of HL2, and then I will be able to play it on my relative's computer. You can keep doing this for as many computers as you like, and its perfectly legal as long as you don't try to play HL2 on two computers at the same time while logged into the same Steam account.

[Rabbitrunner51]

I have to admit that Valve did something unigue and unprecedented in the gaming industry when it incorporated the game..either bought from a retailer (CD or DVD ) into an account with steam format to quandry the piracy and such...

Now that I have tried it out, I must say I kind of like it.... works well,with most of the bugs taken care of and you also have CS Source and the other Mods for it all under one roof.

The known fact that Valve did something to try and stem piracy is actually a good thing... If someone came up with a better idea..then I am sure they would have done so...but as you all can see...other avenues always end up the same with copied editions and other sources used ( shareware ),and this just puts a stop to that once and for all.....

Will other game makers follow suit? I cannot answer that question. it would not surprise me if others did not set up their own network and follow in Valves footsteps.

Don't worry,because I most game makers will not do this at least in the near future...

Yes, it does seem quite unfair to the genral game player who may not have the internet,but in the whole of the industry and computer gamers out there..they are in the very low minority anyways.. Most peole have the internet in some form...

Life isn't always fair to everybody ,but IS quite often to the mass majority..... Remember, its only one game..so get over it and happy gaming...
;)

[MJCfromCT]

Originally posted by Rabbitrunner51
Yes, it does seem quite unfair to the genral game player who may not have the internet,but in the whole of the industry and computer gamers out there..they are in the very low minority anyways.. Most peole have the internet in some form...

Exactly, this is the argument I hear most often...However, when Windows XP was developed, many old devices and pieces of hardware were no longer supported, at some point its time to let go of the legacy past and move on. The same goes for the internet and gaming. If a person has enough money to afford a gaming computer, then chances are they can also afford an internet connection in some form. Even if not, it is possible (just with extra steps) to get the game running without an internet connection of any sorts.