24th October 2007, 2:29 PM
http://www.consumerist.com/consumer/drm/...314690.php
Pretext: No I'm not personally affected. However, eternal vigilance and loud shouting is the only way anything ever gets changed. Enough people over react and make a big stink about this, Valve will listen. With that, onto my complaining. It is not just acceptable, but NECESSARY.
Now this is idiotic. I can understand Valve wanting, for some odd reason that I never understood but is industry standard, to control where their games are released and how easily people in certain territories can buy them. In this case though, it's TOO LATE. They already OWN the game. That said and done, you can't just shut them out. You want to sell this as a viable alternative to buying a non-steam activated game? Better play ball and let people, no matter where they bought it or what IP range they are using it in, have full access to the thing. No turning off games people paid for. You know what this does to your bottom line? Boycotts (and they are already starting, in the small numbers that always happen with these things), refunds, and of course, with that odd glitch, people won't buy the legit copies. On top of all that though, you get people who suddenly have to turn to the piracy world just to get their legitimate games running. It's Bioshock all over again.
Look, I know you have some odd controls you want, but you have to understand that no matter how cleverly you word your "contracts", that's not what people actually think is going on. By and large, the public thinks they own a game, and let me tell you, in my opinion, that's ENOUGH right there. They pretty much DO own it. You can't just do all sorts of unethical nonsense and hide behind "but they pushed a button". Yeah, a button they didn't even know they had to push until they opened the box and installed the game. "Hidden" software contracts will get their day in court of being held invalid. There's a precedent, and that's the old days of "by opening this box you give your agreement" contracts of older PC games. There's a reason they stopped using those.
This nonsense seriously has to stop, and here's the first step. Turn those games back on! For all intents and purposes, you know you owe them and it's their game.
Pretext: No I'm not personally affected. However, eternal vigilance and loud shouting is the only way anything ever gets changed. Enough people over react and make a big stink about this, Valve will listen. With that, onto my complaining. It is not just acceptable, but NECESSARY.
Now this is idiotic. I can understand Valve wanting, for some odd reason that I never understood but is industry standard, to control where their games are released and how easily people in certain territories can buy them. In this case though, it's TOO LATE. They already OWN the game. That said and done, you can't just shut them out. You want to sell this as a viable alternative to buying a non-steam activated game? Better play ball and let people, no matter where they bought it or what IP range they are using it in, have full access to the thing. No turning off games people paid for. You know what this does to your bottom line? Boycotts (and they are already starting, in the small numbers that always happen with these things), refunds, and of course, with that odd glitch, people won't buy the legit copies. On top of all that though, you get people who suddenly have to turn to the piracy world just to get their legitimate games running. It's Bioshock all over again.
Look, I know you have some odd controls you want, but you have to understand that no matter how cleverly you word your "contracts", that's not what people actually think is going on. By and large, the public thinks they own a game, and let me tell you, in my opinion, that's ENOUGH right there. They pretty much DO own it. You can't just do all sorts of unethical nonsense and hide behind "but they pushed a button". Yeah, a button they didn't even know they had to push until they opened the box and installed the game. "Hidden" software contracts will get their day in court of being held invalid. There's a precedent, and that's the old days of "by opening this box you give your agreement" contracts of older PC games. There's a reason they stopped using those.
This nonsense seriously has to stop, and here's the first step. Turn those games back on! For all intents and purposes, you know you owe them and it's their game.