Valve is shutting down over 20,000 accounts for illegal cdkey use!

dzjepp

This only caught the stupid pirates. The smart people are playing the [non] Steam version.

EnPassant

These guys with a cracked version may have not been as careless as one might think, Steam is "hard coded" in the game and even if the person had two accounts on their machine, "One legit one not". Steam may have scanned there HD for CD keys and reported back to dad = Banned account. I think it would take at least a year to go through the code to completely remove all checks, if it could be done at all. Pretty smart on VALVe's part.


Also VALVe did not release a cracked game, That was a miss quote that a web site printed. All he said was they were aware of the cracked version and were watching.

Sandok

OMG that CD key was mine... It's in my box... SERIOUSLY!!! WHY? HOW DID IT GET HACKED?



































Joking

kalx

if your complaining cos a few pirates got screwed , your an idiot .
Buy the game or shut up

__________________
--------------------------------------------------->
AMD FX51 / 2x OCZ 400 mhz 512MB DDR /ATi Radeon X800pro /19 inch DVI
-
-
-
-
-
-
---------------------------------------------------->

Sandok

I did buy the game if ever......

dzjepp

The console and GUI is hard-coded, but the Steam app itself is not.

dipstick

haha, that some funny sh*t. I mean who attempts to use a fake key on something like steam? Don't they think that they would notice 20k+ of the same key lol. Anyways, hard work should be rewarded and Valve has earned every penny of the asking price. I dont mind Steam one bit and if it helps stop pirates and hopefully help lower prices eventually I'm all for it.
This game is worth it, buy it!

technonerd

Just one word. LOOOOOOOOSSSEEEEERRR!!!!!!

eggs420

They worked on this game for how long?? A book is a good comparison of a comparable product that you own instead of license like hl2..Might be easier for the warez kids to swallow. If you wrote a book that took you upwards of 8 years to complete, then a bunch of punks started churning out "pirate" copies of it, how would you feel?? Sure there would be a feeling of admiration coming from their actions at first, but if your book retailed at $50/pop and 20k people jacked your work, you do the math -- Lots of lost money. And valve has _lots_ of people on payroll for this game too..It's not like they pushed this out the door to make a quick buck.

The above, combined with the the stupidity of using a mass-pirated key with something like steam, just makes this whole ordeal all the more amusing to those of us that believe in paying for things instead of stealing. I hope it deletes all of their game content too so their saves are waxed. Suckers.

__________________
AMD64 2800+ // Chaintech VNF3-250 // 2X512mb PDI ddr400 2-3-2-5 // 80gb 7200RPM WD w/8mb cache // Leadtek 6800GT // 144kbit IDSL

Clan -=CCC=- Admin
69.31.96.68 BF2 PUBLIC RANKED SERVER
205.218.65.236 BF2 DEMO SERVER

mathyou

MagamiEiko said some interesting things.

This, in general, is a horrible argument. Honestly, how many people do you think actually buy a SINGLE PLAYER game after they pirate it? In all likelihood, they finished the game once, and that was enough. They're not going to shell out $50 for something they have already finished. I don't know where you live, but back on planet Earth that just doesn't happen in any statistically significant quantities. Maybe compelling MP would get people to do this, but my next argument would still answer this point.

But in this specific instance, your argument is even worse than usual. Anyone who just got their Steam account banned but actually wants to buy the game after their "demo" period, can create a new Steam account and legally purchase the game. Valve will be thrilled; they'll get their money. And all the pirates who were going to get around to buying it eventually will still get to play the game. In fact, that is probably exactly what Valve would like to accomplish with this mass banning. It is ironic that in your defense of piracy, you enunciate one of the reasons Valve banned the accounts in the first place. Valve wanted to encourage all the "demo" pirates to hurry up and make their payment. I might also not that it is hard to accidentally use the same pirated key as 10,000 other people or to mistakenly commit credit card fraud.

