I’ve listed my objections over on the steam forums (now that they’re working).
On another note, I’ve seen a Halo beta (an old one, marked 1.5) running on a Radeon 9800. It looks amazing–one of the neatest effects is the bump-mapping on the floor casting shadows when a flashlight is turned on. And the gameplay looks great. I hope to see something at least as exciting for HL2 (and a change of policy for steam).
http://www.steampowered.com/news
As a side note, they appear to be acknowledging that the Steam release has been a big mess.
Question: wouldn’t it be illegal to require people to connect to the internet to use your game? You bought it, it works, and they have no right to stop you because of a third party factor. We could see a lawsuit forming from this. I don’t think those quasi-legal "user agreements will work, either.
Count me in as another user who was excited about getting HL2 but will put off buying it until I am sure that being online will not be required for a SP game. Also, I don’t want anyone downloading patches and upgrades to my machine unless I choose to.
Once those two issues are resolved to my satisfaction them I will by the game. I wonder if all this controversy will actually hurt HL2’s slaes for the first few weeks?
No. Not if they simple program the software to work that way.
Gabe’s been pretty quiet lately in regards to answering fans (hopefully that’s good news): still no further word on this.
That is, if they clearly disclose that on the box. Otherwise, it’s a classic bait and switch.
I’m betting that they change this policy.
Having a program authenticate itself is annoying, but hardly illegal, and not something they’d be required to put on a box.
But I’m still betting it was never policy in the first place, and Steampowered guys are just confused.
You need to read up on ‘First Sale’. Selling me something means I have the right to use it. Court cases have included wins for people who bought OEM bundles, then sold portions of the bundle separately (adding up to more than the original bundle’s cost). Buying means you own it. You can’t copy it and redistribute it, but if you bought it, you own it.
Denying my use of something I purchased is a new phenomenon and has yet to be challenged in the courts, but I suspect a jury trial would result in a pretty severe slap to a company that screwed the customer like this. Valve would be the perfect defendant to test it, or at least they don’t have the money to fight a case like MS does.
Certainly not clearly labeling the product that was legitimately purchased and remotely disabled would get me agitated enough to start legal action. It’s a trend that needs to be stopped. Does Valve want to be the test case?
Yes, but “use it” works out to be just what it says: use IT and not your unspoken hopes and dreams for what it should do and how it should work. As long as you can use it, even if it does require a net connection after you convert to Steam mode or whatever, then you won’t have any LEGAL basis on which to complain. Certainly you would from the standpoint of a gamer with a strong opinion about how games should work, but that’s neither here nor there.
It’s essentially no different than games which are designed to only be able to run with the cd in the drive: extra hassles simply don’t count, legally, as taking your game away from you, the owner.
Actually, they might. Its never been challenged in court, but copy protection may violate user’s rights to purchased material.
And I suppose you’re a lawyer who’s argued this in court?
:rolleyes:
Look, software has traditionally been one purchase, one install. Courts have ruled that you can actually install in more than one place as long as you’re not using both installations at the same time.
A company depriving me of the use of software unless I jump through additional hoops is IMHO flirting with lawsuits. Furthermore, as the TurboTax debacle has shown, consumers with a real choice will choose something else.
I still blame Broodwar for the failure of my CDROM drive. Requiring the CD be in the drive at least adds no new constraints to the sale. You have to have a CDROM drive to install the program.
As smiling bandit pointed out, copy prevention technologies may (IMO do) violate consumers rights. Specifically, you are allowed by law to make one archival copy of a digital work. But copy prevention explicitly deprives me of my legal rights. Historically, that’s been a good basis for lawsuits.
I’m stunned that you’re taking this remarkably anti-consumer stance on the issue.
But he has nothing to back that up other than his opinion. You don’t like copy protection. Okay: but what of it? You’re just making up legal principles and “rights” that simply don’t exist. I doubt he is even in a position to know whether it’s been challenged or not: for all we know, suits were brought, and they were quashed early on for lack of a valid legal rationale.
And I’m sure the MP enabled box of HL2 will include a net connection as part of the requirements.
I’m a Libertarian. I don’t see thing as “consumer” vs. “producer” and then decide that I am for one or the other. There are just two entities netogiating a trade. If one side doesn’t like what they are getting, they don’t have to be a party to the agreement. If one side feels like it was tricked after that fact, that’s bad, and they have a right to demand restitution if the claim is valid. But its nonsense to say that being offered a deal you knowingly don’t like and turning it down harms you in any way. Someone should be able to decide exactly under what conditions they are going to offer something, and the other party should be able to judge whether it’s worth it based on those terms.
If Valve makes it so going online transforms the SP game into a “net authentication required” game, I see that as stupid of them, but I can’t even begin to understand the twisted mindset that calls it evil or wrong. How has anyone harmed you by creating and offering for sale a game that doesn’t work the way you’d like it to?
