Which of these are piracy in your opinion?

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

Wow answered no to all of them. The main problem is that companies believe you are paying for a license to play the game and not actually paying for the game.

 

[novasatori]

Originally posted by: ChAoTiCpInOy
Wow answered no to all of them. The main problem is that companies believe you are paying for a license to play the game and not actually paying for the game.

the more shocking thing is how many people eat it up and are willing to accept they're just purchasing a license

 

[dguy6789]

It's pretty crazy really. Game companies seem to think they have the authority to dictate to you all kinds of rules concerning how you can use your purchase while constantly trying to remind you that you have to follow these rules because you didn't purchase anything but "permission" to use the object. Imagine if a refrigerator manufacturer gave you a list of regulations saying things like you can't resell it, you can't take it apart and use those parts for other things, you can only use it in a certain room in your house, you can only get it fixed by people they approve, etc... People would be laughing.

 

[PieIsAwesome]

Voted no for all except the multiplatform one.

Don't see anything wrong with borrowing a steam account, as long as the offline mode isn't abused. The same, as say, borrowing a console game from someone. I have completed games I have never purchased before after borrowing from friends, and they have done the same when I lend them my games, meh.

 

[Madaz]

Originally posted by: dguy6789

Edit: I'm a bit surprised by the Steam votes so far. I understand that it is against Steam rules to let someone use your account, but that's not what I'm asking. I don't see how letting someone use your Steam account is in any way different from letting someone borrow a group of games.

you give a friend with a sweet internet conection access to your steam account, they press the oh fuck me ive lost everything buttons please download it all to my computer. they then play in offline mode, Bam piracy.

no matter how you justify it its stealing. you wouldnt steal a packet of juicy fruit even if your mouth tasted like the arse of a syphalitic whore, so why steal games music movies etc. you wouldnt steal the physical media from the shop even if mr magoo was the security guard and there were no cameras. people steal because its easy and because you dont take a physical object, just some 1's and 0's it seems harmless.

ps i say you as in people generally not you as in the OP or any particular psoters on this forum.

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: dguy6789
It's pretty crazy really. Game companies seem to think they have the authority to dictate to you all kinds of rules concerning how you can use your purchase while constantly trying to remind you that you have to follow these rules because you didn't purchase anything but "permission" to use the object. Imagine if a refrigerator manufacturer gave you a list of regulations saying things like you can't resell it, you can't take it apart and use those parts for other things, you can only use it in a certain room in your house, you can only get it fixed by people they approve, etc... People would be laughing.

I agree with this. Somewhere along the line EULA became synonymous with "law", when it's not the case. The reason they can get away with this crap is because they are "just games". Image if MS tried to pull some of the same crap as Valve.

Case in point, I bought a Steam game off of ebay and turned out to be fraud... Ok, fair enough, I got screwed and I should have seen it coming. ...my bad... However, Valve took it upon themselves to kill my entire steam account. This includes every game I bought on Steam since HL2 came out. They've got the records that all the other purchases were legit, and they cleared AMEX years ago. This list of games included:

HL2
HL2 EP1
HL2 EP2
TF2
Portal
Assassin's Creed
Bioshock
GRID
Messiah of Might and Magic
Crysis Warhead
(I'm sure a few others I forgot)

Now say you bought Office 2007 from someone on ebay, and it happens to fail WGA because you got ripped off... Do you think MS would even think about revoking the Windows key in use on your machine? Of course not - they've they get sued to all hell and back. EA, Valve, SecuROM, etc. can get away with it because they are "just games", and most people don't realize what a huge industry games are.

 

[dguy6789]

Originally posted by: Madaz

Originally posted by: dguy6789

Edit: I'm a bit surprised by the Steam votes so far. I understand that it is against Steam rules to let someone use your account, but that's not what I'm asking. I don't see how letting someone use your Steam account is in any way different from letting someone borrow a group of games.

you give a friend with a sweet internet conection access to your steam account, they press the oh fuck me ive lost everything buttons please download it all to my computer. they then play in offline mode, Bam piracy.

no matter how you justify it its stealing. you wouldnt steal a packet of juicy fruit even if your mouth tasted like the arse of a syphalitic whore, so why steal games music movies etc. you wouldnt steal the physical media from the shop even if mr magoo was the security guard and there were no cameras. people steal because its easy and because you dont take a physical object, just some 1's and 0's it seems harmless.

ps i say you as in people generally not you as in the OP or any particular psoters on this forum.

