Good god. So Half-Life comes out tuesday, and they're still having problems. Best Buy released the game early...well, today. They didn't have a release date in the system so they put it on the shelves, so pictures of people with their game and the contents of the box have already popped up. Here's the kicker. Valve has tied the game into Steam, an online platform that digitally streams Valve's games to you. I purchased my version through Steam like 13 years ago or something. (or maybe 2 years...) So people with the boxed game, the 5 CDs it contains, and their registration codes...can't play the game until the developers unlock it through Steam. So the poor bastards have to wait anyway until tuesday.

I'm trying to put myself in their shoes. The retailers like Best Buy have the game marked all the way up to $60 and $70 just because of the popularity, much like Doom3. The poor person buys the game thinking they're getting a treat because it's 5 days early - and then they can't play.

Granted I've had a digitally downloaded copy for months because of my Steam account that I've had for ages, but it's been advertized since the beginning that we cannot play until they unlock it...but we'll have all the game files ready when the do. But I feel the boxed version is diffferent. Every game should work out of the box. It's like buying a TV that won't work until January.

At any rate, for those anticipating Half-Life 2, maybe we'll get lucky and have an early release, because Valve can't ignore all the people who have physycal, legitimate copies of a game they can't play.

-Sol

Well, hopefully forcing everyone to register through Steam will derail the piracy train. I'm about sick and tired of how everytime a new big PC game so many people pirate it. Software's moving towards this direction. Making people pay for licenses to use a piece of software instead of just buying CD's is definetly the first step is stopping all the damn piracy. I don't really blame Valve because Best Buy shouldn't have been breaking their release date in the first place, and Valve shouldn't have to change their own activation date just because somebody not directly affiliated with them screwed up. I think by the time of this Half-Life 2 is playable so I hope you're having fun Sol . Be sure to tell us all about it. Maybe you can convince me to reinstall Windows and to get it. :-)

From what I hear, the copy protection has already been broken.

I have no idea about the copy protection, but if you actually have to register on Steam to play the game, then a copy won't do you any good unless you've bought a CD key. And those aren't really copyable to my knowledge. Or have that actually broken Steam's authentication system?

I mean there are ways of getting around it. It was inevitable, really.

Ouch...read this morning that Valve canned 20,000 accounts on steam of people who had tried to crack the game's anti-piracy protection. More power to them - I agree fully with Dark_Glaive - the piracy thing is only hurting the talented people who make such a game. But damn...I somehow feel the 20,000 accounts is a little harsh. Gah! Morals!

-Sol