And I want to have a million dollars. Perhaps I will make that much in my lifetime, so robbing a bank now is just an advance on my future income. Really, no harm done. It's not like people get hurt; FDIC insures bank savings. How about you just wait until X-mas?

Um, news flash. You are not entitled to a new video card and as many new games as you want. The world sucks, but money matters. If you cannot pay for something and no one will give it to you, you're SOL. Deal with it. Work a few more hours.

Actually, yes, I can blame them. In fact, they are more blameworthy than all the rest.

Here you go talking about entitlement again. You do not have a right to a demo. You are not entitled to much of anything for free. It may make business sense for Valve to release a demo, but not getting one certainly doesn't justify theft. Additionally, the industry has been moving to post-release demos. And there are actually some decent reasons. For one, it doesn't divert people from finishing the actual game. Once the game is done, by all means do a demo. Additionally, with high profile games like HL2 that get such good reviews, Valve doesn't need the publicity boost from a demo. Nor does it need to convince people the game is worth buying. Everyone already knows.

Stealing IP is wrong for two reasons:

1. It harms the creators of the IP by depriving them of the fruits of their labor. It artificially reduces demand.

2. It harms other consumers by artificially decreasing supply, which can have price (i.e. producers charge more to make up for lost revenue) or availability implications (in terms of increased Steam server load, etc).

Both of those reasons still apply to "digital" theft (and as WaltC properly points you, that phrasing of the issue masks the fact that you are stealing from someone who created art).

Moreover, with the rampant cheating in HL-based games (and in CS: Source as well), it is vital to take steps to make sure that everyone playing online actually has a stake in their continued ability to play online. In other words, to discourage online cheating, the Steam account ban-stick has to be a real threat to people. Individuals who stole the game have no investment in it. They don't care (at least not as much as paying customers) if they get permanently banned. Online cheating destroys the game for real customers. To the degree that "digital" theft gives thieves license to cheat, pirating (arrgh!) games has real effects on legitimate customers.

Nothing is every 100%. People will always die of cancer. That doesn't mean we should give up on the ones we could save. I would argue that margins on game development are very thin, and the rate of piracy for a major release (with a development time of, say, five years ala HL2) can make or break development houses. Our ability to play future games depends on developers making a livable profit.

------------------------------

I also wanted to comment on some of lamar1234's statements.

You do have a choice. Either play the game or don't.

I can understand if you are one of the ten people in the world who wants to play the game on a computer not connected to the Internet and for some good reason physically cannot connect it. That would be annoying. I suspect Valve would have a way to help you out if you contact them. I can also understand the fear that Steam and Valve will go belly up down the road and you'll be up a creek without a paddle. That scenario, however, seems unlikely at the moment. If it came to that, Valve would probably have a solution to allow people to play the game post-Steam. But if you are just annoyed because you have to have a little program running in your system tray, then grin and bear it. Besides, if you play any of the HL games online, Steam is actually kind of helpful.

Would you really rather prefer they use some inane copy protection that fails to work on 10% of the CD-ROM drives out there and will be cracked within a day? Hell, I'd much rather have Steam running and not need my stinking CD to play the game than vice versa. Additionally, the whole point of Steam is to cut out the middleman, which means no physical media, so CD checks won't work. Additionally, that particular copy protection sounds infinitely more annoying that anything else. "Hmmm, I mistakenly think you stole the game, so I'll ruin it for you." Sounds just great. I'm way more concerned about losing a CD or getting it scratched than I am about Valve going out of business.

Now you fall back to "there shouldn't be any anti-piracy measures at all." Well isn't that a workable solution... Look, anti-piracy/copy protection is a fact of life. Of the available alternatives, Steam is--by far--the most preferable. It actually adds features (such as automatic updating, an improved interface for all the HL-based games, and cross-game instant messaging--which admittedly isn't working so well at the moment). I think forcing someone to have their CD always in their drive is infinitely more annoying and more prone to trouble (e.g. losing a CD and needing to jump through approximately 137.925 hoops to get a new one).

mathyou

------------------------------

Finally, I want to address WaltC's post, but the forum made be break this into two posts.

