I pre-ordered this game 2 weeks ago, downloaded it on Monday night, and haven't played it yet cause the game keeps crashing everytime I try to connect to a server.
@GunFlame: Because I'm one of the many insecure gamers that really care if my stats vanish.
I don't get achievement points or anything for the PC version, so if something disappears I just go and get it again.
If Activision sells a working code to any retailer, they loose the right to approve the person who buys it at that retailer. It is not that complicated of a legal situation.
But Activision also knows that nobody will take a $40 purchase to the court. Which is why they get away with it playing dirty. Somebody should really sue them for some killer punitive damage for stepping on customer rights like that.
@coolbho3000: Valve doesn't set the price for the game nor do they set the release date, the publisher does and in this in this case the publisher is Activision.
If Valve set the prices, you only need to look at Valves past release history to see that they wouldn't fuck over the consumer with the price gouging that Activision is doing.
@Decoy_Doctorpus: Well aside from that which I never really looked into as it doesn't affect me, Valves track record has been far better than alot of other publishers.
Let's just say that until Valve enforce worldwide pricing on the games they distribute and there is a live price conversion system that pulls its numbers from say xe.com, we are all gonna get ripped off sooner or later.
@StressedOutCat: Left 4 Dead 2 is a Valve game, what I meant was they don't set the price on the third party games they sell like EA games or THQ games, on their own games of course they set the prices, as for it being $74 where you live I have no idea why that would be.
@Manuel Calavera, Reaper Supreme: It's digital distribution though, so it shouldn't be subject to the same shitfull retail pricing we get here, it's basically importing in my eyes.
Just look at the other games on Steam, most are inline with the American pricing, only a few stand out, the main offender seems to be Activision.
I remember back when CoD4 came out, it was $84 US then the market crashed and it was still that price, once you converted it, us Aussies ended up having to pay $140 AU for that game. It only went down to a decent price once the market recovered (here is Australia anyway).
Another offender is 2K, how they removed Borderlands from the Australian store only to put it back up at the discounted price of $80 US, almost double what it was originally on there for.
Is it just me, or does Ellis' facebook page only have one status update (his current) and nothing else? Not even wall posts from other friends, nothing?
Am I missing something here? They still payed for their key, and I'm assuming Activision makes these keys, sells them to different retailers, and the retailers then decide to sell them at discount prices? How is this ban worthy?
If this is the case then they should totally ban every PS3 and 360 owner who got their copy for £26 in Sainsbury's... Dicks.
Activision and Valve know who can and cannot sell their product. If they say that G2Play.net is not allowed to sell their product, they have the right to block that product from working. Why?
Because it's in their damn Terms of Service. Duh. With a proper ToS they can do this all they want and it's perfectly legal for them to do it. Dumb complainers and dumb key-resellers (who usually steal their keys anyway) are dumb.
@DaveKap: Thanks for stating the obvious legalese, but still doesn't justify why in the Aus steam store we're paying $90USD compared to $60USD.
Let's change the perspective here, I think only a dumb fool would bend over for such an easy reaming.
Good thing I also know legalese in parallel importation laws, and also how to operate VPNS. Still, gotta love services that allow remote cancellation of licenses for consumers whom atleast try to pay (albeit less).
@suntorytime: Actually I agree on your point about services that allow remote cancellation. It's one of the pitfalls of digital distribution (many of which I've written about before) and is rather shitty for those who actually believe it's perfectly legal to buy a key and download content for free, illegally.
Oh and don't get me started on the price gouging dependent on region. All kinds of fucked up going on there...
@Kintak: It's not illegal to buy a key. It's illegal to use software you didn't buy. And the key was probably (most definitely) obtained by the reseller illegally as well.
That's like saying it's OK to just keep a tricycle that a bully stole and sold to you, because you didn't know the bully stole it. It's called fraud and pretty much everyone gets screwed somehow in the process.
@DaveKap: No, the key was obtained legitimately, and the key IS legit. The issue here is that the key is an import, they got the key from cheaper from an outer region seller and so they were banned in their region.
That's like saying it's NOT OK to keep a tricycle that a foreign friend sold to you because he got it in Japan, and no Japanese tricycles are allowed here. It's called extreme region control and it's going to destroy DD.
@DaveKap: As said before the article said that the sites are legal, that and Activision would raise hell if they were getting illegal keys. Far be the thought that someone selling something for cheap acquired it legally even if the article stated such, right?
