Pirates Beware

[CSN NewsBot]

Update: There has been a more in-depth official word from Valve about the illegal accounts.



As previously noted, Valve has been monitoring a large group people who illegally downloaded Half-Life 2. This little crackdown on illegal users came full circle yesterday by a posting from Waldo on the Steampowered.com forums.

Yesterday, Valve disabled approximately 20,000 Steam accounts which had been used to try to access Half-Life 2 without purchasing it. The method used was extremely easy for Valve to trace and confirm, and so there is no question that the accounts disabled were used to try and illegally obtain Half-Life 2.



Accounts also may be closed due to fraudulent activity in an attempt to obtain additional products for your Steam Account. This includes Credit Card fraud, theft of accounts you do not own and using cracked versions of Valve games.



If you violate the Steam Subscriber agreement your account can be permanently disabled and you will lose any products registered to those accounts.



Also, a few myths floating around out there that need to be cleared up.



First, Valve did not put out any kind of fake key or fake warez or hack instructions to trap people. The hack came from the "community" as do they all.



Second, 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.

Kudos to Valve for catching those trying to pirate their software.

[wiReZ]

Yay, sucks for the pirates! Just buy the damn game! It's worth every penny.

[Jocky]

holy shit...20,000....amazing....i can barely count to threve

[bluemist]

cool, but more than likely all of those accounts were freshly made - sounds like they just wasted a ton of DB space.

[BeaMeR]

Way to go Valve.

[Zips]

bluemist wrote..

cool, but more than likely all of those accounts were freshly made - sounds like they just wasted a ton of DB space.

Amazingly, a handful of those who pirated later bought the game, or were waiting for it to arrive to their house and were still banned. Why? They had input that key because they were tired of waiting and then later bound their legit key to the same account.



They're quite deserving of the money loss if they're going to pirate the game like that. They should be so lucky they're not being prosecuted for theft.

[Gpig]

I bet 10,000 of those people managed to beat the game before getting banned.

[Zips]

Gpig wrote..

I bet 10,000 of those people managed to beat the game before getting banned.

Possibly. They're still banned however. That is, unlike most every other game out there who doesn't have any sort of system of checks and balances in place to prevent piracy. Plus those that bound their fake key to legit accounts also lost every other game they've owned. Quite fair.

[defuser]

The guys who got their accounts banned must be cursing at Valve right now.....serves them right.

[zeet]

Those who complain are ignorant (and I guess by definition blissful fools.

[-:Nighthawk:-]

Edited by [user="26841"] @ [time="1101196560"]

I'm going to go ahead and guess that the vast majority of those who would use a fake key would not be so stupid as to use it on their real account. Don't get me wrong... there are a few really stupid people out there who are that dumb, and most of them are probably on the Steampowered forums, but I'd guess that they're the minority.



So, I'm really not quite sure what this has accomplished. I don't believe that legally the EULA for Half-Life (the original) would allow for VALVe to disable a user's ability to play that game (or its mods) simply due to piracy of a separate VALVe title. I could be wrong, but I doubt it.



Still, what is legal and what is doable are two separate things. After all, who would take a case like that to court? Odds are you'd convict yourself of software piracy (and the massive fines that can entail) and what would you get out of it? Maybe they'd have to re-activate your account, at a $30 gain to you for not having to buy a new copy of Half-Life. So in the end, it's quite possible they can get away with an illegal act simply because no one affected could ever afford to take them to court.



I'm really curious about the details of this, though, as it doesn't seem like it'd really accomplish much, other than pissing off a bunch of software pirates. That's all fine and dandy, and it's VALVe's prerogative to do so, but somehow it just doesn't quite sit right with me. Maybe the whole "wielding lots of power via Steam" aspect or something, I dunno. Certainly makes me wary of buying a product from a company that feels it has the right to disable your ability to play that game, whether you've purchased it or not.



Isn't that how it goes, though? It's almost like the American government these days. We want the product (increased security) enough that we're willing to accept abuse of power (patriot act, etc) to get it. Now HL2 and Steam present a very similar situation, it would appear.



Flame away. :P

[Zips]

They stole the game, what the hell do you want them to do? Sit back and watch their work go up in smoke due to people pirating their game?



They're cutting back on piracy, copies of the game that they haven't earned money on. They're also discouraging further piracy of their game, and if anything more companies will see this and will probably adapt a similar method for detecting stolen games.



Their Steam account is disabled. If they're dumb enough to steal a game and bind it to a legit account, I do believe every right is given to ban the other games due to the fact that once you buy HL2 and install it, you get a new ID, thus making your old games fall under the new EULA.

[Mercenary13]

just a scare tactic

[-:Nighthawk:-]

You cannot change the EULA for an existing product, Zips. People have purchased it on a set agreement, and changing the terms of that agreement after said moneys have been spent is clearly illegal.



How are people pirating the game? Through a CD key that VALVe themselves leaked intentionally? That's like leaving the doors to your warehouse open, littering invitations around the slums inviting people to steal your goods, and then shooting the people as they walk out. Sure, there's a certain vindictive appeal to it all, I suppose, but that doesn't change the fact that Steam itself was supposed to eliminate the ability to pirate this software in the first place.



So which is it? If only legal keys were out there, and online authentication was required, how could you possibly pirate the game? All this seems like is an attempt to strike back at a community of people that VALVe employees (as well as other game makers) do not like, rather than a self-protection device.



Or perhaps you're a fan of the saying "the best defense is a good offense" and your favorite words in the bible are smiting, vengeance, wrath, and winepress. :)

[-:Nighthawk:-]

There are times where I miss being a moderator here. I really hate that guy, you know? Just a general asshole, and we all know it. Sort of like disabled and gary were from years past. Ah well, what would comments be without trolls?