You make a good point, but I am not so sure that anti-piracy is really as much about reducing costs as it is about increasing profits. You seem to assume that companies have a static profit target, and once they meet that target they should reduce costs to consumers.

I think the company has a different mindset. I think they feel that if there are 100 copies of their game floating around, then they should be paid full price for those 100 copies. Piracy takes an unfair toll on their profits, so reducing piracy is only reducing the amount of pain inflicted on them. In other words, they don't feel they have an obligation to reduce costs because they think they're getting screwed in the first place. They want to make more money, so if they can cut losses by reducing piracy, then they'll do it to help their bottom line without much concern about cost to consumers.

Now I don't agree with their perspective to the degree that they increase prices (or justify continued high prices) to off-set losses due to theft. I would certainly like games to cost less. Since the industry has said high prices are a result of piracy, then one should expect prices to come down once piracy is reduced. However, as many people pointed out, whether Steam or any other anti-piracy measure actually reduces theft is questionable. So perhaps these measures all fail to actually reduce theft, hence prices stay high. In that case, I'd be annoyed at the increased inconvenience caused by annoying and useless CD checks and the like. Online activation is probably the best bet for reducing theft. So perhaps prices will come down. Of course, companies will have to take a wait-and-see approach to price reductions resulting from reduced piracy; the need to see if piracy is actually down before they cut prices. So it is sort of a chicken or the egg problem. Additionally, since prices have been around $50 (and going up) for so long, I think that people in the industry have become habitually attached to that number. Though they publicly justify high prices on the basis of piracy, in private they probably feel that a game should cost about $50. That mindset is the problem.

Specifically on the topic of Steam, I think that it is probably our best shot at achieving reduced retail prices. Since Steam is about cutting out the middleman, I think that it makes business sense to undercut retail prices via online distribution. Honestly, I think Valve agrees. I think they are legitimately jammed up by this lawsuit. I am convinced that they would have undercut VU's retail prices if they legally could have. Mind you, their motivation might not have been altruistic. There was probably a power motive on the part of developers to decrease the control of publishers over their creations. Valve doesn't like VU much, so they would have wanted to screw them over (i.e. spite as a motive). Profit also factored in. If they undercut VU slightly (say $5-10), they'd more than make that up in increased margins since they'd get twice as much from each sale (IIRC game developers usually get about $20 on a $50 game). They would also make up the money do to scale; they'd sell more copies than VU. I don't know that Valve felt any particular obligation to the public to reduce the retail cost of the game. Most companies don't look out for their consumers first. We have to rely on market forces to provide motivation to get self-interested actors to do what is best for other people. Now admittedly, Valve makes more money (at least in the short run) because they are forced to sell via Steam for full price (i.e. your "in bed together" comment). I think they would, however, make more money in the long run by undercutting VU's price. I think Valve agrees (which is why VU had to use the courts to force Valve to sell for full price). So while it is ironic to say that Valve was forced to make more money on each sale than they otherwise would have, I think that is accurate, and in the long run, it will end up costing Valve money. In the end, Steam and the like provide one of the best chances for reducing the cost of games by cutting out the publishers.

I guess that's a personal decision. Assuming my out of pocket expenses are static, I would prefer more of my money goes to the people who actually created the game. I don't see any compelling reason to help publishers survive. I think your numbers even indicate you would save $5 if you bought direct from Steam. That seems like enough of a reason to me. Your comment also seems odd given the sentence your wrote immediate preceding it.