While it's technically possible for someone to use Steam offline while another friend uses it offline(which is definitely piracy), they also might not. Is it piracy if they use Steam the proper way and only one person can use the account at a time? I don't think it's fair to assume everyone will try and beat or cheat the system, especially when all it does is inconvenience honest, paying customers. The real pirates will go ahead and download and play whatever they want anyway.

 

[Spike]

Originally posted by: Madaz

Originally posted by: dguy6789

Edit: I'm a bit surprised by the Steam votes so far. I understand that it is against Steam rules to let someone use your account, but that's not what I'm asking. I don't see how letting someone use your Steam account is in any way different from letting someone borrow a group of games.

you give a friend with a sweet internet conection access to your steam account, they press the oh fuck me ive lost everything buttons please download it all to my computer. they then play in offline mode, Bam piracy.

no matter how you justify it its stealing. you wouldnt steal a packet of juicy fruit even if your mouth tasted like the arse of a syphalitic whore, so why steal games music movies etc. you wouldnt steal the physical media from the shop even if mr magoo was the security guard and there were no cameras. people steal because its easy and because you dont take a physical object, just some 1's and 0's it seems harmless.

ps i say you as in people generally not you as in the OP or any particular psoters on this forum.

This is an odd point... I personally have three steam accounts, one I always use and two I setup just for friends. I have all the lan games (CS:S, UT3, TF2, and L4D) on those accounts so that during lan parties not everyone has had to cough up money to buy them. Normally these people have steam and one or more of the games all-ready, they just may not have the one we are playing at the time. Since they only use it during lan parties and I change the passwords so they can't be used at other times I thought all was well. It did not even occur to me that they could, if they wanted, play in offline mode.

I'll have to think about this some more. Personally I'm still leaning towards the "its not piracy" when people are playing on my accounts online. I did pay for legal copies of all the games and the people I play with only use them for lan parties so...

 

[BFG10K]

Originally posted by: Modelworks

If it cost the company a sale then it is usually piracy. Not always, but a general way of deciding.

Uh, this is actually a terrible definition. By that metric, anyone that downloads games that never had an intention to buy them is not a pirate, because they?re not lost sales.

Likewise, second-hand sales would be piracy according to your definition, since the original company loses a sale.

A better definition of piracy would be the illegal use and distribution of games.

 

[BFG10K]

Originally posted by: nitromullet

Case in point, I bought a Steam game off of ebay and turned out to be fraud... Ok, fair enough, I got screwed and I should have seen it coming. ...my bad... However, Valve took it upon themselves to kill my entire steam account. This includes every game I bought on Steam since HL2 came out. They've got the records that all the other purchases were legit, and they cleared AMEX years ago. This list of games included:

HL2
HL2 EP1
HL2 EP2
TF2
Portal
Assassin's Creed
Bioshock
GRID
Messiah of Might and Magic
Crysis Warhead
(I'm sure a few others I forgot)

This is actually one of the best examples I?ve ever seen against Steam, and it highlights the DRM muscle Valve has which many people choose to bury their heads in the sand rather than admit.

Steam is far worse than SecuROM/Starforce/etc because none of those schemes can block multiple games from functioning from one central point. And the worst part is Valve can do it whenever they please with no contest, warning, or legitimate justification.

If you?ve paid for the games but you?re now being denied their use, that?s fraud and theft, and criminal charges should be laid against Valve.

 

[skace]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
This is actually one of the best examples I?ve ever seen against Steam, and it highlights the DRM muscle Valve has which many people choose to bury their heads in the sand rather than admit.

Steam is far worse than SecuROM/Starforce/etc because none of those schemes can block multiple games from functioning from one central point. And the worst part is Valve can do it whenever they please with no contest, warning, or legitimate justification.

If you?ve paid for the games but you?re now being denied their use, that?s fraud and theft, and criminal charges should be laid against Valve.

Steam is far worse than SecuROM/Starforce/etc if you are doing something wrong. The punishment is more grave, however outside of that aspect it's better in nearly every way. I feel bad for someone who bought some shit off ebay for like 5 cents and was hoping it would work, but I don't feel that bad, because honestly I think it's a fucking stupid thing to do.