So basically it's a legal sale of a real legal thing that legally means they own the game...and they ban it because it was cheaper, but still completely legal?
I must be missing something. Because that doesn't exactly seem like a good way to get someone to pay YOU for the game- forcing them to buy it twice to play it...
@WhiteMåge: These versions of the game are much cheaper because they're from countries where piracy is rampant. So Steam (and other companies) sell the games at a reduced price in order to fight piracy.
Valve's games are, at least, region locked. If you leave the country then you can't play it anymore, or at least that's what they said years ago.
They have no right to ban people for that. That's utter bullshit! That's the equivalent of breaking into my house and smashing my copy of Sonic Adventure because I bought it from a guy in hong kong.
I bought it, it's a legal copy, and it's mine. Screw that.
@WhiteMåge: Valve will also ban you if you have a legal copy bought in another country and you have the box, receipt, and credit card number proving you bought the game in person. I've bought a few games here in Asia for gifts and had to deal with this crap.
Regions are bullshit. They are protectionist relics for a business model that refuses to change.
That's a "I don't want to support these people" situation but valve is so popular they can pull that kind of crap and there will be no noticable consequences.
Unless, like, they decide to class-action them. But even then, I don't know if they legally have a case, though I'd think they would.
@WhiteMåge: Oh, shut up. If you want to pirate it, just pirate it. Don't fool yourself into thinking "No harm done" when you circumvent the regular channels with a smug grin on your face. You don't live in a place like Australia where new games are like $100, you're just a cheap bastard that's no better than a pirate.
@WhiteMåge: Dude, seriously, quit fooling yourself with the "I bought a legal copy, IT'S MINE" bull shit. You know that old saying "If it's too good to be true, it probably is"? Yeah. That's because they weren't supposed to sell it to you in the first place. Quit fucking bitching, shut up, and either buy a copy through the normal channels, or pirate it (though preferrably the former).
You can't honestly be surprised that when you fuck them over, they fuck you right back?
Edit: Your argument would stand some ground if you were one of the people who just so happened to buy his copy while he was in a foreign country, then flew back with it. As it stands, you're just a whiny idiot that got exactly what was coming to him.
@Anunnaki: Then why the hell don't THEY get in trouble?
What kind of retarded company BANS PEOPLE WHO BOUGHT THEIR GAME? That's not going to get them any extra sales! It's pathetic!
Again, what about imports? What the hell would you do if a company barged into your house and shattered the disc of a game you imported? Would you go "Oh, I shouldn't have bought it at a cheaper price despite it being legal as hell to do so, even if the shop I got it from wasn't supposed to sell it and is in the wrong instead of me"? Hell no you wouldn't!
@WhiteMåge: Well what are they supposed to do? Those stores selling copies to regions they're not supposed to aren't getting in trouble because there's virtually nothing they can do to stop those sales. So the only thing left to try is to punish those who know damn well that they weren't buying from a place that was allowed to sell it to them in the first place. You can't claim ignorant innocence on this.
And like I edited into my earlier post, your argument might stand some ground if you actually bought it yourself while in a foreign country, and then moved here with it, but that's not the case.
@Anunnaki: Shady as these copies may be, it's still disturbing to see this happen. Banning cut-rate foreign keys may seem ok to you, but what happens when they start using other more arbitrary reasons to ban your product key? What happens when Steam eventually shuts down? The games you bought will just vanish.
@Doomstalk: "Banning cut-rate foreign keys may seem ok to you, but what happens when they start using other more arbitrary reasons to ban your product key?"
Well, then you'd have a legitimate complaint. But as others in the comments have said, this isn't just Valve getting pissed off and banning people, this was at the request of Activision.
As for them shutting down, they've said before that they'd release a patch of some kind to make the games work without Steam, or make Steam work without the Valve servers (though it already kind of does). And besides, it's not like they'll be going out of business any time soon.
@Anunnaki: Microsoft didn't go out of business, but can you play your (ironically named) PlaysForSure music now? Wal-Mart's not out of business either, but any music bought from their online store is gone. Gambling whether or not you can use a product you bought in the future is a shitty deal, no matter how safe the bet may seem.
@Doomstalk: Yes, but Microsoft isn't "PlaysForSure." That went out of business. Likewise, Wal-Mart's music store went out of business. But these are wholly different arguments about DRM schemes. Steam, on the other hand, is Valve. If Steam goes out of business, Valve vanishes.
