Along with every other game you may have purchased and activatable only on your account.

While having HL2 activate this way may seem like no big deal to people, I hope this doesn't set some sort of wheel turning where things get more and more out of your control and into the control of these companies.

Why would they need to do this to the single player game? What if someone years from now wants to set up an old PC and play the "old" games and valve is not around. You can't. And if more and more games do this, and it's inevitable some companies will go belly up.. your game is worthless.

I really think this crosses a line and may just be the beginning.

i think the point is that valve doesn't want you to resell your copy of HL2 if you get bored with it. They see ebay as the enemy.

Which is lame. I don't care for spending the exact same amount as any other new game (ok actually a little bit more) and receiving so much less. Every other game you're buying the game. Here you're just buying a license that you're not allowed to resell or do anything with. Half Life 2 was fun, but quite frankly I could live without my Steam account now that' I've beaten it. But no, can't resell. Lame beyond belief.

Can you change your password to something that's not similar to your other online acounts and just agree to pass that on with the game? Or is it tied to your email address? If that's the case, you could always sign up to games using some free yahoo account called [email protected] or something, if you think you're going to want to resell it eventually.

And I guess EB Games won't be buying Half Life 2 or selling used copies? Sucks.

In truth, there are ways to sell you account. If you have friends who want it, you can switch over and make necesary changes. But it's a bit ridiculous that I'm not allowed to sell my Steam account say on ebay. I purchased it legally and would make the transfer over accordingly. But Steam expressly prohibits it. From the www.steampowered.com forums:

"There are a number of people selling Steam Accounts (HL2, Bronze, Silver, Gold) on EBay. DO NOT PURCHASE THEM:

1. It is against our EULA to sell Steam Accounts
2. They are either Stolen accounts or opened with stolen credit cards.
3. The accounts will be closed and we have been informed that PayPal / EBay will *NOT* help since no merchandise physically changed hands."

Point 2 is completely stupid, as it assumes that no person who is selling their account is legitimate. I don't even need to explain why that's incorrect. Nonetheless, it's prohibitive to a degree that I don't care to involve myself with again.

i have no idea what steam is. it sounds like some sort of content system, but if this is the case does that mean you can't play the game at all if you don't have an Internet connection? you wouldn't even be able to play single player with no Internet connection?

if that is the case that you can't play the single player version with no Internet connection, I could see a law-suite comming into their near future. it isn't fair or legal to do this in any EULA. if the game was something like world of warcraft or everquest that would be different. but for SINGLE player that is screwed.

What are you talking about? If someone doesn't have the capacity to play Half Life 2, they don't have to buy it. I don't see how Valve is breaking the law here.

i looked at a HL2 box in the store over the weekend and it says internet connection required. they can do it and there is no law that says they can't. you have the freedom not to buy it.

STEAM is their content management system. It's an online authorization system where you are required to register any Valve game you buy that supports it. If you break the rules they take away your license and you have a bunch of useless bits on your hard drive taking up space.

The capacity to play it? That's not what he said. He is asking if you need an internet connection to play Half Life 2's SINGLE PLAYER game.

That's not a capacity to PLAY. It's a capacity to REGISTER the game you bought.

Again, I do not like this precedent... the amount of control and loss of it that you, the user, have. Again.. this ONE game doing it is not the end of the world, but if other companies see it as working, then they will follow suit. Then, as I've said in other posts, if one of those companies goes belly up or decides they don't want their game played any longer, then you are out of luck and have a nice coaster of a game.

Just because this ONE game is not causing problems, just think ahead if they all do it.

stuff like this is normal in some corporate software like BEA Weblogic. Too bad it's filtering into consumer software

I agree, they're not breaking the law. What they are doing is alienating customers and creating bloatware that will keep many potential customers away. That's their right, but considering the high quality of their games I wish they wouldn't shove this other crap down everyone's throats.

I haven't seen any figures indicating poor sales for Half-Life 2.

Considering the high quality of their games, I think they will get away with this without consumers caring much. Not a move I really like (or dislike), but I can sure see why they did it.

90% of people on slashdot and some other sites ranted against this. Then they went out and bought the game.

It's true they can do it. I understand why, and lots of it is a very good idea. Online delivery is a great idea, and if the system was a little more user friendly and less prohibitive, I'd be all for it. My only point is that I won't buy again through the system if it remains the same. It will alienate some users, but more than likely this won't hurt their sales much, at least not for a game like this. I don't expect it to change drastically, but I know my preference when i spend my money. I rarely buy games new at full price, and without the option to resell legally I won't be doing it again.

They want to stop you from re-selling your game once you're bored with it? WTF? Is this 1980's Japan or something? That's un-American. To hell with 'em. Time to hit up the NG service.