Half-Life 2 Retail to Require Steam Activation 265
An anonymous reader writes "In a recent Gamespy interview with Doug Lambardi it was revealed that the retail version of Half-Life 2 will require product activation. This isn't just restricted to multiplayer, you will have to create a Steam account and activate your retail purchase before you can even run single-player. "
Team Fortress 2? (Score:5, Insightful)
Doug Lombardi: After we announced TF2 on the HL1 tech, we made the decision to move it to the Source engine. It is still in development and we will be announcing more on that title soon."
Don't bother, no one cares any more. You blew it.
Glad to see... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sad really, reviews are high and I loved the first one. I guess I will be more productive next month than I expected.
Won't stop piracy (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, another game I won't be buying. (Score:5, Insightful)
I can see the game returns now (Score:3, Insightful)
"Hey mister, this game wont work. Can I exchange it?"
I have cancalled my Amazon order... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Here we go...let the bashing begin (Score:2, Insightful)
No one should have to cede control over his machine and agree to a Draconian agreeement that indemnifies Valve in the event of any screwups to play a game he legitimately purchased. This is about control, not about copyright infringement. The crackers will have this one on Usenet inside of a week--the only ones inconvenienced will be those who purchased a game that has to call home to use single player mode, and a company that's going to collect and sell Bob-knows-what information about them in the process.
Re:Glad to see... (Score:2, Insightful)
But look at Steam this way, it's just a Valve game launcher. It's how you launch Valve games. That's how Valve does it.
It's minor. A very minor thing and yet people act like Valve is asking for the their first born child! Let's see what happens first next month before we start jumping to conclusions.
OK, so... (Score:2, Insightful)
Are people really arguing that there should be no way to prevent piracy? Because based on the aggregate outrage of the
Personally, I think that good old-fashioned copy protection is by far the best method of preventing piracy. Nobody gets sued. Nobody gets hurt.
What about people without 'net connections? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I have cancalled my Amazon order... (Score:4, Insightful)
But anyway, I love how people all of a sudden turn on a company and to the old "sold out" routine that is as old as the hills. Of course they care about cash, but from everything I've seen, they care about the quality of their game. I've heard great things about this game, but bottom line, if it isn't good, it isn't good and they will NOT rake in the cash.
Word get's out now. Not everyone is lumped into the "dipshit" masses any longer. There is too much competition out there to just release a crappy game and hope people will buy it just because of the name. Look at Doom3, it was an "ok" game, but it's certainly not breaking sales records across the world.
Having everyone install Steam does give them some control...control that you can buy directly from them and also update the games as a patch comes out. I see as being helpfull and easy.
But hey, they don't have control over my computer. No one does. If in the future they want to get into a pay-per-use model, I'll leave. It's no big deal. It's not like it's spy-ware that you can't get off your computer.
I don't see it as a big deal, but I guess others do. It will be interesting to see what happens in the coming months.
Re:Glad to see... (Score:5, Insightful)
The second, and to me more annoying thnig, is that they've just made it impossible to install and play the game once they go belly-up. As soon as Steam stops becoming available, nobody can play the game on a new installation without hacking it. That's just ridiculous. I still pull out old DOS games from when I was a dorkling in junior high, and I expect them to just install and WORK (well, provided the DOS emulators are up to snuff, anyway). Would they do so if they had to dial up and talk to some server from the 80s that doesn't exist anymore? No, they wouldn't.
All in all, a horrible decision. I was so excited about this game, too.
Re:I have cancalled my Amazon order... (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm beginning to think people use the whole HL2 "drama" just to get attention on the internet. People want to actually think that others care if they are buying a game or not. I know I don't. If I hear my friends like a game, then I'll buy it, but am I gonna not buy a game because one person says they are cancelling their pre-order....I don't think so. The whole irony of all this is that in a few months, if HL2 turns out to be a great game, the very same cancelling people are going to be the first one to jump on the, "omg, this is the greatest game ever and I knew it all along" band wagon. As for me, I was ready to buy the game last year on release day, now, I'll probably wait a few days after release. Either way, I'll eventually buy the game I think because Valve produced an amazing product on the last go around.