I mean, you do have a point, digital sales do have their risks. Who's to say someone else won't release some super awesome game platform that puts Steam out of business? It could happen. It's just a point of weighing the benefits and the risks.
@Anunnaki: What do you mean Steam is Valve? It's a distribution channel. People would definitely be pissed if they shut it down, but they could definitely continue making games without it. Regardless, my argument still stands-- you're making a bet that 10 years from now if you decide to break out your copy of Half-Life 2 and enjoy some retro gaming, that Steam will still exist. Furthermore, you're betting that Valve doesn't get mad at you for some reason lock you out of all of your games ([kotaku.com]). Not saying I sympathize with those people, but it shows just what kind of power Valve has over your game collection.
Oh, and about your statement that this was all Activision's idea: Valve did the same thing two years ago with Team Fortress 2 ( [www.eurogamer.net] ) .
@Anunnaki: Oh, and if you want to see how arbitrary a big company can get when locking you out of your stuff, take a look at Amazon. They locked a guy out of all the e-books on his Kindle because he returned too many items ([www.engadget.com]).
@Doomstalk: Eh, yeah, you're right about Valve making games if Steam went kaput. But then if they were still an existing entity after then, they'd probably do their best to get you access to all your games.
Yes, there are risks, but there are risks in everything. You could just as easily lose your whole physical game collection in a fire or something. It's not like I'm investing money in a scam or something.
Also, I'm not stupid enough to do something like hack in a multiplayer game, or play pirated games through Steam, so I think I'm safe in betting that Valve won't go completely off their rockers and start arbitrarily banning people's accounts.
@Chrisyoung001: Read my comments. I've said several times that the people who actually go to foreign countries and buy the game, then bring them back, have a perfectly valid reason to be upset by this. It's the cheapskates I have a problem with.
@Anunnaki: Your argument rests solely on the assurance that Valve-- an entity whose primary purpose is to make money-- will always act in your best interest. Valve admittedly has some of the least offensive DRM out there, but it is, nonetheless, DRM. They hold all the cards, and you're left hoping that they'll continue to play nice. #speakup
@Doomstalk: What exactly is it you're trying to convince me of here? Yes, I place some level of trust in the ethical practices of a company. What does it matter to you?
@Anunnaki: I guess I'm trying to convince you that this sort of thing sets a bad precedent, and cracks the door open for abuse in the future. This should be their problem, not the user's. If keys are being sold in markets they're not supposed to, then their complaint should be with the reseller, not with users who bought those keys. Punishing the users in this matter makes me nervous about the availability of my Steam purchases in the future.
How about this: Ultimate Left 4 Dead (or some other cheesy name).
-Play any of the 10 (so far released) campaigns
-Play any of the 8 survivors, regardless of campaign
-All Special Infected in all campaigns
-All weapons in all campaigns
-Director causes various things to change in L4D1 campaigns, just like in L4D2 cmapaigns.
Requires to have both games installed and linked to your Steam account, of course. But certainly would be an awesome "reward" to those who own both games.
Only issue would be that new dialogue would need to be recorded for all survivors (so they can speak with any of the survivors, as well as react to the differences in each game's campaigns).
I would gladly take it as a free DLC, if it included the following:
-Play any of the 10 (so far released) campaigns
-Play any of the 8 survivors, regardless of campaign
-All weapons in all campaigns
For me, it would be sufficient.
Should not be hard to realize from a technical standpoint, so not that much work would be required from Valve, therefore justifying it being free DLC for owners of both games (such as me, for example).
The other two points would probably be more difficult to realize, but the short list I've given above should be a matter of two-three weeks worth of programmers work plus additional two-three weeks for QA team - and it would be a great bonus for those that have bought both L4Ds.
I think Valve should make importing the older levels/characters into L4D2 DLC... for people that don't own the original. The rest (most?) of us will get it for free if we have L4D1.
This would be a nice thank you for all the people irritated that the newer game was rolled out so quickly for a typical Valve title.
@dirtybacon: Adding the old levels to L4D2 is one of the promises made. However they were iffy on whether the original characters would be copied over.
@d_r_e: Going back for sources, it looks as if I overstated with the word "promises", rather it was strongly implied. I've pasted the first source I found via Google. I'm sure you can come up with more along the same lines:
02:19 AM
Hurrah!
12:15 AM
Even though they can patch it easily, it is still no excuse.
