When did Chet become Midnight Son?
We’re not worried about EULAs. We’re worried about the future of EULAs + online content delivery systems and how they could significantly change the balance of rights between the corporations and consumers.
Seriously.
Besides which there’s nothing wrong with saying that this strategy sucks and is leading into a pit of consumer fuckage. It is bad enough that certain schemes are looking at my PC to see what else I have installed to decide whether or not they will run properly (copy protection). So that intrusion that “would never have happened so why are you freaking out” did.
There’s a very clear precedent for a slippery slope here if you give it five years.
Id and Dreamcatcher have no way of enforcing their EULAs, do they? If someone lends me Doom 3 or Painkiller, I just install, download any patches, and play.
If someone lends me HL2 (but not their Steam account) can I also just create my own Steam account and install and play? I was under the impression that when I would attempt to validate with Steam it would reject me because the CD key had already been validated by Steam. Is that true or false?
I would suspect that Steam would allow you to do so, simply because it obviously allowed those 20,000 people to use the same cracked cd-key.
That’s not to say any similar copy-cats that will no-doubt come along will play anywhere as nicely, nor does it preclude Valve from running a database query and banning duplicate keys later.
Again, I’m not as much concerned with Valve and the current incarnation of Steam as I am with what it and similar models can become.
I don’t see this being a big deal. I mean sure in the License agreement it says you can’t sell your game, but pretty much all agreements say that. Its not going to stop anyone.
For HL2 you would simply give your friend the CD and your Steam login info. If you purchased just through Steam like me you can simply lend your steam login info to a friend. As long as your both not trying to log in at the same time it shouldn’t be a problem.
I made a new Steam account when I purchased HL2 Silver, so I was able to give my old HL1 Steam account info to a friend so we could play original CS together.
Its as easy to lend a game to a friend with steam as it is with games on just a disc, you just need to go through the extra step of giving them your Steam login and password. Its only more of a problem if you don’t trust the guy you give the Steam account info to.
You can just give someone your steam login. Oh I know, that is implausible. Because even though you just want the single player of half-life 2, and hate steam because you don’t have your computer attached to the internet, or you never play multi-player games or whatever strawman you have today, you want the other multiplayer games, so you can’t give someone your steam account - huh?
You know how people make fun of the religious right for saying crazy things about movies they have never seen, just heard about. Yeah, that is crazy. Logical people would never do that, people on these forums, never. Because that would be insane. Why yes it would be.
And since i have repeated something similar 50 times and some people want to just keep trolling, I will stop feeding the trolls.
Chet
Yeah, it would be UNPOSSIBLE for an online content system similar to Steam to add the ability to link an individual cd-key and account to an individual computer.
I mean it’s NOT like Steam has the ability to upload the makeup of your computer’s individual hardware components if you allow it currently, so I’m SURE they’d never be able to make it mandatory that Steam uses that information to compile a signature for your computer’s hardware like Microsoft does for WinXP.
Oh wait …
And since i have repeated something similar 50 times and some people want to just keep trolling, I will stop feeding the trolls.
I was wrong, and I apologize.
You’ve become more like CindySue22 than Midnight Son.
Keep fighting the good fight. ;)
And they could put a bomb in the box copies of half-life2 and BLOW UP THE WORLD!!! Nice crazed conspiracy theories derek. Yes, nice solid footing for your points, oops that is right, you had no points.
Single-player, yes. Them keeping a copy not only violates the EULA, but it’s also copyright infringement. Do you support copyright infringement?
And if they sold the game, but kept a copy, you may be screwed if you want to play multiplayer. Imagine that you bought a used copy of Battlefield 1942 or Unreal Tournament–are you upset over the possibility that someone might not be able to access their multiplayer component?
People pirate single-player games because it’s easy. So what’s your solution? Are you pro piracy? Is it not an issue? Should this all run on the honor system? Do you just say, “Oh well?” Should there be more draconian CD-based copyright protection that guarantees that people can’t run the game without the original CD? Or should there be validation for single-player games, just like there are for multiplayer games?
Is that true or false?
How many times do you intend on asking this question, in how many different ways? The answer is above.
And keep playing those MMOs without being upset, because they’re even more restrictive (and expensive), and have even more vile and restrictive EULAs.
(Insert, “Half-Life 2 is a single-player game” rebuttal; chances are, in the future, there will be no difference.)
Nice false dichotomy. Are we also pro-terrorist if we dislike the Patriot Act?
And keep playing those MMOs without being upset, because they’re even more restrictive (and expensive), and have even more vile and restrictive EULAs.
What about those of us who don’t play MMOs? Are we allowed to complain?
Absolutely, if you believed the George W. Bush campaign ads. It makes America safe.
What about those of us who don’t play MMOs? Are we allowed to complain?
Sure, knock yourself out. But that was specifically directed at Mark, who does play MMOs with significantly greater restrictions and limitations.
Sure, knock yourself out. But that was specifically directed at Mark, who does play MMOs with significantly greater restrictions and limitations.