That sentence would indicate that you place the burden of proof on the publisher to justify giving them some of the money that would otherwise go to the developer (which is where I would put the burden as well). But then you immediate contradict yourself by placing the burden on Valve to significantly (and I guess you're talking in the $20-$25 range) reduce prices. Now I think they should reduce prices (and as I said I think they would have), but I think it is fair for the consumer and the developer to split the difference. If we used to pay $55, $20-25 of which went to the developer, I think it would be perfectly reasonable for direct purchases to be about $40. That saves the consumer $10-15. It gives the developers $15-20 more than they are getting now. That seems like a win-win situation to me. I really like good games. I know margins in game development are very tight. I don't have a philosophical problem with developers increasing their margins so long as I save money. You seem to want developers to be content with the amount of money they are currently making. I honestly don't see why consumers should get all of the savings. I guess I would like it, but it doesn't seem terribly equitable to me. In general, I agree with most of your post.

Anyway, this is an interesting topic. I apologize for writing such a treatise.

BWX

Please someone stab me in the face

__________________

knuth

Why?

WaltC

Agreed, unfortunately. I wrote a very short (for me...;)) opinion piece for Commodore Magazine back in the latter 80's in which I advanced the likelyhood that despite the protests of software developers about piracy in general it appeared as if the concept of "piracy" was simply used as a crutch by software companies to justify their high MSRPs. Of course, I wasn't condoning or advocating piracy of any sort, but simply making the point then, as well as now, that for companies serious about reducing piracy (as it can never be completely eliminated) the best weapon, and indeed the most cost-effective weapon they have, is their MSRP.

The amazing thing to consider about that time was that the annual worldwide computer market in 1987 was around 6 million machines a year or so...;) IIRC, we didn't hit the 10M a year mark until the early 90's. At that time I was reading Commodore Magazine and running nothing but Amigas, and the Amiga itself captured some 10%-20% of the annual market back then, and in 1987 the Amiga was pretty much "it" for computer gaming. Flash-forward to today's worldwide total market of 140M machines a year, with an annual computer-gamer's market easily 10x-15x the size it was then, if not appreciably greater, and it's interesting to note how little the MSRP for a computer game has moved off the $50 mark.

This is balanced to some degree by the fact that a whole lot more goes into today's games, both in terms of marketing and development, than was true back in 1987, of course. So in that sense, and including inflation, games actually do cost less in the sense that you get more for the same price you paid in 1987. But still, I think it's interesting how that $50 MSRP for computer games has changed so little over the years. When we contrast the software market to the hardware market over the past 15+ years, though--that's where we can really see the disparity. Not only does computer hardware do a lot more than it did in 1987, but in terms of absolute dollars, *including inflation,* the hardware costs a lot, lot less than it did 1987! It doesn't seem reasonable to me that the same economies of scale that have applied to the hardware markets since 1987 have not applied to the software markets equally.

Talking about M$ and it's semi-anti-piracy efforts to date with WinXP (I say "semi" because the corporate version of WinXP has never required product activation, and, I believe, a much greater percentage of M$'s licenses go to corporate sales as opposed to retail), it should never be forgotten that M$ made its fortune by selling *non-copy-protected* software long before WinXP was a gleam in its eye...;) How was this accomplished? Through the high MSRP, of course, which not only allowed the company to flourish financially despite rampant piracy, but allowed the company to achieve a degree of profitability that has been the envy of every other software company I know of.

This is not a wholesale attack on MSRPs, I want to make clear. After all, if most people didn't consider M$'s MSRPs to be reasonable then most people wouldn't have bought M$ software, and M$ wouldn't be around today counting its billions...;)

It is, however, a comment to the effect that things like retail WinXp product activation and Steam Internet authorizations are not really about software piracy at all, but are about maintaining the MSRP status quo for general software categories, and are aimed at protecting those MSRPs as a hedge against piracy as opposed to attempting to do something concrete to drastically reduce software piracy itself. Software companies have found that a discussion of "piracy" generally makes its buying public more amenable to paying traditional MSRPs--and that is really the only point to these software endeavors that I can see. In Valve's case with Steam there's a bit more to it as knocking off unauthorized users from the Steam network lowers Steam network costs for Valve and increases available bandwidth for legitimate Steam customers--but the Steam approach itself doesn't really do very much to attack software piracy at its root.

