Is the Half-Life 2 EULA Illegal? 164
Ant writes "Many people are having problems connecting to the Steam servers to play Half-Life 2, and now the legal agreements that surround a purchase of Half-Life 2 have been examined. The German Consumer Association has found that the packaging on Half-Life 2 is misleading. In a report made following complaints from the public, they said that the mere listing of an internet connection under the 'other' category in system requirements did not accurately describe the true extent of the internet tie-in with the game, and ordered Vivendi to amend the packaging and untie Steam from HL2 or face a hefty fine."
Is it just me (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe I don't fully understand... (Score:2, Insightful)
In a report made following complaints from the public, they said that the mere listing of an internet connection under the 'other' category in system requirements did not accurately describe the true extent of the internet tie-in with the game.
Wouldn't listing "Internet connection" under "System Requirements" (even under some "Other" category), imply that an internet connection is a requirement?
I haven't seen the packaging myself, but it seems pretty clear-cut to me.
Gamers screwing themselves. Again. (Score:5, Insightful)
rules for gamers and game developers alike. Valve software, because
they are privately funded, has a chance to change the way games are
not only distributed, but the amount of control that the corporate
pointy-hairs wield. What do gamers do? They promptly shoot
themselves in the foot by whining about how steam is n't perfect.
And it's not. Steam still has all kinds of things that bug me.
However, Steam is a huge step in what I believe is the right
direction.
Game publishers have been REQUIRING that more and more copy
protections be added to games. These protections often make the game
UNPLAYABLE to PAYING CUSTOMERS. (Note the idiocy of Vivendi in
requiring a CD check for the CD version of HL2.) They go as far as
installing stealth DRIVERS for your hardware to enable these copy
protections.
Steam offers an alternative. True, it requires an internet
connection. (Oh no.) True, it's not perfect. But it's got a MUCH
better future then the alternative.
Not only does Steam offer an alternative way of authentication, it
ALSO offers and alternative method of distribution. The beauty is NOT
that distribution occurs over the internet. The beauty is that
distribution is easily available to small developers.
No need to fight for shelf space at distribution outlets. No need to
coordinate mass-production facilities and release dates.
Vivendi, et al. would like few things better then to see Steam fail.
It would be icing on the cake if gamers themselves stuck a knife in
its back.
Two hands (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand, I think that requiring an internet connection to use software you bought in the store ought to be fucking illegal, unless the software is internet-centric. HL2 is not; only some of its features are. They are holding your software hostage. You're just leasing it.
Of course, that's not what the law says, so I think this is the wrong way to go about this.
RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Gamers screwing themselves. Again. (Score:5, Insightful)
Off topic: WTF is up with the manual line breaks?
Re:Internet Connection (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:HL2 Packaging and Steam (Score:3, Insightful)
Steam has no LICENSE agreement but a SUBSCRIBER on (Score:5, Insightful)
And it's getting really fun when you start comparing with the retail HL2 EULA. There are contradicting themselves on such little details like change of terms and billing, termination and transferability. But bad luck, the evil SSA is suposed to superseed the nicer retail EULA.
I know I'm paranoid and that Valve may not do something of terrible taste, like for instance adding recurring charges to Steam in order "to defray" bandwith costs (a bit like they are charging $10 if you want to re-sell the game, to "defray the costs" of this operation). But they claim in the SSA to have that kind of rights. And I find this legal trick with the SSA/EULA to be already of VERY bad taste, especially for a company whose marketing line is to be THE company who really cares about its fan base....
And is there any official clarification on theses issues from Valve? Well, on the Steam forums, apart the "We are tired of these legalese chats" from the mods and the "We are experiencing a troll infestation" by a Valve representative... nothing really meaningfull. (Apart maybe the funny "our $10 re-sell fee is *consistent* with VU after-90-days warranty" which was very rapidly deleted...)
Re:Great news! (Score:1, Insightful)
Unfortunately paying the fine might be a business model for Micro$**t in Europe because the fine is limited to 10% of turnover. As long as their profit margin is way higher than 10%, all they'll take is a slight hit in the share value.
Re:RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
If I had mod points, I would mod you up. This is what it is all about, and most people are totally missing the point.
The sad thing about this, most of this could have been avoided if Valve and Vivendi could have worked it out. Instead, we the consumers are seeing the fallout from their war with each other. Could they have made consessions with the CD/DVD sets? Hell ya! The original Half-Life didn't come with Steam, but it can be added to Steam. The same could have been done with the CD/DVD sets to allow those who want the traditional gaming paradigm, and not be tied to Steam unless they wanted to (online gaming assumed). Instead, it doesn't matter if you bought the game through Steam or not, you are tied to Steam - willing or not.
If I may go on a tangent, I would argue that this is a problem with our society based on our lack of education. Instead of writing our leaders, our congresspeople, those in charge of consumer protection, we would rather take the easy way out, and either return the game, or complain about it on a community site that our leaders are not aware of, or both. German government is acting based on consumer complaints. Our government would do the same if we complained to them.
See here... (Score:2, Insightful)
I have no problem with Valve distributing games via Steam. That's there prerogative. I do have a problem with having to reconnect to steam, unless I want to pull my network cable (offline mode has not worked for me unless I do that), every time I want to play.
As so many people have mentioned, some of us like to come back to games we've played in 5 or 10 years and just give it another go-round. Steam the authentication system has the potential to make that impossible.
Re:Internet Connection (Score:3, Insightful)
COMPUTER: "Hello. I am registering this serial number XYZZY".
STEAM: "OK. Thank you. Would you like a patch?"
COMPUTER: "Not enough bandwidth. No thank you."
STEAM: "No online play allowed then. Enjoy your single-player game! Please upgrade in the future."
That is perfectly reasonable, and it the "standard" in the industry. Begin force-fed 50MB before you can even begin a single-player game is not very customer-friendly -- especially if you have no idea that this is going to happen. And some mother might pick up the latest and neatest game for her kid, without really understanding what is involved. Not everybody reads
Re:Two hands (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Quit Whining (Score:5, Insightful)
Gee. That's funny. I though that I remembered seeing HL2 boxed sitting in Best Buy, where they do not ask you how much you have read about the game before agreeing to sell you a copy. Come to think of it, I believe that they even let NON-GEEKS and AVERAGE PEOPLE in Best Buy! How could they do that! To think that they sell items to people who might not have read 20 articles on an item before buying it!
I do agree that most people knew about it. But I bet that a fair amount of sales was also to people who just saw a pretty box on the top slot of the bestseller end-cap.
Re:I am confused (Score:2, Insightful)
That said, for some reason I feel that since I had to point out that, I should further point out that if you care to play ONLINE, against people, then yes, you do need to remain connected.
Re:HL2 Packaging and Steam (Score:2, Insightful)
I had the same problem, I tried noCD first and it worked. If it hadn't worked, I would have returned the game.
It seems only fair to compensate developers for their work. I'm not happy with Atari for imposing this annoying 'protection', but I figure that there'll be enough pissed-off customers (and pirates like yourself) to hurt them for it
They should know by now that it doesn't work, it's only hurting 'nice' customers who have no idea why their game keeps saying 'insert the correct CD'.
Re:Internet Connection (Score:3, Insightful)
Neither patience nor luck is listed as a system requirement, so the complaint about the packaging being misleading still stands.