I'm not saying what Valve did to nitromullet was right, however I'm also not saying that I believe anything he is saying either. I know if Valve banned my entire game list, which is over 200 games by now, I simply wouldn't be sitting around bitching about it on ATPC. I've got a lot of friends of Steam and none of them have ever, ever come to me and said "Hey Valve just banned my entire list of games!".

So let the criminal charges be laid against Valve and let's finally see what's what and who is telling the truth.

 

[Red Irish]

Who the hell voted that lending a game to a friend is piracy? Jesus, you people...

 

[novasatori]

Originally posted by: Red Irish
Who the hell voted that lending a game to a friend is piracy? Jesus, you people...

The EA employees?

Some of the responses seem they're made by people who work in the industry. People who want to protect the mutli billion dollar corporations more than they're worried about protecting their rights to do what they want with a $50 game from the multi billion dollar companies.

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: skace

Originally posted by: BFG10K
This is actually one of the best examples I?ve ever seen against Steam, and it highlights the DRM muscle Valve has which many people choose to bury their heads in the sand rather than admit.

Steam is far worse than SecuROM/Starforce/etc because none of those schemes can block multiple games from functioning from one central point. And the worst part is Valve can do it whenever they please with no contest, warning, or legitimate justification.

If you?ve paid for the games but you?re now being denied their use, that?s fraud and theft, and criminal charges should be laid against Valve.

Steam is far worse than SecuROM/Starforce/etc if you are doing something wrong. The punishment is more grave, however outside of that aspect it's better in nearly every way. I feel bad for someone who bought some shit off ebay for like 5 cents and was hoping it would work, but I don't feel that bad, because honestly I think it's a fucking stupid thing to do.

I'm not saying what Valve did to nitromullet was right, however I'm also not saying that I believe anything he is saying either. I know if Valve banned my entire game list, which is over 200 games by now, I simply wouldn't be sitting around bitching about it on ATPC. I've got a lot of friends of Steam and none of them have ever, ever come to me and said "Hey Valve just banned my entire list of games!".

So let the criminal charges be laid against Valve and let's finally see what's what and who is telling the truth.

First of all, since when was purchasing stuff off of eBay "something wrong"? Last time I checked, eBay was a legitimate company involved in running a legitimate auction site. I've sold a bunch of stuff to some very happy buyers on eBay over the years. Sure, there is fraud on eBay, but there are methods for dealing with fraud that don't have to screw over your legit customers. FWIW: the eBay seller actually refunded my money.

Second, what benefit would I gain by making a story like this up? I actually have been somewhat reluctant to ever mention it on AT because I kind of feel like a dumb ass for getting ripped off on eBay and then for linking the game I bought to my 'nitromullet' account.

Anyway, here ya go... Names have been removed to protect the innocent and guilty. As you can see, they didn't even try to work with me...

1 « Message by you on Fri, 20th Mar 2009 11:45 pm »
I have numerous games on this Steam account beginning with HL2 (from way back in 2003?), and all of a sudden my Steam account is disabled? I recently purchased a game on eBay (Fallout 3) from a seller with 100% feedback which turned out to be a Steam game, is this the issue? If Fallout 3 was purchased fraudulently and sold to me illegally, at least let me know. This way I can atempt to get my funds back and report this as fraud via eBay/PayPal. I certainly understand that Valve/Steam would not want to provide me with game that was obtrained illegally, but I would appreciate it if I could get my over 5yr old Steam account (which I've spent quite a bit of money on) re-instated minus Fallout 3.

2 « Message by you on Sat, 21st Mar 2009 11:56 pm »
I have added some additional information for your review.

1) Here is the feedback page of the seller I purchased Fallout 3 from (seller ID *********): ********************************** If you are not already aware of this individual, you can see from this page that my purchase is not an isolated incident.

2) I have also included a screen shot of the PayPal receipt for the same sale, which shows the PayPal account involved.

3) The following link was provided to me by the seller to activate and download the game: http://storefront.steampowered...redirect/?ackgiftpass=********************

I hope that this information helps in any fraud investigation on your end. I would also appreciate confirmation that the Fallout 3 key issued to me was in fact deemed fraudulent by Valve/Steam, as I would like to report the transaction as fraudulent to eBay and PayPal.

3 « Message by Charlie on Mon, 23rd Mar 2009 12:33 pm »
Hello *****,

Thank you for contacting Steam Support.

We have found activity in the Steam account related to acceptance of a gift that was purchased using a credit card that was reported stolen.