12:24 AM
12:29 AM
The game was still released broken. Just because they can fix it whilst you own it, doesn't make it good in any way.
How about if you have had a lot of these issues whilst playing? You would be pissed. A released, new game that you have waited for, broken.
Prevention is better than cure.
#speakup
12:40 AM
L4D2 has never crashed for me, nor are these gameplay inhibiting issues.
01:08 AM
#speakup
01:19 AM
You're nitpicking.
01:38 AM
A lot of people are playing the game fine, but there are also alot of people that a getting issues.
If you think that losing your stats is fine, then play away.
#speakup
02:22 AM
I don't get achievement points or anything for the PC version, so if something disappears I just go and get it again.
Left 4 Dead 2: SERIOUS BIDNESS.
11/21/09
I think mine just disappeared today. Hoping they come back next time I boot the game up.
11/21/09
But Activision also knows that nobody will take a $40 purchase to the court. Which is why they get away with it playing dirty. Somebody should really sue them for some killer punitive damage for stepping on customer rights like that.
11/20/09
11/20/09
11/20/09
11/21/09
If Valve set the prices, you only need to look at Valves past release history to see that they wouldn't fuck over the consumer with the price gouging that Activision is doing.
11/21/09
11/21/09
11/21/09
Btw does anyone know why speakup is appearing at the bottom of all my comments?
11/21/09
Let's just say that until Valve enforce worldwide pricing on the games they distribute and there is a live price conversion system that pulls its numbers from say xe.com, we are all gonna get ripped off sooner or later.
11/21/09
11/21/09
@StressedOutCat: Left 4 Dead 2 is a Valve game, what I meant was they don't set the price on the third party games they sell like EA games or THQ games, on their own games of course they set the prices, as for it being $74 where you live I have no idea why that would be.
11/21/09
#speakup
11/21/09
Just look at the other games on Steam, most are inline with the American pricing, only a few stand out, the main offender seems to be Activision.
I remember back when CoD4 came out, it was $84 US then the market crashed and it was still that price, once you converted it, us Aussies ended up having to pay $140 AU for that game. It only went down to a decent price once the market recovered (here is Australia anyway).
Another offender is 2K, how they removed Borderlands from the Australian store only to put it back up at the discounted price of $80 US, almost double what it was originally on there for.
11/20/09
11/20/09
If this is the case then they should totally ban every PS3 and 360 owner who got their copy for £26 in Sainsbury's... Dicks.
11/20/09
11/20/09
11/20/09
I wonder if having the disc is part of an license agreement or whatever when you buy it off steam? I don't own that version of MW2 so I'm curious.
11/20/09
Activision and Valve know who can and cannot sell their product. If they say that G2Play.net is not allowed to sell their product, they have the right to block that product from working. Why?
Because it's in their damn Terms of Service. Duh. With a proper ToS they can do this all they want and it's perfectly legal for them to do it. Dumb complainers and dumb key-resellers (who usually steal their keys anyway) are dumb.
11/20/09
Let's change the perspective here, I think only a dumb fool would bend over for such an easy reaming.
Good thing I also know legalese in parallel importation laws, and also how to operate VPNS. Still, gotta love services that allow remote cancellation of licenses for consumers whom atleast try to pay (albeit less).
11/20/09
Oh and don't get me started on the price gouging dependent on region. All kinds of fucked up going on there...
11/20/09
11/20/09
That's like saying it's OK to just keep a tricycle that a bully stole and sold to you, because you didn't know the bully stole it. It's called fraud and pretty much everyone gets screwed somehow in the process.
11/21/09
That's like saying it's NOT OK to keep a tricycle that a foreign friend sold to you because he got it in Japan, and no Japanese tricycles are allowed here. It's called extreme region control and it's going to destroy DD.
11/21/09
11/21/09
#speakup
11/20/09
I must be missing something. Because that doesn't exactly seem like a good way to get someone to pay YOU for the game- forcing them to buy it twice to play it...
11/20/09
Valve's games are, at least, region locked. If you leave the country then you can't play it anymore, or at least that's what they said years ago.
11/20/09
They have no right to ban people for that. That's utter bullshit! That's the equivalent of breaking into my house and smashing my copy of Sonic Adventure because I bought it from a guy in hong kong.
I bought it, it's a legal copy, and it's mine. Screw that.
11/20/09
I mean, the people who at least made the attempt to buy something are the ones being banned. Does that not seem backwards to anyone else?
