Half-Life 2 for Sale? [Nov 13, 2004, 9:02 pm ET] – Share – Viewing Comments
Valve sends an explanation for why Half-Life 2 is not being activated at this
time in spite of the couple reports of it being available at retail already:
Half-Life 2 For Sale?
If you have purchased a copy of Half-Life 2, we are sorry you are still waiting to play. This is not Valve's choice. Vivendi is insisting that the game has not yet been released, and has threatened that Valve would be in violation of its contract if we activate the Half-Life 2 Steam authentication servers at this time.
Thanks for your patience and we will update you when we have more news to share.
First off, i like to make a point which is to be taken serious by the gaming industry. Valve has developed a method to prevent piracy before store/street date, which is very effective, you can't deny that.
Normal CD protections are inneffective against piracy, and don't prevent games from hitting the net early (e.g. doom3). And most CD protections harm the legit gamer instead of the pirate (you can't play without cd and are bothered with emulation blacklisting).
The facts just are, you can't prevent a game being pirated AFTER storedate, but you CAN prevent it before storedate.
Secondly, Vivendi is still hurting themselves by sticking to their contract with valve, gamers will still blame vivendi for keeping a game locked which could have been released 1 month ago (with steam only ofcourse).
But this is a broader picture, publishers in the game industry are like music publishers, they don't embrace new technologies, and see them as a threat instead as an opportunity.
I sincererly hope Valve (or any other game company) proves them wrong in the future.
Normal CD protections are inneffective against piracy, and don't prevent games from hitting the net early (e.g. doom3). And most CD protections harm the legit gamer instead of the pirate (you can't play without cd and are bothered with emulation blacklisting).
The facts just are, you can't prevent a game being pirated AFTER storedate, but you CAN prevent it before storedate.
Secondly, Vivendi is still hurting themselves by sticking to their contract with valve, gamers will still blame vivendi for keeping a game locked which could have been released 1 month ago (with steam only ofcourse).
But this is a broader picture, publishers in the game industry are like music publishers, they don't embrace new technologies, and see them as a threat instead as an opportunity.
I sincererly hope Valve (or any other game company) proves them wrong in the future.
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