Per the Steam Subscriber Agreement, we have disabled the account and any games contained in it. The account will not be reactivated.

The Steam Subscriber Agreement can be found at:
http://www.steampowered.com/v/...a=subscriber_agreement

In addition to violation of contract, said activities on the account may violate state and federal law. Valve reserves the right to refer the matter to the appropriate authorities.

4 « Message by you on Mon, 23rd Mar 2009 12:58 pm »
Hello,

I can certainly appreciate that Valve desires to combat fraud, however, please understand that Valve is not the only victim in this issue.

The gift was legally purchased via ebay, which is a legal means of purchasing goods.
The account was associated with the auction is a verified PayPal account.
Finally, the game was accepted by Valve/Steam when I redeemed it.

At no point did PayPal, Ebay, or Valve flag this as fraud. Given that these entities with much greater ability to track and prevent fraud failed in their fraud detection, how was I supposed to know the transaction was fraudulent?

I am not asking for Valve to allow me to keep Fallout 3. This is fair, and I can accept that I made a mistake and was defrauded. Surely, Valve/Steam can see that I have been a long time customer (since 2003), and that while I am not immune to making mistakes and be defrauded to outright cancel my access to games that I have legally paid for is not really fair to me.

Regards

5 « Message by Charlie on Tue, 24th Mar 2009 8:25 am »
*****,

I am sorry, the account cannot be enabled.

6 « Message by you on Thu, 26th Mar 2009 3:09 pm »
This is a very disappointing and draconian response to fraud on Valve's part. Even Microsoft has a more lenient policy towards victims of fraud than Valve:

http://www.microsoft.com/resou...ll/reports/report.aspx

It appears that MS actually has an interest in researching and combating fraud, while Valve just wants to treat its customers like criminals because they got defrauded by someone else. Don't get me wrong, Valve makes great games and you guys deserve to get compensated for your work, but in this case you are simply adding insult to injury by not allowing me access to games purchased directly through Steam previously.

Just a few examples:

Your credit card has been charged as detailed below. This email message will serve as your receipt.
Product
Grid
Cost
$39.99
Tax
$3.60
Shipping
$0.00


Total
$43.59
Currency
U.S. Dollars
Credit card type
MasterCard
Card number

Confirmation Number

Date Confirmed
Sun Jul 20 13:52:06 2008

-----------------

Product
Assassin's Creed
Cost
$29.99
Tax
$2.70
Shipping
$0.00


Total
$32.69
Currency
U.S. Dollars
Credit card type
American Express
Card number

Confirmation Number

Date Confirmed
Sat Aug 16 15:25:44 2008

-----------


Product
Crysis: Warhead (NA)
Cost
$29.99 USD
Tax
$2.70 USD
Shipping
$0.00 USD


Total
$32.69 USD
Credit card type
American Express
Card number

Confirmation Number

Date Confirmed
Fri Sep 12 22:07:12 2008

7 « Message by Charlie on Fri, 27th Mar 2009 8:25 am »
******,

I am sorry, but you accepted a stolen gift from someone you did not know.

The account will remain disabled.

...btw... thanks for calling me a liar.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: Red Irish
Who the hell voted that lending a game to a friend is piracy? Jesus, you people...

Depends on the license agreement for the legal issue.

Taking the words piracy and copyright and livense agreement out of the issue, the basic result is that people make a product, you and your friend consume the product, and they either get paid for one or two copies. The more copies they get paid for, the better rewarded they are, and on average, the more games and better games will get made.

So apart from the legal, it comes down to the issue of whether they should get paid for one or two.

In the sense that they make and sell the product with the idea that it's priced for one person to consume the product, so your friend also consuming it - or several friends - would each pay for a copy in that arrangement. Otherwise, the pricing needs to increase to compensate for a 'one copy for multiple people' arrangement, and you end up paying for your friend to play, too. Though on a practical basis it doesn't quite work that way.

There's little controversy about lending your friend a book - the technology doesn't lend itself (yet) to 'copying the book'. But the same issues exist, and sometimes I'll suggest to a friend, even if I loan them a book, that they buy a copy too to support the author, even though it's not a legal issue.

Then again, I've even bought multiple copies of a game or book I really like to 'support the game maker'.

 

[mindcycle]

Originally posted by: nitromullet

7 « Message by Charlie on Fri, 27th Mar 2009 8:25 am »
******,

I am sorry, but you accepted a stolen gift from someone you did not know.