In any case, I continue to be skeptical of the Steampowered claim, even moreso than before. Everything I’ve read about how HL2/Steam works suggests that you will, at most, need EITHER the cd in the drive (like with HL) OR net authentication to play SP (and only the net to play MP), not at any point does that change to Cd-in-drive no longer working to authenticate the SP game without needing a net connection. Gabe’s quote strongly implies that this is not the case (though not strongly or clearly enough for my tastes), and their discussed concept of steam basically working as if it were a virtual cd is similar (you can have as much or as little of the filesystem on you hd as you want, or have some of it be proactively replaced as anticipated by either steam or the cd: “Think of the CD as an alternative to your Internet connection for filling up your local cache. -Gabe”). They also mention that they travel with copies of HL2 on their laptops. So, I can’t guarantee it, but I still think that steampowered is likely confused or mistaken (those guys have been wrong about all sorts of things before)
Another ambiguous quote: “Steam replaces the existing Half-Life 1 authentication, update, server browsing, … components. If you don’t mind not playing multiplayer or getting updates, then not having an internet connection is fine.”
Also, to elaborate, I really don’t like the mindset that we need to use the power of the government to make it so that only certain kinds of trades are permitted. If a company wants to sell you something WITHOUT “digital archiving rights,” they should be able to do so. You might not be willing to buy it, and everyone would be less willing to buy it, since its worth less, lowering its market price, but there’s nothing wrong with the basic concept of “you get what you pay for.” This isn’t a legal opinion, just a moral one, and I felt I should state it since you are expressing yours.
Whoa there Tex. You just called me a liar. And that I will not stand.
As for the “first sale” case I was referring to, it was www.buycheapsoftware.com vs. Adobe. See here for one analysis of the case.
As for archival backups, see US Copyright Law. Specifically, Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 117, which reads in part:
Note paragraph (a)(2).
So where precisely am I making anything up? Up until this point, I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. Please take a step back and look at it from the buyer’s perspective. It’s not nice, and it may not be legal (I’m not saying that it definitely isn’t legal–especially the way congress seems to cave lately on any issue related to copyright whenever a company asks).
But of course that will be a lie. I’d be able to install and play the SP game without a net connection.
So how do you feel about copyright law? Isn’t that the government interfering with my purchase? If I make 1000 copies of the product, I have not taken anything from the publisher. The copyright owners whinge about hypothetically lost sales, but there is no material loss. I don’t know the Libertarian philosophy on intellectual property, but I know that current copyright law exists to balance the needs and rights of both the producer of IP and the consumer.
By the way, I’m not lumping all people into the ‘producer’ or ‘consumer’ bins. I don’t know where you got that. Valve is the producer in this case–or do you deny that? Buyers are the consumers–do you dispute that? The actions Valve are taking are decidedly against the consumer, treating him as a thief first, customer second. Hence anti-consumer. And you seem to have no problem with it. Is that because you’re not a consumer in this case, but rather an insider (that is, you profit along with the success with the producer)? I would think if you are associated with a Half-Life fan page, you’d be interested in a good balance between the interests of Valve and that of the gamers.
You hit it right on the head. If they clearly label this problem with the release, then buyer beware–big time. If they fraudulently hide the limitation on the retail box, then they deserve any lawsuit they get.
That is not a good business decision, and I believe increasingly consumers will reject being treated like this.
Good grief. It is ethically wrong to bait-and-switch. I am informed about this, and so I’m going to be fine, but if they don’t disclose it, they are deceiving buyers. If that is the case, it is evil and wrong. Since the steam distribution model was created to improve their revenue stream, and it makes unlicensed copying more of a problem, I find it unethical for them to push the additional burden of verifying my purchase onto me. They are the ones who have increased the chances of unlicensed copying. If I buy the retail game, and buy all the mods in the box, and only use Steam for patches and online games, I should be able to play the SP game just like I have for HL1. It is reasonable to verify my license when I play online, and it also benefits me (reduces cheating, etc.). Requiring the net authentication for SP play means the game will be unavailable to me sometimes because of Valve’s policy. That is arbitrary, and is hostile to me the gamer (hence, anti-consumer). I will not accept being treated like that, and hence will not fork over my money, no matter how good the game is.
Of course, I try to be consistent. If Valve backs away from this and changes the policy I will happily remove my objections.
I hope you’re right. I would like to play HL2, and in fact would like to work on a game idea I’ve had for a while as a mod (primarily because of the excellent physics in the game).
Copyright is a balance between copyright owners and the public at large, codified in law. It is a social contract–it doesn’t need to be in the law, but then anyone could copy a digital work if they could bypass any protections without the copyright owner having any legal recourse. The public accepts these artificial monopolies because of the benefit it provides to us (specifically, the publication of copyrighted work). Personally, I agree with you on this point. I think copyright should be eliminated, and IP producers (of which I am one) should fend for themselves. For musicians, etc. that likely means being sponsored by a wealthy individual for their music, or making their money in tours and never publishing CD’s.
You’re putting the cart before the horse. The law does not grant me the additional right of being able to archive digital work. The law grants exclusive right to the copyright holder to sell copies of the work. I have the God-given right to imitate/reverse-engineer/take apart/ do anything I want with anything I buy. Without copyright law, I could make as many copies as I wanted and the seller would have no recourse. If they used technical means to deprive me of that ability, I would have every right to defeat that technology (and given the fact that the crackers are winning now, I’m confident they’d win if there were no question about the legality of cracks).