But as you say, those are MMO’s. HL2 is not! I don’t see why you’re comparing them?
Well the ability to transfer the game (even with the extremely dastardly $10 fee) is at least a slight silver lining in an otherwise cloudy system.
Thanks for finding that.
:)
It’s good that they included it, though it’s still enough of a hoop to jump through that it will definitely have an effect on the number of people legitimately reselling purchased copies.
Besides the $10 fee, you have to mail your CD and the sleeve with the authorization key on it to Valve as well as give them the Steam account name of the person you want to transfer it to.
Valve currently doesn’t appear to be going after people who simply sell someone else their copy of the game without going through that process, but that certainly doesn’t guarentee that they won’t in the future, or that other game developers who choose to use a similar distribution model would be as flexible.
Would that go under “Reviewer’s Tilt?”
Single-player, yes. Them keeping a copy not only violates the EULA, but it’s also copyright infringement. Do you support copyright infringement?
And if they sold the game, but kept a copy, you may be screwed if you want to play multiplayer. Imagine that you bought a used copy of Battlefield 1942 or Unreal Tournament–are you upset over the possibility that someone might not be able to access their multiplayer component?
People pirate single-player games because it’s easy. So what’s your solution? Are you pro piracy? Is it not an issue? Should this all run on the honor system? Do you just say, “Oh well?” Should there be more draconian CD-based copyright protection that guarantees that people can’t run the game without the original CD? Or should there be validation for single-player games, just like there are for multiplayer games?
Is that true or false?
How many times do you intend on asking this question, in how many different ways? The answer is above.
And keep playing those MMOs without being upset, because they’re even more restrictive (and expensive), and have even more vile and restrictive EULAs.
(Insert, “Half-Life 2 is a single-player game” rebuttal; chances are, in the future, there will be no difference.)[/quote]
I keep asking because I’m unsure of how it works with HL2.
I’m not talking about piracy. I’m talking about lending someone my copy of a game after I’m done playing it. Or reselling my copy. The presumption here is that I will no longer play the game. And just to make the scenario clearer, let’s say I uninstall the game as well.
If I do this with any game besides an MMO, whomever gets my copy of the game should have no problems playing it.
I am unsure if this will work with HL2. Suppose I buy a copy at the store, install it, create a Steam account and play the game. Now I’m done. I uninstall HL2 and give my copy to a friend. I retain my Steam account because it’s my account. Maybe I’ll want to use it again for something else.
So in this scenario, will my friend be able to install the copy of HL2 I’ve given to him and create his own Steam account and play? I’d appreciate just a simple answer, and I’m sorry if Chet has repeated the answer 50 times, but I don’t remember seeing it put like this. I don’t want to give away my Steam account, but I will remove HL2 from my computer and give my copy of the game to a friend. Will Steam let him play?
Just a simple yes or no, please.
No.
A qualified yes. Before your friend can play, Valve has to transfer the CD key from your Steam account to your friend’s Steam account. For this, Valve charges a $10 handling fee and requires you to mail in your original CD and CD sleeve with CD key imprint. Details here.
As BrewersDroop mentioned, you’d probably have to pay Valve to switch the CD key over to your friend, as you can’t remove the CD key from your account manually.
A few months back, I tried to log in to Steam, but had forgotten my password since I hadn’t used it in over a year. Since I was too lazy to go look for where ever I had written it down, I grabbed my old copy of Half-Life and tried to create another account using the same CD key again, and got a message that basically said, “Sorry, the CD key has already been registered.” After that, it took me a dozen tries to figure out what my old password was. :wink: Even if I had uninstalled the game, I would have gotten the same message. Of course, that was with HL, but I’m fairly sure it would also apply to retail copies of HL2.
No, but why wouldn’t you just give your friend your Steam account login too. I just don’t see that as being a big deal, unless you want to play CS Source or HL1 Source while he is playing Single player HL2. In which case that would be piracy as your both playing the same game (sorta you cant get CS Source with out HL2 so I consider CS the multiplayer component to HL2) at the same time.
A few months back, I tried to log in to Steam, but had forgotten my password since I hadn’t used it in over a year. Since I was too lazy to go look for where ever I had written it down, I grabbed my old copy of Half-Life and tried to create another account using the same CD key again, and got a message that basically said, “Sorry, the CD key has already been registered.” After that, it took me a dozen tries to figure out what my old password was. Even if I had uninstalled the game, I would have gotten the same message. Of course, that was with HL, but I’m fairly sure it would also apply to retail copies of HL2.
I had the same problem too when I went play play CS a few months ago but didn’t remember my Steam account. I found a way, either on the Steam web site on in Steam for it to give me my account info based off the HL cdkey. I think it was something like I could tell it to email the account info to the email address that was used originally to make the Steam account. This wasn’t a big deal as i’ve had the same email address for years. I guess it would be a real problem if you changed email addresses and forgot your Steam account info.