Valve Strikes back!

Way to go valve! Although I hate Steam, it seems to be working. If they detect another, it should send a virus through that deletes the game from the hdd. Now that might be cool.

With programs like that running around....the companies can start to breate a sigh of relief..way to go valve! "To live is to die....but living is to die slowly..why waste time on trivial things just play as hard as you can"

It´s about time they stood up to those pirates, the swashbuckling has to end soon... Christmas, is that a BF1942 mod or something? <A href=´http://s4.invisionfree.com/Delayed_Gamers/´ Target=_Blank>Delayed Gamers:</a> The short bus of gaming.

<font size=1 face="trebuchet ms"><BLOCKQUOTE><hr size=1 noshade> If they detect another, it should send a virus through that deletes the game from the hdd. Now that might be cool. <hr size=1 noshade></BLOCKQUOTE></font><font face=´trebuchet ms, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica´ size=2> That was just plain dumb <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> Hoping for the spread of viruses <img src=smilies/icon_smile_disapprove.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>

its more like... a ´feature´ <img src=smilies/icon_smile_tongue.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> but given the size of the pirating population, imho the actual population who plays HL2 will shrink dramatically, reducing.. game coverage? those that can afford the game may buy it, those that can´t.. which may be the overwhelming majority... wont be able to... is that a bad thing ?

I don´t know about anybody else but almost everyone I know who has used pirated software isn´t too poor to pay. They´re just cheap. Kimk may be right about a loss of coverage nevertheless but, lets face it, if people don´t pay in the first place they don´t really help the company, do they?

Its not dumb! Not all viruses cause complete havoc. You could program it to do one thing, then delete itself. (technically it wouldn´t be a virus, but I have to make more people understand what I am saying its like)

I read about that a few days ago and, while I respect their stance on piracy to a certain extent, I feel that Valve are being unbelievably dictatorial with their current PA system. As I said earlier, the whole installation was far worse that even *I* had expected. Valve are so anal in fact that, despite their &quot;infallible&quot; PA registration system, the DVD or CD must still remain in the drive whenever you wish to play HL2. *Shakes head in disgust* It´s paranoia run amok people and, being paranoid myself, I should know. There is also a certain amount of merit to the argument that some people have made that Valve intentionally (and surreptitiously) leaked fake CD keys and cracking methods for the express purpose of catching pirates. Generating CD keys is a comparatively easy task, so a bunch of &quot;community&quot;-based pirates conning people out of their legitimate keys seems unlikely. After all, who benefits from all of these CD-key thefts? Valve of course, because they can email new keys to the affected parties, and lock the accounts of anyone they suspect of being dodgy. Interesting isn´t it? The whole system is such a farce! I tells ya, if they try to foist something like this on the public again in the future, eg. for HL3, then they´ll lose my (and many other people´s) business. Edited by - esquilax on 11/28/2004 12:16:45 AM

Unfortunately - I support them. There is only one reason they have to do this, because society as a whole is so selfish and disgusting, that there are hundreds of thousands who think there is nothing wrong with them having free illegal full copies of a game to play. Most games these days require the CD in the drive - I cannot run mine without it (MOHAA included, FL, X2, CoD, Rome Total War etc), some, like MOHAA have a nice feature that servers don´t need the CD in to run (good idea), but players do. I have no issue with having the CD in the drive whatsoever, it doesn´t bother me at all, as when I play the game I want to hear the game too! (not music). Also - the fact that I have to take a CD out of a case to play it doesn´t bother me at all, and just like music cd´s, if its scratched - its my own fault! I should take better care of them instead (my MOHAA cd has a slight crack in it, but works fine. No - never thought of any other method, if it breaks, I will get another cd! - afterall, if anything else you possess gets damaged in life, you replace it or live without it, so why the hell is it so different with games? Take better care of the CD´s. If there is no protection, then they will have as many illegal gamers as they do legal - or maybe more, as you would save 30+ quid for each game! If that happens, then they stand to make a huge loss in sales profits. If you pay people and wages etc, then you need to make the money. If we all pirate without fear of reprisals, then they make nothing........and bottom line, no games would be made. Don´t moan at the companies trying to tackle a problem - moan at the idiots that are the cause of the problem. Without one, there is no need for the other. The pirates tackle every concievable work around games companies make, and if the games companies give up, then they lose big time. I forgot how many billions a year the pirate games market is worth alone, but its many billions of dollars....which could be spent making the best games around, and also making those games CHEAPER for all of us too. They wouldn´t need to make so much money off of each copy if every copy in existance was a bought copy, and therefore our gaming would be cheaper. I wouldn´t mind seeing some taken to court and prosecuted/fined. That may help discourage too <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>. Edited by - Chips on 11/28/2004 1:46:02 AM