The account will remain disabled.

...btw... thanks for calling me a liar.

It's saddens me to read that. That's horrible horrible customer service. Situations like the one you described there is the main reason I don't purchase games from Steam if I can avoid it. I frequently buy games off eBay and have been defrauded once before (which wasn't for a game btw). But I've also bought hundereds of items, so once isn't that bad IMO but it's definitely a possibility.

Some indie games aren't available through retail means, so I do occasionally purchase through steam, but if I can get a boxed copy I always go for that first. That way even if they did disable my account I have the software and could apply a crack or something to get it working. I don't trust any company that can take away your legal purchases whenever they please.

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: mindcycle

Originally posted by: nitromullet

7 « Message by Charlie on Fri, 27th Mar 2009 8:25 am »
******,

I am sorry, but you accepted a stolen gift from someone you did not know.

The account will remain disabled.

...btw... thanks for calling me a liar.

It's saddens me to read that. That's horrible horrible customer service. Situations like the one you described there is the main reason I don't purchase games from Steam if I can avoid it. I frequently buy games off eBay and have been defrauded once before (which wasn't for a game btw). But I've also bought hundereds of items, so once isn't that bad IMO but it's definitely a possibility.

Some indie games aren't available through retail means, so I do occasionally purchase through steam, but if I can get a boxed copy I always go for that first. That way even if they did disable my account I have the software and could apply a crack or something to get it working. I don't trust any company that can take away your legal purchases whenever they please.

I actually have another Steam account, although I only use it when there are no other good alternatives (like Valve games). Valve does make awesome games, and I don't think I'd want to miss out on HL2 EP3 because some dude ripped us off. I also don't begrudge them trying to combat piracy. I guess my point was that Valve has the ability be very draconian with Steam.

The thing that really sort of rubbed me wrong was that they had a glaring opportunity to turn the experience around into a positive one for both me and them. They would have made a long time customer happy, and I've certainly learned to be a more careful with eBay. I probably would have become one of these Steam evangelists, and bought every game I could through Steam. As is it now though, I try to avoid Steam whenever possible.

 

[lxskllr]

Originally posted by: nitromullet

The thing that really sort of rubbed me wrong was that they had a glaring opportunity to turn the experience around into a positive one for both me and them. They would have made a long time customer happy, and I've certainly learned to be a more careful with eBay. I probably would have become one of these Steam evangelists, and bought every game I could through Steam. As is it now though, I try to avoid Steam whenever possible.

If that happened to me, not only would I not buy Valve games, I'd try to distribute as many cracked copies of their games to my friends as possible. They stole from you, so it's only right that you return the favor. Taking punitive damages into account, I'd say you'd be even with them once you deprive them of 110 sales(11 copies of each game they took from you at 10 games.)

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: lxskllr

Originally posted by: nitromullet

The thing that really sort of rubbed me wrong was that they had a glaring opportunity to turn the experience around into a positive one for both me and them. They would have made a long time customer happy, and I've certainly learned to be a more careful with eBay. I probably would have become one of these Steam evangelists, and bought every game I could through Steam. As is it now though, I try to avoid Steam whenever possible.

If that happened to me, not only would I not buy Valve games, I'd try to distribute as many cracked copies of their games to my friends as possible. They stole from you, so it's only right that you return the favor. Taking punitive damages into account, I'd say you'd be even with them once you deprive them of 110 sales(11 copies of each game they took from you at 10 games.)

10 eyes for an eye, eh?

 

[lxskllr]

Originally posted by: Craig234


10 eyes for an eye, eh?

I figured I was being VERY conservative, especially in the light of the MPAA, and RIAA's shenanigans. That's only $5,500 or so, which really isn't much to Valve, but it'll give nitro the satisfaction of "winning", and is a suitable punishment for Valve.

Edit:
You send an anonymous mail to Valve informing them of your actions for admittedly little benefit, but at least they'd know the how and why, and that's what really matters :^)

 

[BFG10K]

Originally posted by: skace

Steam is far worse than SecuROM/Starforce/etc if you are doing something wrong.

So using EBay is now ?wrong?? LMAO. But then you also think purchasing legit games internationally is also ?wrong?.

Not to mention that a single bad game doesn?t erase past legitimate transactions. If I unknowingly buy a pirated CD, should I expect my entire music library to stop working? How about my DVD collection?