And the root is...(drumroll...;)) ...the MSRP, imo. The simplest, most effective, and most cost-effective way to actually alleviate a worthwhile degree of piracy is, I believe, to turn from an MSRP-centered program to a volume-centered program in which MSRPs are drastically reduced in anticipation of drastically increased volumes. The only way to dissuade the pirate (casual or commercial) is by destroying as much of his incentive to pirate as it is possible for you to do. When MSRPs fall so does piracy--and likewise, when MSRPs rise, so does piracy.

I think software companies are reluctant to prosecute a war on piracy through reduced MSRPs because they've become complacent about software piracy and have kind of a hangover from a decade or so ago when the software market was much smaller and so you had to charge higher prices simply to offset production costs because your projected sales volumes were much lower, even ideally (ie, not counting piracy.) They've become dependent, more or less, on traditionally high MSRPs as a hedge against piracy losses, and certainly seem to find superficial approaches that only pretend to deal with piracy much more convenient. I can only conclude that the software companies for whatever reasons find it more expedient to use the concept of piracy as a phsychological market conditioner for the justification of high MSRPs than they presently find it expedient to actually do something substantive about software piracy (as in diminishing the incentive to pirate to the maximum extent possible--diminishing the MSRP.)

I see a few signs that this is changing, though--albeit at a glacier's pace. For instance, M$ has only recently initiated a policy of charging third-world MSRPs for the software it sells in third-world countries to third-world customers. You might reasonably ask what took M$ so long to realize that trying to sell a copy of Windows for a cost equivalent to six-months' wages in some countries was an open invitation to pirates of all descriptions in those countries...;) Indeed, they've been pretty braindead about this for years and it all goes back to the points I've made here--that protecting the MSRP has always been far more important than working towards eliminating software piracy at its root. For all of the software companies, with regard to piracy, it's "better the devil you know than the one you don't"--and they have just been more comfortable pushing high MSRPs to hedge their losses as opposed to pushing lower MSRPs to actually address the problem itself.

I think inevitably it has to happen and software MSRPs have got to come down--way down. The ever-increasing size and scope of the software markets internationally as well as the ever-increasing size of the operating computer hardware base as it grows each year will, eventually, imo, bring about a return to common sense and sensible reflection on this issue. The interesting thing to me will be to watch and see which companies set the pace as they will certainly be among the first to benefit.

I thought Valve was going to be a trend-setter here and I feel certain this issue was hotly debated inside the company, as if you'll recall Valve waited until almost the last minute to announce the Steam pricing for HL2. The good thing about Steam, though, is that the infrastructure is now in place to lower software MSRPs in a manner that makes sense for Valve (and for any other entity doing something similar to Steam delivery.) All that remains to be seen is who will have the guts to begin the process of transmuting the software market into a volume-based (instead of MSRP-dependent) marketplace...first...;)


Well, I'm not sure I can agree with your sentiment...;) After all, what's the difference between a rotten game selling for $49.95 and the same rotten game selling for $29.95? You'd hope that at $29.95 the rotten game would sell more copies than it would at $49.95, right? But because it's *rotten* you couldn't be sure about how much money you'd make either way...;)

IE, the game would fail because it's rotten, as opposed to its price. What I mean also is that high MSRP's are no protection against going broke from distributing rotten software...:) In fact, if the software it sells is indeed rotten then chances are that demanding a higher MSRP for it would only hasten such a company's demise. Basically, what I'm discussing here is anything *but* rotten software...:D

mathyou

IAWTP. This part was especially good:

Also, this argument would seem to be supported by the existence of "value" games that, while generally rotten, do just fine financially because they have a low MSRP.