I'm never buying another Valve game

[Provost Harrison]

It does seem to be getting silly the lengths these companies go to to protect their game, especially when they will, invariably, be hacked pretty damn quickly anyway. We know the protection doesn't work, so to get round this stop trying to f**k us over!

[Kassiopeia]

There was both a 6 CD (!) version and a DVD version in the States. Europe and rest of the world only got the DVD.

[Imran Siddiqui]

That companies try to prevent illegal copying is not in question. What is how far companies are willing to go at the expense of the consumer (who also has his rights and user preferences). So: is Steam just another example of copyright protection or enforcement?

Valve can go farther than most, because they know that HL2 would sell so much. People would be willing to go through Steam because of the hype and great reviews of the game. Other games, which won't be as popular probably won't try it.

[Grandpa Troll]

So..I get a lot of my decision making from Apolyton because 'Poly is the E F Hutton..the Siskel & Ebert The ..The..

The Greenpeace ina Polluted world of misinformation..

Should I or should I not fork out the moola .da duckies..for this game?

Thanks

Gramps

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by CapTVK
I've decided to look up the license agreements for Steam

http://www.steampowered.com/index.php?area=subscriber_agreement

In essence you buy a license, not a piece of software. That copy of HL2 you bought in the store has a resale value of zero the moment you use it.

Every game I have ever bought says the same thing, you have never bought a piece of software you always license it's use.

ACK!

[Jon Miller]

I have 10 EQ2 CDs

and I just bought Halflife 2, and downloaded it

Jon Miller

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by Tuberski
Every game I have ever bought says the same thing, you have never bought a piece of software you always license it's use.

ACK!

With other games the liscense was resellable though.

[Case]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Yeah, I agree with Harry. They weren't just subject to basic pirating of their game, they had their code stolen. So they are going to make sure they protect their product as much as possible.

It may impact legal purchasers more, but that is what happens when some idiots mess around with piracy.

I didn't steal it - I paid A$ 84.95 for the game. As Valve choses to assume that I'm a criminal until I spend my time and money proving otherwise, I'm chosing to take my business elsewhere in future.

...and don't get my started on how user unfriendly Steam is. I just want to play the freaking game offline in single player mode and not have to leap through several hoops every time I fire it up.

[Apocalypse]

Do you actually have to be online while you play it? I am wondering because there are still a lot of people (including me while I'm home) who have dialup and only 1 phone line.

[Solver]

Do you actually have to be online while you play it? I am wondering because there are still a lot of people (including me while I'm home) who have dialup and only 1 phone line.

Supposedly you can run it offline after the one-time activation. However, several people have encountered problems with that offline mode.

[Kassiopeia]

When I was playing, my firewall would every now and then shoot a popup asking me should I let HL2 connect out to some IP address. I just specified a "no way Jose" rule for it and everything worked fine enough. But I did get the feeling that the game was trying to phone home while I was playing it.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by CapTVK
I've decided to look up the license agreements for Steam

http://www.steampowered.com/index.php?area=subscriber_agreement

In essence you buy a license, not a piece of software. That copy of HL2 you bought in the store has a resale value of zero the moment you use it.

Unbelievable.

[Jon Miller]

I haven't even played halflife2 single player

don't even have it installed

so for me, the multiplayer is everything

Jon Miller
(and I feel al ittle guklty for playing halflife for years without buying it)

[Imran Siddiqui]

I didn't steal it - I paid A$ 84.95 for the game. As Valve choses to assume that I'm a criminal until I spend my time and money proving otherwise, I'm chosing to take my business elsewhere in future.

Go ahead. Valve has decided that the number of people who decide to not buy another Valve game in the future is offset by detering X amount of pirating.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns


With other games the liscense was resellable though.

actually im not sure, my impression was most EULAs (which as has been debated ad nauseum, may or may not be enforceable) dont allow for resale. The industry has simply decided not to go after resellers (since EB plays such a huge role in the used game market in the US, and EB is also a principle retailer of new games, this would seem a prudent approach) - they wink at it, but dont formally allow it. At least thats my understanding.