The fact is, nitromullet paid for his games legitimately and if Valve won?t give him access, they need to be refunding his purchases, plus interest and compensation for wasting his time. By not refunding his purchases but denying him access, they have engaged in fraud and theft, and criminal charges need to be laid against that cabal.

The punishment is more grave, however outside of that aspect it's better in nearly every way.

Yeah?no. GoG.com is better in every way. It provides all of the advantages of digital distribution without any DRM. That means you own the games and can play them whenever and however you see fit.

I feel bad for someone who bought some shit off ebay for like 5 cents and was hoping it would work, but I don't feel that bad, because honestly I think it's a fucking stupid thing to do.

Yeah, from my last discussion with you I know you like to piss away your rights as a consumer and will gladly forfeit your rights to look for a good deal; but don?t attempt to pass that ideology around as the norm. Looking for a good deal is not ?fucking stupid?; it?s normal behavior for anyone that values their money.

I?d like to see what you?ll be saying when you lose access to your 200 games because some schmuck used a key-gen to get one of your keys, and Valve decided you were ?cheating?.

So let the criminal charges be laid against Valve and let's finally see what's what and who is telling the truth.

You have the evidence right in front of you. Again, based on those emails Valve should be refunding his past games. You can?t simply take money from legitimate transactions and then deny access to purchases without refunding that money. That?s a criminal offence.

 

[PieIsAwesome]

Originally posted by: nitromullet

Originally posted by: skace

Originally posted by: BFG10K

::snip::

Wow, I would not stand for that. Really, you should get that fixed, you can't let valve steal your games and get away with it. If you had games from other publishers on that account complain to them too.

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: PieIsAwesome
Wow, I would not stand for that. Really, you should get that fixed, you can't let valve steal your games and get away with it. If you had games from other publishers on that account complain to them too.

That's the point of me posting this to begin with... How am I just not going to let them? The games simply won't play, and they hold all the cards. That is how Steam works. It is designed that way.

EA, Valve, and SecuROM can get away with this type stuff because they sell games, and gamers are all fat malcontents anyway, right?

Try revoking legit owners' rights when it comes to books... The media will open a can of shit storm on you... Not just tech blogs either, but national mainstream media - conservative and liberal alike.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32014285
http://scitech.blogs.cnn.com/2...-for-deleting-e-books/
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetw...s_lawsuit_for_del.html
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,533787,00.html
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2350785,00.asp
http://www.crunchgear.com/2009...s-deleted-sues-amazon/

Amazon?s CEO, Jeff Bezos, admitted that the company?s handling of the situation wasn?t very elegant, even though it refunded everyone who bought the book. He also said it?d never delete another book again.

Do a google search for "secuROM", and the largest publication that shows up on the first page is wired.com. Do the same for "Spore DRM"... All the results are tech related sites and blogs, and I'd be willing to bet that Spore generated more revenue that the Kindle version of Orwell's 1984. The media and public at large have no idea how large of a revenue source gaming is, and that it is by and large controlled by relatively few entities that generally act with impunity.

 

[BFG10K]

Originally posted by: PieIsAwesome

Wow, I would not stand for that. Really, you should get that fixed, you can't let valve steal your games and get away with it. If you had games from other publishers on that account complain to them too.

What can the average consumer do about it? Unless they?re rich and can afford to take Valve to court, then not much.

The best chance we probably have is if enough complaints come through to someone like the DOJ, the government could get into the ring on our behalf.

Seriously, what Valve did is a criminal act, and they?ve probably done it to countless other accounts.

No other form of DRM (Starforce, SecuROM) can stop multiple games from working with no warning like Steam can. And even if one game stopped working, you can always crack it and keep up to date yourself by manual patching.

Even if you crack a Steam game you lose access to patches unless they?re still distributed as standalone, and Valve?s games aren?t. That means you?d be reduced to downloading entire torrent images whenever somebody bothers updating them, and you?d run the risk being caught as a ?pirate?.

 

[Raduque]

Originally posted by: nitromullet

7 « Message by Charlie on Fri, 27th Mar 2009 8:25 am »
******,

I am sorry, but you accepted a stolen gift from someone you did not know.

The account will remain disabled.

This is such fucked up crap. Not even the federal government is this heavy-handed. If you buy a car that's stolen, the police don't take every other vehicle you own too just because they were in the same garage.