It happened to me. 
No authentication system is perfect, and I doubt they’ve developed a system that can’t be cracked; it’s really just a matter of time until the system is circumvented. That’s not to say they shouldn’t dare attempt to stifle privacy, but they will affect honest customers, and it will become a problem if the ratio of affected to unaffected customers gets high.
… and if they crack down harder on piracy in these indirect ways, that will likely happen.
Well, as i’ve said, i don’t have the game and can only go on what i’ve read on the Steam forums and elsewhere, but there appear to be plenty of seams in this “seamless” project. I’m just a little surprised at how badly prepared they are, given that it apparently took them the better part of six years to release this game.
An unusual upshot of Steam:
So I bought a used copy of Half-Life: Blue Shift at EBGames for five bucks. Never was a huge fan of Half-Life, but hell, it was only five bucks. Couldn’t get it running right, so the CD goes into a forgotten corner of a desk drawer.
Fast forward a few months, when Transgaming announces Cedega and its full compatibility with something called Steam. I figure it’s a pretty nifty concept, so I give it a whirl. Everything’s going fine until it asks me for a CD-key. “Crap”, I think as I rummage around for the Blue Shift disc case. I find it, type in the key and voila: I can play Half-Life, Day of Defeat, Counter-Strike, TFC, Opposing Force, and other games. Granted, I can’t play CS: CZ or Source or HL2, but I don’t think this machine could handle it very well
I have an internet linked notebook. I wouldn’t download anyway, it’s just a scream of frustration. Many will but I guess the system will cut piracy overall. I just don’t have to put up with the intrusiveness of it all. There are plenty of other good games for my limited game time.
But that was because someone had litterally opened up the box and taken the “product” out of it already. 
True, but then again, not true. The system they are using is account based rather than CD-key security based. That means it is as least as secure as things like your email, your credit card, and so on. Sure someone could get your email password, or even your straight dope password, and play as you. But it’s FAR FAR less likely than someone keygenning your account away from you. And it also creates a lasting identity in the Steam network so that if you abuse peoples servers, cheat, Dos, or fuck with people, you can be identified and VAC banned for a period (i.e., any servers that voluntarily enable VAC will refuse your login)
As I said, Steam makes sense as an IDEA. That doesn’t mean the execution has been perfect, and unfortunately for Valve, it hasn’t been. They can’t have wanted that, and they certainly are going to bust their butts to try and fix it.
Steam hasn’t been under development for 6 years, Half-life 2 has. And considering that the system was treated to an unprecedented degree of usage as well as DoS attacks, and still managed to function most of the time, albiet slowly, is still fairly impressive. I wouldn’t be surprised if they handled well over a million people last Tuesday when the clock struck 12:01am, and most people who had it pre-loaded did indeed get to play right away (though they really DO need to speed up the decryption process, which takes way too long, but then that’s not really a function of Steam at all, just a function of decryption).
From what I read on halflife2.net it’s not just a “net connection”, it’s a net connection with the proper ports open. There were numerous compliaints in their forums from college students who can’t connect even over boradband because so many, many ports are shut off by system Admins to try to stop evil hackers and worms and so forth. Some ISPs block the ports needed by default, and you can bet a lot of corporate environments do as well (not that most need to be playing games at work, but some people can do, and with permission).
The massive problem of ports being voluntarily closed off is a huge one which actually impacts my work - I’ve lost hundreds of thousands of dollars of work because one company simply would not open a single TCP port that was needed - and I doubt very highly that a University which has closed off a port will re-open it because students want to play a game.
This is once again nothing new, and anyone who has had their eyes open about the state of the Net in the last 2 or 3 years should have realized that using non-standard ports was going to shaft people. On halflife2.net they’re trying to walk people through downloading and using http tunneling software as a workaround to try to play the game - something Valve should have thought of and used themselves, rather than forcing their paying customers to jump through hoops.
Again, a serious problem, but not one inherent to the idea. Valve is already trying to find workarounds for these people in addition to updating steam to try and give the authentication an alternate port avenue.
Oh, well. Guess I’m taking this off my wish list, due to my internet pc being a lowly 300 mhz machine from 1997…
The price of mass-piracy I suppose.
Doom 3 won’t let you play if you have certain programs installed, like Daemon Tools. Sims 2 won’t run if you have Nero CD Burner installed. This is one of the reasons I prefer pick up and play console games.
Which is why Steam is a better solution. Far from having to care about cd copying and piracy, they can even include options to prepare your game content files for burning right in their own programs and encourage you to make as many backup or transport copies as you want.
And geez, you think there’s no console piracy and insane scemes to stop it? Why do you think consoles are the way they are in the first place? Do you know how expensive and restrictive consoles are, all in order to prevent piracy and unliscensed games.
HL2 required me to uninstall Alcohol 120% since I had it’s Virtual CD Device installed (I image my legit games so I don’t end up using the CD and store them on my huge 300G storage drive, install from there).
Once I installed the crack, I tossed A120% back on and I’m happy again.
You must have had the Vivendi retail version then, because there was never any such nonsense with the Steam version.
Hmmm, I didn’t notice?
I think the whole idea is a bit flawed but the blame rests heavily on many people on this forum.
Until we start recognizing and vigorously punishing cracking, hacking, and piracy as the true crimes they are this will not stop. Eventually I hope to see crackers and software pirates fined back into the stone ages where they will be using old government issued 486 computers that can’t connect to the internet because living in the projects in Clinton one can’t find any reliable internet connection.
I tend to think crimes like this are unstoppable, like most crimes are unstoppable, it just takes the will to do it and a disregard for the consequences. The problem with software crimes is the consequences are miniscule and rarely ever happen. Hopefully some day we will have systems in place that can track down and punish malicious perpetrators of these crimes with a fairly high degree of success.
They are not telling the truth. Go back to them and say you want a refund as it is ‘Not Fit For The Purpose’, and if they still refuse, ring up Trading Standards on the spot (you do have a mobile, don’t you?).
IANAL etc.
WTF?
As far as i can tell, everyone in this forum who is playing HL2 has purchased it legitimately.
Interesting.
In your first paragraph you say that we need to “start recognizing and vigorously punishing cracking, hacking, and piracy” as true crimes (as if this hasn’t happened already), and then you say that crimes like this are unstoppable. Well, if they are unstoppable, then presumably recognizing and punishing them won’t make much difference, especially when much of this crime goes on beyond the reach of Western law enforcement.
Just out of interest, what evidence do you have that the consequences for software crimes are minimal? And i don’t mean copying someone else’s CD; i mean for the people who actually do the hacking and cracking in the first place. What happens when (if) these people get caught?
This thread alone has paid for my subscription to this site. I can now take the $50 I otherwise would have spent on HL2 and buy a set of DVD’s instead; say maybe La Femme Nikita Season 1 or Challenge of the Superfriends (which is the only season of the Superfreinds still watchable as an adult, and one way to get by until season sets of Justice League are released).
The cool thing about Superfriends DVD’s is that I can pop them into my computer and enjoy them right away; there’s no need to authenticate them before I can watch them.
Or maybe some comic books. You can get a good set on eBay for $50, and they also have the advantage of not needing external authentication after you’ve already bought them.