ATI Appease Gamers Over Half-Life 2 Bundle

Thanks to Ferrago for their story pointing out that ATI are giving a 'Valve Premier Pack' to all those buying Half Life-2 bundled Radeon graphics cards, since the included voucher for Half-Life 2 in selected ATI bundles may be awaiting collection for some time. According to the article: "In activating their product key via the [Steam] content delivery system (but only before Half-Life 2 is made available) players will then receive the following titles which comprise the pack: Half-Life, Counter Strike, Team Fortress Classic, Deathmatch Classic, Half-Life: Opposing Force and Ricochet", and more information is available on the ATI site.

So...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this a real copy of the games, or a Steam-powered rental?

Ugh

[moonbender]

Great. So you'll get Half-Life 1 as a free bundle. A game everyone who is even remotely interested in FPS has already played to death. That certainly includes everyone who is willing to pay the premium price for a newly introduced graphics card. And what's more, the games' engine is by now so outdated, you might as well use Minesweeper to test your new graphics card's abilities.

that is stupid.

[fireduck]

all of that is available now to steam users, which is anyone who owns HL. (and seeing as how one could probably find a copy of HL in the $20 or less range, I fail to see how spending $400 on a video card makes this a good deal...)

granted, ATI is kinda stuck, but they made the deal, soo...

Re:that is stupid.

[realdpk]

$200 video card (9600XT). You get a $50 game free, plus a pack of cheap games to tide you over until that $50 game is ready.

That's a damn good deal. Plus you get a great value card.

Huh? Why complain about getting free stuff?

[sbszine]

I can't believe people are complaining about this. ATI sold gamers a card plus an HL2 voucher. Through no fault of ATI's, HL2 got delayed. If anyone can be blamed for the delay, it's the criminals who cracked Valve's network and the rocket scientists in their IT dept who thought that Outlook was a secure mail client.

I would imagine, at this point, that ATI has no legal obligation to give gamers anything more: the video card works, and the voucher can still be redeemed when HL2 comes out. The bunch of old games for free is a nice gesture from ATI... so why the complaints?