How Steamed did you get...

[Thorondor]

I couple of years back I bought Half Life 2's Collector's Edition (metal tin, t-shirt included). Naturally, Steam was part of the deal and I signed in by creating a new account. What I found was a smooth operation, all downloads and updates with no problems whatsoever.

 

Skip forward to Episode One's release. I didn't buy it for myself but to give as part of a friend's birthday present. As it happens said friend was really caught up with work and couldn't spare any time for gaming in the next 6 or so months.

 

I got a call from him then saying the game wouldn't run for some reason, so I dropped by his place... Long story short the product registration system was saying the product had already been registered by another user. "Would ye be callin' me a pirate ye scurvy dog ?!!". Oh yes, that they be indeed.

 

Therefore, whomever ripped them off was carefreely playing the game while the original was now officially a dud in a plastic case on proud owner's shelf. Way to go Valve !

 

No happy ending for this particular story - but it's business as usual in the big sunny 3A title la-la land.

 

Fast forward to present day. I dust off my HL2 CE to take it for a spin down memory lane on my new machine and it's been a while so I don't remember my Steam account details anymore (user or pass).

 

After a couple of simple e-mails and automated responses I have now easily recovered all the info and the game runs beautifully on the freshly service-packed Vista x64 OS. Maybe they really only like Collector's Editions owners ?

 

::

 

So, FullAuto, it's really a mixed bag. I suppose the mishap with Episode One might not have happened if the game had been installed and registered right away, or maybe you'd have the very same problem because a pirate with a keygen beat you to it.

 

In my limited bittersweet experience, once you're in, the Steam service itself is good. Just make sure you're not the one left holding the door...

[FullAuto]

Duly noted, Thorondor, cheers. Harsh stuff.

[Gimli]

Uh, is that legal though? I would think you could take legal action.

[FullAuto]

You could probably challenge the decision in court, and your challenge would probably be successful, but the cost in time would be prohibitive (assuming you represented yourself, and didn't have to hire a lawyer, as they can be expensive). It would probably be cheaper to do a few hours overtime at work and just buy another copy of the game. Mind you, getting a birthday present and it not working because of an authentication system would be an absolute sickener.

[Gimli]

Hm, but this is USA we're talking about. Wouldn't you get a huge lump of money if you won? Or am I watching too many movies?

[FullAuto]

I think huge cash settlements are not quite as popular in real life as they are in fiction. If you won they could get ordered to pay your costs, plus obviously you'd have a working copy of the game and then damages on top of that, but this is sometimes a paltry sum.

 

OTOH, the judge/jury could see it as a company needing a firmly-smacked bottom and award a serious amount of money to the plaintiff to basically say "No! Bad company! Shitty customer service! Heel!"

[Zombie]

Hm, but this is USA we're talking about. Wouldn't you get a huge lump of money if you won? Or am I watching too many movies?

Depends on the fine print. Damages are usually limited to the product itself unless you can prove it somehow destroyed your computer or something.

 

Usually the game company's lawyers will know if a case is winnable or not. Going to trial costs them huge amounts of cash too, so if the case is small fry they will probably try to settle out of court first.

 

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

Settling out of court would be much more reasonable as far as I'm concerned...

 

::

 

...Minigun; your office; noon. Be there ! *formal introductory slam on Valve PR lowlife's cheek with powerglove*

[FullAuto]

Well, Steam usually works fine for me, there's been little trouble with it really.

 

However, on a dodgy connection, Steam won't connect, I can't play these games I've just bought, and I can't play offline because there's "no account information stored on this computer" despite the fact that I did tick that box when signing in ages ago.

 

So, all I can do is wait an indefinite amount of time until my connection improves, and then get to play my games.

 

This is why I don't like things like Steam. Nothing to do with the community and so on, I'm not interested in that, I only game with people I know. Privacy issues are mostly not that important, it's just gaming, and while it shouldn't be the norm, they're not listening in on my phone conversations.

 

It's to do with the fact that I paid the money to play the game, and I can't. Why didn't I just pirate the games, pay no money at all, and play them? It's bloody silly, and it's not even a major problem that's stopping me playing the game, it's something very, very minor.