Valve Cracks Down on 20,000 Users

An anonymous reader writes "Valve have disabled 20,000 steam user accounts belonging to users who have been caught using a pirated version of the game, or have attempted to use a cdkey to bypass the securom protection found on the retail version of the game. The Steam Forums have been swamped with people now claiming they are unable to play, many claiming they have had their accounts disabled for no reason. A Valve spokesman says, 'The number of people who actually had bought HL2 and used the CD key cheat was VERY small. VERY small. Most people just tried to rip off the game and not bother buying it.'" People are discovering that when you buy any product that is subject to "activation", you haven't really bought anything.

Securom protection

[Cloud K]

For some reason I thought that said 'scrotum protection'. I always did say anti-piracy measures were a load of bollocks.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

It's not that hard to play a pirated version of it

[DroopyStonx]

Why is this such a big deal?

Go on usenet, find the appropriate cracks. Enjoy. The end.

See how easy that was?

Re:michael: STFU

[chill]

That's the stupidest thing I've read on /. in a long time;...

Then you don't read /. a lot. I've seen a LOT stupider things written on /. Damn, that one wasn't even in the Top 10. :-)

-Charles

Re:Just Say No To Activation

[sammy baby]

A guy walks into a doctor's office and pokes himself in the chest. "Doc, it hurts when I do this." He pokes himself in the shoulder, and says, "And when I do this." He pokes himself in the thigh. "And when I do this."

The doctor says, "You must be Polish, right?"

"How'd you know?"

"Your finger is broken."

("Those damn software companies. How dare they use product activation to help curb piracy? Well just for that, I'm going to pirate their stuff until they stop!" Yeah. I'm sure that's likely to convince them.)

Re:Securom protection

[BW_Nuprin]

For some reason I thought that said 'scrotum protection'. I always did say anti-piracy measures were a load of bollocks.

I too read it like that. Although, wouldn't scrotum protection rather be a load of ball-locks?

Perhaps innocent until proven guilty?

[dark-br]

Are you crazy? Do that and the TERRORISTS win!

Lies, damned lies!

[randomaxe]

People are discovering that when you buy any product that is subject to "activation", you haven't really bought anything.

Not true, not true!

If you buy the Half Life 2 Collector's Edition, you get a shirt!

Re:CD hack?

[Sky Captain]

Welcome to the world of tommorow!

Been There, done that!

Re:It's still fair

[Kenja]

"If we had an appropriate moderation option it would be (-1, Poor grasp on English)"

Hye, I resemble that remark. How about we call it (-1 no coffee yet)?

Re:You're wrong.

[the_mad_poster]

We were discussing journalistic integrity in my junior year Journalism class in High School. One of the stories we discussed was about potentially devastating NEOs and the hunt for them. They were calculating timelines for possible impacts, but the journalist - in his infinite lack of even the simplest scientific tenets - decided to exclude the actual numbers and say "sometime in the future".

Upon hearing this, a girl at one edge of our discussion circle perked up, her eyes got really wide, and she exclaimed "When is this supposed to happen!?"

Without missing a beat, the class clown said in the most serious, matter-of-fact voice I've ever heard....

"About 10 minutes"

She never was the same after that....

Re:You're wrong.

[AviLazar]

They don't? I want my money back - I paid good money for the Sun, and I wasn't told anything about a license.

In fact, I blame valve for world hunger too.

And I blame all those people who write EULA's in plain - simple - English.

Re:You're wrong.

[Nilatir]

Playing HL must really suck having no shift key...

Re:You're wrong.

[ryanmfw]

More like buying a can of peaches, finding out that you don't really know what peaches are, and trying to blame it all on the grocer.

Look, even most of /. disagrees with you, and this is about a game we all want to play freely, without this activation junk. But still, most people here see that Valve is acting within it's rights. That's a pretty strong indicator.

Cheers,
Ryan

feh

[Anonymous Coward]

IF they wrote the law in simpler terms i bet they'd cut 800 pages down to 100. Release a much simplified edition for laymen, so you don't have to contend with the legalese unless you want/have to.

example (from the revised code of washington):
RCW 9.03.010
Abandoning, discarding refrigeration equipment.

Any person who discards or abandons or leaves in any place accessible to children any refrigerator, icebox, or deep freeze locker having a capacity of one and one-half cubic feet or more, which is no longer in use, and which has not had the door removed or a portion of the latch mechanism removed to prevent latching or locking of the door, is guilty of a misdemeanor.

translation:
don't leave your fridge outside

Re:No lemon law in Minnesota

[Bitsy Boffin]

That means if you buy Bubble Bobble, open it, and realize it sucks, you can't exchange it for Phantasy Star Online.

That's a pretty bad example there, nobody can say Bubble Bobble sucks, not honestly.