Valve shuts down 20,000 Half Life 2 accounts

Found on The Inquirer on Wednesday, 24 November 2004
Browse Software

Valve software has disabled the Steam accounts of 20,000 people it has said were attempting to use pirated copies of Half-Life 2.

In a statement released to Shacknews, Valve said that reasons for closing the accounts included credit card fraud, theft of other people's accounts and using cracked versions of Valve games.

It also denied reports that it had deliberately leaked out 'warez' copies of the game to entrap users.

Those who bought the game at retail are required to have the disc in the drive to play, a problem which doesn't plague Steam buyers. Attempts to circumnavigate this issue, however, will lead to account banning as a form of piracy, and has caused something of an outcry among hardcore gamers who are used to the 'buy it and crack it' mentality. They claim that legitimate users are being targetted as pirates without basis.

Of course it is their right to ban illegal accounts, but Valve should pay more attention. If a user actually bought the game, then why shouldn't he be allowed to crack it? Games run better from the harddrive than from a CD, so NoCD patches are easy to understand.