Good work Chips, I couldn´t have said it better myself. I´ve given many a rant to people about that, dealing with both games and the similar thing in the music industry. In music, the artists need to get paid (though they are often overpaid) and they can´t do that if everyone downloads their work off of Kazaa. Soon all the musicians won´t record much if they know they aren´t going to make a decent profit, then we´ll all have to listen to oldies for eternity, which isn´t good for people like me. Edited by - Eh_Steve on 11/28/2004 12:34:03 PM

There is one key difference between games and music: concerts. Now I know that touring can be tough and expensive but it is a source of revenue that musicians do have.

I think we would all agree that Steam didn´t work that well, a 1-2 hour install just isn´t good enough for a product. Don´t get me wrong im all for piracy prevention, but not to the point where it adversly effects your crop of legitimate buyers. I know if my account got locked, as a valid purchaser of HL2, I would be screaming blue bloody murder and I would certainly never touch a valve product again. But even if we do see effective piracy prevention in the future, don´t fool yourself into thinking we´ll see cheaper games. The only thing your likely to see is higher profit margins.

The long install was because you had to connect to the Steam server. Go figure: if thousands of people are downloading HL2 via Steam, and thousands are trying to authenticate their copy of that game, that no server can handle that amount of traffic. You just should have waited a bit longer before you bought it <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>

I guess you guys haven´t heard of Alcohol 120%. It takes an Image of a disc and allows you to run it off of the harddrive using a virtual disk drive. Most games that I play are tricked by the program. If they aren´t, then just look for **************** Now, I suspect that with HL2, if you alter the exe file in any way, it wont work online. So that last option is shot. Content Deleted! <img src=´http://www.danasoft.com/sig/thisisfakedotcom.jpg ´> [/img --------------------------------------- <A href=´http://www.spreadfirefox.com/?q=affiliates&amp;id=0&amp;t=71´ Target=_Blank><img src=´http://www.spreadfirefox.com/c…s/Buttons/88x31/safer.gif ´></a> <b>No talk of CD Cracks or other illegal activities. <img src=smilies/icon_smile_wink.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> </b> Edited by - Finalday on 11/28/2004 4:08:16 PM

Wiz - The long install time was not entirely due to the fact that you had to connect to Steam, but was also due to fact that the installation process required the unbearably long decryption or &quot;activation&quot; *rolls eyes* of the game files. Chips - It´s is not the fact that they are attempting to stamp out piracy, it is the method they are using that is the problem. When they attempt to protect their &quot;intellectual property&quot; in this fashion, they make the security measures so complicated, lenghty and invasive that the average user is inconvienced to the nth degree. Despite the fact that &quot;it´s the pirates what done it!&quot; as many people seem to claim, as a consumer who has paid full price for a legitimate copy of the game, aren´t people entitled to a quick and worry-free installation, regardless of the &quot;evil forces&quot; trying to acquire the game without paying for it? What´s the alternative? I hear you ask. I do not have an answer for you, however it is unequivocal that the Steam PA system is badly designed and an inconvenience for all concerned. It´s great to fight piracy, but not to torment the average user by doing so <img src=smilies/icon_smile_big.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>.

damn i hate steam...