Whereas, the pirates who paid NOTHING are actively enjoying multiplayer fun. What. the. hell are they (Activision) thinking?
11/20/09
Regions are bullshit. They are protectionist relics for a business model that refuses to change.
11/20/09
That's a "I don't want to support these people" situation but valve is so popular they can pull that kind of crap and there will be no noticable consequences.
Unless, like, they decide to class-action them. But even then, I don't know if they legally have a case, though I'd think they would.
11/20/09
11/20/09
What about the guy who bought games in his home country for others, and their copies got banned? Is eh "no better than a pirate"?
You can't do that. Businesses cannot punish you because you bought their product in a place it was cheaper.
#speakup
11/20/09
You can't honestly be surprised that when you fuck them over, they fuck you right back?
Edit: Your argument would stand some ground if you were one of the people who just so happened to buy his copy while he was in a foreign country, then flew back with it. As it stands, you're just a whiny idiot that got exactly what was coming to him.
11/20/09
What kind of retarded company BANS PEOPLE WHO BOUGHT THEIR GAME? That's not going to get them any extra sales! It's pathetic!
Again, what about imports? What the hell would you do if a company barged into your house and shattered the disc of a game you imported? Would you go "Oh, I shouldn't have bought it at a cheaper price despite it being legal as hell to do so, even if the shop I got it from wasn't supposed to sell it and is in the wrong instead of me"? Hell no you wouldn't!
11/20/09
And like I edited into my earlier post, your argument might stand some ground if you actually bought it yourself while in a foreign country, and then moved here with it, but that's not the case.
11/20/09
11/20/09
Well, then you'd have a legitimate complaint. But as others in the comments have said, this isn't just Valve getting pissed off and banning people, this was at the request of Activision.
As for them shutting down, they've said before that they'd release a patch of some kind to make the games work without Steam, or make Steam work without the Valve servers (though it already kind of does). And besides, it's not like they'll be going out of business any time soon.
@Mancomb: lol fair enough.
11/20/09
11/20/09
I mean, you do have a point, digital sales do have their risks. Who's to say someone else won't release some super awesome game platform that puts Steam out of business? It could happen. It's just a point of weighing the benefits and the risks.
11/20/09
Oh, and about your statement that this was all Activision's idea: Valve did the same thing two years ago with Team Fortress 2 ( [www.eurogamer.net] ) .
11/20/09
11/20/09
Yes, there are risks, but there are risks in everything. You could just as easily lose your whole physical game collection in a fire or something. It's not like I'm investing money in a scam or something.
Also, I'm not stupid enough to do something like hack in a multiplayer game, or play pirated games through Steam, so I think I'm safe in betting that Valve won't go completely off their rockers and start arbitrarily banning people's accounts.
@Chrisyoung001: Read my comments. I've said several times that the people who actually go to foreign countries and buy the game, then bring them back, have a perfectly valid reason to be upset by this. It's the cheapskates I have a problem with.
#speakup
11/21/09
#speakup
11/21/09
11/21/09
11/20/09
-Play any of the 10 (so far released) campaigns
-Play any of the 8 survivors, regardless of campaign
-All Special Infected in all campaigns
-All weapons in all campaigns
-Director causes various things to change in L4D1 campaigns, just like in L4D2 cmapaigns.
Requires to have both games installed and linked to your Steam account, of course. But certainly would be an awesome "reward" to those who own both games.
Only issue would be that new dialogue would need to be recorded for all survivors (so they can speak with any of the survivors, as well as react to the differences in each game's campaigns).
C'mon. Do it, Valve.
11/20/09
11/20/09
I was thinking more of it being a patch to each game, that would be "unlocked" if you had both games. :p
11/21/09
I would gladly take it as a free DLC, if it included the following:
-Play any of the 10 (so far released) campaigns
-Play any of the 8 survivors, regardless of campaign
-All weapons in all campaigns
For me, it would be sufficient.
Should not be hard to realize from a technical standpoint, so not that much work would be required from Valve, therefore justifying it being free DLC for owners of both games (such as me, for example).
The other two points would probably be more difficult to realize, but the short list I've given above should be a matter of two-three weeks worth of programmers work plus additional two-three weeks for QA team - and it would be a great bonus for those that have bought both L4Ds.
11/20/09
This would be a nice thank you for all the people irritated that the newer game was rolled out so quickly for a typical Valve title.
11/20/09
11/20/09
11/20/09
[gamesblog.ugo.com]
11/20/09