Your friendly neighborhood steam Created 13 years ago2011-03-10 04:01:47 UTC by 2muchvideogames

secondary forum thread
This is old news, but I just thought it was a bit too overboard how valve cuts its consumer count just like that. (Shows they have no shortage of customers.) Makes me uncomfortable how access to all our paid games are completely in their control. Also weird was why they would "bait" people like that only to skewer them later. This reminds me of a court case where police suspect that an old man was into child pornography so they (the police) kept sending him child porn advertisements over and over until he ordered some. They they arrest the old man for purchasing child porn (illegal).

Maybe I should go back to WON. No multiplayer, so be it.

Corporations tend to be dumb. That said, I must side with the commenters in that page. If you download a pirate copy of a game and connect it to its official servers, then you are even dumber. It's like stealing a car then heading off straight to a police department or its insurance company's hq then start hitting the horn like mad.

Whenever I, eh... acquire a game of dubious legality, I do everything in my power to make sure it doesn't call home, exactly so this shit doesn't happen. If I want to test it, fine, but I'm not going to parade around their offices waving my not-too-legal copy at them.

That said, I also am reluctant to spend money in various systems (Steam, Skype or others) having read accounts of perfectly legal users that were permanently blocked from access with no apparent valid reason.

Depending on how you look at it, it's sort of a gray area sometimes.

You can't use an example that is almost seven years old as evidence of anything. 'Sides, those dirty pirates got what they deserved. If I was in that position, I wouldn't hesitate to ban as many accounts as necessary.

Pirate HL2 -> burn in hell (and get banned from Steam!)

You have to be dumb to try cracking steam or whatever some try to do, when you have paid for games on it.

Oh, remember the restaurant thing from the other thread?( forgot its name, it was a discussion here a week ago or when...)

Well, if you buy a big piece of cake, give the money before(remember in restaurants you pay after you eat), and the piece of cake turns out to be a piece of shit, how do you react?

I don't pirate games and in the 8 years I've been using Steam it's be an exemplary service.
In what way are they baiting people? By not having a demo of HL2? That's hardly demanding people use an illegal key to try to play the game for free.

Been banned from Steam? Just log in to Gabe Newell's account. He has every game on the Steam Market ready to install and play.

Username: gaben@valvesoftware.com
Password: MoolyFTW

I only buy games exclusive to Steam on Steam (and I only use Steam to play those games) because I want to keep playing even after they shut down Steam's servers. It will happen. Companies die all the time.

I think Valve are pretty safe in those terms for the foreseeable future

I believe so as well. It's the unforeseeable future I'm thinking of.

I've always wondered, what the heck does WON stand for?

Exactly Potatis. Remember back in about 2003 when some DRM servers shut down and left millions without their legally-paid-for music?

I don't criticise Valve's actions here (and the posts in the linked forum are largely in agreement), but there is something to be said about Valve controlling the way our games are played.

I know Valve have stated in the past that in the event Steam goes belly up, they'd ensure that people would be allowed to play the games they own, but the lack of such a system at the moment is a little worrying. As well as that, being banned and losing access to games you paid money for just isn't on: it'd be like being banned from a bar and as a result, you can never drink alcohol ever again. Well, maybe not, but still.

I'd hate if I were banned for something silly: I have nearly 200 games on Steam that probably amounts to thousands of dollars worth of content and I don't think that Valve should have the right to throw all that down the drain. Users should be banned, but they shouldn't lose what they've bought: they should lose the extra privileges that using Steam brings with it (unified update system, friends network, multiplayer gaming, bonuses, etc).

I use GOG as well as Steam, just not as majorly because their catalogue isn't as appealing as Steam's. While they don't have the same feature set as Steam, their approach for game acquisition is very sound: you download a completely DRM-free, patched executable setup file. Install it on as many computers as you want. I'm not saying that Valve needs to do exactly this, but they really should start considering what potential negative effects Steam has, considering the kind of digital distribution juggernaut it is.

Yup, I fully support this move.

Remember the other conversation about piracy? Well there you go.

I don't see how valves actions are not illegal. If they paid for the rights of any other games they had on their accounts, then surely valve doesn't have the right to take them away because you almost broke the law. Anyway, has anyone actually read valves terms and conditions? I know I haven't.

I had a sudden thought..

Can a steam account, being run offline.. be ran on two separate computers at once.. and let the people on those computers play in the same lan game?

because, that sounds tits.

more to topic, fukk steam... but at least it isn't won.

Valve's terms and conditions state that you're using a service with Steam: technically, the concept of 'purchasing a product' is somewhat hazy with regards to the platform.

Valve have stated multiple times that they have the ability to remove all DRM from Steam games if Steam ever dies. I don't see any reason why they wouldn't do this. However I would bet quite a bit on Valve and Steam sticking around for a very long time.

Personally I trust Valve and the Steam system completely.

If over a decade of network-capable games and gaming systems have taught us, is that depending exclusively on any kind of online service instead of offering generic connectivity (LAN or direct IPX) is a stupid idea.

Think of it:
WON - gone.
GameSpy - gone.
Microsoft Gaming Zone - does it even exist anymore?

And who knows how many others I don't remember right now. It can happen to ANYONE. And we all know well that once they start going down they won't remember to set up the servers to "remove all DRM from Steam games". Even if they do, unless they do this way in advance, I highly doubt they'll keep the servers online enough time for ALL players to get online. There should be an alternative method.

What happens when you want to play one of these games in multiplayer mode, but can't because they don't offer LAN or direct IPX options, relying solely on online services? Once said services are gone, you end up completely unable to play multiplayer again. Reverse-engineering the game and setting up a custom ad-hoc server probably isn't as convenient as it sounds.

Valve is the PC version of Apple's App store. The only difference is, Valve refuses to go public (not sell on the NYSE), no interference from stockholders means they can run it into the ground or live forever.

Everything will be digital content within a few years anyways. 5 1/4 ->3.5->cd->dvd->skip blueray->digital content.

There is basically no overhead. Just some servers and support staff. No retail locations, physical product, sales people, nope they knew what they were doing when they created Steam not to long ago.

Because Mac's aren't PC's we all know.

Such horrendous misuse of apostrophes.

Because Mac is are not PC is we all know.

Yeah, I think I was thinking along what Ant said about how you can loose all your legitimate games due to having one illegal game due to the nature of the Steam software. Imagine if you stole one book illegally and I lock up your entire bookshelf. The Steam software has absolute control over your game rack, and if you lose one, you lose them all.

Mac bashing is seriously moronic. I really don't understand why people feel they need to bash a platform they have next to little experience in or use on a daily basis.

I'm with Pebs, mostly. I trust Valve and Steam, but it isn't the 100% 'perfect' solution.

Mac bashing is indeed moronic. You should be bashing everything Apple does.

cowers from Ant

Well, it is ironic that the company behind the 1984 commercial created the ipod, which is basically the technological embodiment of conformity.

As for steam, I know Valve is responsible; when they accidentally VAC banned a bunch of people due to a game bug, they not only restored the accounts, they gave them a free game as well. And, you know. This IS Valve we're talking about. It's not like they're going to start banning people for no reason or start releasing a half-baked HL game every year.

Yep. As long as the valve is opened, the water flows.

I actually lol'd at that.

Yeah, Jeff. Instead, they release half-baked Left 4 Dead sequels every year! And never say anything about Half-Life. Ever.

They'll never start releasing the half-baked Half-Life games as often as once a year. They like taking their time with the half-baked Half-Life games.