Re:Why is that bad? (Score:3, Insightful)
Who do you think funds a new development studio with no released titles already making money for them?
Valve's got to the stage where it doesn't need the financial backing of a publisher, but for smaller people, it's a very important source of monetary investment.
As for the Half-Life 2 requiring product activation - I'm not sure if this is the best route to be going down. Yes, nearly everyone has an internet connection these days, but there still are some people without. A friend of mine is a big fan of Half-Life (and games in general) but has no internet access at home. An outlier? Yes, but there's probably more of them than we think, especially in the casual PC gamer market the original Half-Life has more recently done so well in. Such people are a bit unlikely to be posting on here, for a start.
I've nothing against persistent user profiles and product registration for online gaming - a bit less anonymity might cut down on the number of idiots currently infesting servers - but requiring activation for an offline, single-player game does seem to be going a bit far. Anyone pirating the game will most likely have a registration-free hacked version, as already mentioned...
Re:Here we go...let the bashing begin (Score:3, Insightful)
But for a single player game, it makes no sense, beyond marketing and copy protection, things we hate (newsflash: even people who paid for their game hate copy protection. It's rarely as `invisible' as it's supposed to be. Ironically, many end up getting the pirate patches, because it makes the game better.)
In any event, MMRPG vs single player game Internet requirements -- it's hardly the same thing.
Re:Here we go...let the bashing begin (Score:3, Insightful)
to quote the interview "Doug Lombardi: During installation the user will be prompted to authenticate the copy and create a Steam account. After that is complete, the single-player and LAN games do not require an Internet connection."
so.. to play the _single_player game you need to authenticate during the installation.
Re:Glad to see... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Glad to see... (Score:4, Insightful)
It very well may be minor but it's still an annoyance. I can understand their desire to protect their IP, especially after their ridiculous security policies have resulted in several breaches.
But this will simply not prevent determined people from pirating or leaking the game. It will, however, inconvenience those people who buy a legitimate copy of the game.
I guess the old "some people don't have Internet/broadband/whatever access" argument doesn't hold a lot of water anymore, especially with regard to the intended HL2 audience. But the fact remains that some people simply don't want to forced to active their software because they're opposed to the idea of having to give out private information in general, or just don't want to be bothered or simply find the whole concept of treating a paying customer like a criminal unless he or she proves otherwise iniquitous.
Yes, I suppose you could give Valve fake information. But I why am I supposed to give them any personal information in the first place? Compare it to Windows XP. Microsoft's product activation scheme hasn't prevented one determined individual from pirating their software. Sure, it has raised the bar so-to-speak for some "casual, wannabe software pirates" (which was probably what they were trying to do). They also managed to piss off millions of legitimate users in the process.
I sure hope they put a big fat red warning sticker on the boxes. Hardcore gamers will still want to play HL2, even if they have to give their firstborn to Valve (and that probably goes for a lot of not-so-hardcore gamers, too). But that way, people at least have a choice and don't have to find out the hard way (ie. after installing the game) that they can't play the game they just purchased without Valve's blessing.
Re:Here we go...let the bashing begin (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not the parent, but I can still say that I play Die By the Sword - at least 3 times a week - it's only SIX years old, but Treyarch and Interplay have long stopped caring about or supporting the game.
And the big issue here with HL2 is that it's a single player game, there's no need for anyone to have to log online, yet they're making it mandatory anyway. It's something I and many others are becoming increasingly fed up with, because they make you go through increasing circles of bullshit in order to play a game you spent hard-earned money on.
When Doom 3 came out I bought a copy the day after release, and then I was told I had to remove CloneCD, Daemon Tools and Nero in order to get the game to work with their moronic copy protection. As much as you like to say Valve and id can do whatever they want with their software, this is crossing the line between "protecting their copyright" and "taking over my computer". I can't wait until Windows Media Player will automatically uninstall and registry-ban Winamp and iTunes...