I’ve cited legal analysis, actual copyright law, and stated my opinion on the matter. You’ve stated opinion, opinion, and (last but not least) opinion. I heartily suggest you think harder and more carefully about all the implications of copyright law, the balance it strikes between producers and consumers, and the social contract that it arises from.
The point comes exactly when you start claiming that anything you just cited is on point to the situation we were discussing.
No. That is the government enforcing the terms of sale that the creator demands before releasing something: enfocing contracts.
One side is offering a game, the other is offering cash. These are two goods for trade, and in both cases some productive activity was required to create the valued items being exchanged. The difference is irrelevant.
The actions they are allegedly taking are to make the program run a certain way. That’s neither for or against consumers. Consumers may or may not like the tradeoffs involved (less functionality often means a lower than-otherwise price).
You’re probably wrong, since the value of what they get still in most cases far outweighs what they pay, even with the limited functionality.
Requiring a key to start your car means your car will be unavailable if you lose your key. So what? What does a product limitation have to do with evil?
But, of course you won’t apologize for railing about how evil they are when it turns out you were misinformed. No, it will be that they wisely backed away from what your dogma holds as being a sin.
I’m looking deeper than that. I’m not talking about any sort of social benefit outcomes or whatever. I’m just saying that two parties should have the ability to make any sort of contract with any sort of special stipulations at all on the trade, period. And the party that breaks said contract should be liable.
The is no reason that contracts must recognize this imaginary right.
And none of it on point. Limited or conditional functionality does not “steal” the product away that the law recognizes.
:rolleyes:
Since they pretty much came out and said what they had planned, then we can hypthesize on the morality of its actually occuring, whether it is implemented or not. To take an extreme example, if Evil Dictator #1 endorses a plan to kill all the Poor Oppressed Peasants [type 3 peasants], we can suppose that Evil Dictator is, in fact, doing bad things.
It does if it breaks US law on the product.
Quite frankly, not a one of us gives a flying flip about your views on the morality of current US law. This a question of is it legal or not. If you want to debate the morality of STEAM, then perhaps you should understand that most people expect Valve to follow laws to consumer’s advantage.
Since we do need a method of starting said car, and a key serves well. Consumers demand keys, and they can legally make copies of them at will.
If the law says that car manufacturers cannot force you to take your car to them to get it started, and says you cannot have a backup key, and the car manufacturers do either of those things, it is a case of breaking the law.
I think - at least from my perspective - that the issue has to do with control. Lets keep the analogy on the computer where you play the game.
HL2 requires two items to work - your CD ROM drive and your internet connection. If my CD ROM drive doesn’t work, that is my problem and easy enough for me to fix (i.e replace). Totally under my control, if not inconvenient. If my internet connection is down - how much control do I have? Technically I have an alternative (i.e change ISPs), but is that reasonable?
I will hold my final judgement on Steam until I have no alternative but to install it (i.e WON taken down). In the meantime, I trust Valve will work hard on correcting issues. However, I have concerns as stopping by the Steam Forums, they have mentionned that they will delete any negative posts/threads about Steam. Admittedly, most of the complaint posts are stupid, poorly spelled, grammatically mangled rantings - but my immediate perception was that Valve is simply sticking their fingers in their ears saying “I don’t hear you!”
Now - for Apos and Alereon vs. emarkp and smiling bandit… How about we settle this with a Counter-Strike match! 1.5 of course 
… hey Apos … wanna burn me a CD with Steam/CS/Opposing Force/Blue Shift install on it ?.. 
The SteamPowered forum isn’t letting me post (it thinks my account hasn’t been verified, even though it has). Maybe someone here can answer my question.
I’m downloading the new version of the Steam Installer. Do I need to uninstall the old one before installing the new one? Or does it install correctly over the old one?
You rolled your eyes at me… but you and emarkp have STILL yet to cite a single law on point to cd authentication that we could even begin to compare to the situation with net authentication.
While true, this response isn’t on point to what I said (I’m noticing a trend here). The issue that you quoted is not whether we can discuss a hypothetical (we can and are), but whether that hypothetical is in fact true, or is rather a misconception. If it is, emarkp definately seemed like he wouldn’t be treating it as such: he’d pretend that it was some sort of vindication.
Pot calling the kettle black. You haven’t presented any evidence that cdauth for games is even legally questionable, yet that didn’t stop you and emarkp from saying you thought it should be illegal, and that it was evil. You can’t play that game and then object when I play right back.
What difference does consumer demand or preference make to the legal issue? This is the basic point that you seem to be missing: since when is it illegal to sell something you personally (and generalize to all consumers) don’t like? The point is, it’s authentication that limits access to the car. Some people may like that, some may not. But no one is forced to by a car.
Uninstall the old one entirely: but make sure to save the HL2 movies by moving them to another directory, because otherwise they will be erased (another bad step by their goofy install program).