As things go, I don't want Steam. I don't want the 500-some-odd megabyte install I had to do when they decided to move TFC over, I don't want to wait for Steam to patch itself, I don't want the memory and processor overhead of having Steam running as a background process whenever I start my computer and checking for updates, I don't want to hear about Valve's latest news whenever I login to play whatever game I bought years ago, I don't want to play CS:Source.
I would have bought Half-Life 2 because I was interested in playing Half-life 2.
Now I'll just download the game a week early on Bit Torrent, crack it, and then purchase the box copy and leave it sealed on my shelf. I shouldn't have to, but at least my way everybody wins.
Re:OK, so... (Score:5, Insightful)
Acceptable forms of copy protection :
Ignore it. That's certainly acceptable, and works well for many game developers and publishers.
Add extras in the box that add value. Cloth maps, figurines, trading cards, etc.
Make a complex game that requires lots of documentation, and include it in a printed book.
Make an awesome multi-user component that requires logging into a server with a unique CD key to play online. It must be something that needs to use the Internet already, however (like a multi-user component would.)
Include the phrase: Please don't copy this game illegally.
Barely acceptable methods include :
Require use of that CD key to download patches and updates.
Having a unique CD key for each copy of the game.
Include copy protection methods that make it hard to copy, or make copies not work -- Safedisk, bad sectors, etc. These aren't very effective, but as long as they don't cause problems for legitimate users, they're acceptible -- barely.
Require that the CD be in the drive while playing the game. We don't like this, but we generally tolerate it if there's no other problems.
Hidden registry keys to keep track of previous installations and such.
Utterly unaccecptable forms of copy protection for a game :
Contacting the Internet (or requiring that you call up a phone number to get a code) for a single player game
Dongles (and other hardware keys.)
`Please enter the third word of page 25 now.' (or other sorts of code wheels, books, etc.)
Writing to the boot sector or other `off limits' part of the disk. (Turbo Tax did this recently.)
Installing Spyware that reports back to the publisher.
Programs that look for `cheating' or `cracking' programs on your disk and either refuse to run the game if found, or (worse) remove/break the offending programs. (EQ has done this, as and several programs refuse to work if programs like Daemon Tools or even Nero are even installed.)
Protections that damage the system if they feel they're being messed with (recent example: program that deleted your home directory if it detected a `pirated' CD key.)
Special device drivers that must be installed just to run the game -- like a special CD rom driver.
Unmovable files (if you put a file down, we should be able to defrag it!)
I'm sure I've missed a few in each category, but this should get you started. Game developers, you listening?
This defeats the purpose of the box.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:OK, so... (Score:5, Insightful)
Also on the "no longer being considered worth pandering to" note, I don't think I've ever seen any demographic ever cease to be marketed to due to piracy. Cable TV, lot's of pirates, still makes money. Dish TV, same. Windows, same. Any popular pc Game, same.
People keep thinking of piracy as something that can be eliminated, like polio. It's not some disease that threatens humanity. It's an aspect of human nature that has been around for quite some time (like, uh, pirates? You know, the swashbuckling kind?). There is a reason banks and large commercial retailers have insurance. Nobody has ever said "lets start a campain to stop bank robbery!" People are going to still rob banks, despite having 50 cameras and untold security. Some will succeed. If your business model relies on not having anyone *ever* steal from you, I suspect you have bigger problems. Does anyone have theft insurance? Why is that? Theft has been around a long time, why haven't we started 'The War On Theft'?
Now, making me give you my personal info to buy your product, that's fine, but don't expect me to do so. There are plenty of other games out there. Keep in mind this is the *single* player version that also requires activation. Would you buy console games this way? Oh yeah, that next Zelda is so cool, I'll just tell the Nintendo people my personal details, because I *know* they won't share them with anyone.
Please.
If you feel it's fine, you go right ahead, but in my mind at least, this is not a bright idea.
Re:Here we go...let the bashing begin (Score:2, Insightful)
For example, my current machine can not run HL2, and I will not be getting one that can for quite a while. I will be picking up the collector's edition when it is released because I like collecting them and want to secure a copy.
Cracks aside, what guarantee do I have that I will be able to play the single player HL2 and HL: Source game when I do have the machine to run it? What about 5 years from now when I want to play through HL2 and HL: Source again? And what about mods, from what I understand the system isn't as open as it use to and Valve has control over them. A lot of PC game companies have died over the years, and so have multiplayers severs, but at least I can still play the single player versions as well as mods with my legally bought copies.
Also while it is unlikely, what is there to stop Valve from pulling a Microsoft, and have them no longer supporting HL2 single player, HL: Source, old mods, or any of other their classics?
Don't assume that it is just pirates who are the ones complaining, I bet there are quite a few legit buyers like me that don't like this turn of events. Seriously, I purchase all my software, have never used any cracks and have no intention to do so. But given the requirement to authenticate games to just play single player I might reconsider this policy I have. I just might have to start downloading and backing up cracks, BUT only for games that require authentication in order to play single player and if I can no longer authenticate my legally purchased game.
Thanx valve (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Glad to see... (Score:3, Insightful)
Thats why the only games worth what they charge are made by ID. Even their cdkey auth is more lax allowing much easier use for lan parties and such. In the ~10+ years ID has been in buisness, I don't think they've ever required you keep the cd/floppy that you installed off of. Why? Because ID consists of gamers, not buisnessmen.
Not that they don't make good buisnessmen(I've seen pictures of carmack's car.), but they put their gaming side first and don't release something that isn't worth playing. Compare that to Valve, who's been milking the same engine AND STORYLINE for ages. No, Valve, Playing as some stupid dude in a vest and a helmet won't make your game interesting again.
Some people are not thinking straight. (Score:2, Insightful)
I anticipate more than usual will now be downloading it from an alternative source (no pun intended) more simply than Steam users will. This will be done without silly activations being required and possibly days before November 16th.
Congrats to Valve, they managed to alienate another chunk of the gaming community with this decision.
Other areas affected by this? (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, I want to know how this will affect reselling of the game. Let's say in a few months I'm tired of HL2 and decide to sell it to a friend or something. Will he be unable to make a steam ID? Will he have to use mine? Because that would suck a bit.
It just seems they put way too much into this stuff when there are such easy answers already out.
Re:PC games are really getting bad (Score:1, Insightful)
If a game takes a long time to load because it has so many game objects or it's a huge map, I have no problem. Okay, maybe a little problem, but I understand. It's physical limitations which are the problem. I didn't like swapping disks in the bad Really old days, but it was necessary so it was endured.
But these days it isn't due to basic media problems, it's because the designers/publishers think the benefits of Securom, Steam and whatever else are worth the degradation of the total user experience. When you think about it, it's really a slap in the face to legitimate consumers.
Re:Team Fortress 2? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Glad to see... (Score:2, Insightful)
At this point, though, Valve can go one of two paths:
1. The "Duke Nukem, meet WinXP" path that will kill their sales (and mods) upon termination of their studio
or
2. The patch way. Sadly enough, releasing a patch that disables activation is in their best interests - alternatively someone else will release one that disables activation, along with minor features like CD-Key protection.
Who cares? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Glad to see... (Score:5, Insightful)
Most games I have played aren't bad. At the worst, for some games you have to set up an account, but most games just require a CD code and you're ready to play.
Singleplayer, however, should not require internet access at all. This is ridiculous, and I may just not get HL2 because of it.
However, that means I will do without it rather than downloading it. Unlike many people, I learned that you either pay for something or do without. Getting games is not a right.
Re:pirating is REALLY common on cstrike (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Well, another game I won't be buying. (Score:3, Insightful)
I wanna know why some companies out there think they'll make more money when they provide less of what a customer wants?
Beat me...make me feel cheap! (Score:2, Insightful)