I just purchased a copy of Half life 2, and the bullsh**t you go through to play the game is ridiculous. I installed it about an hour ago, and the steam client is still updating the components like counter strike source through my internet connection. I have a very good broadband connection, over 3Mb down and this is a joke. It doesn't say it on the box, it says requires internet connection, but this program will call home every time you play and who know's what else. This is too vague, I figured it would just validate the install through the internet. So I guess the next time my ISP is having a problem I can't play the game I just payed $40.00 for. This is completely unacceptable, and way too "big brother" for me. I will never buy another one of their products if they continue this practice, I don't care how good the reviews might be. I understand that they had some of their source code stolen before the release, but that is not a good reason to punish the consumer. Buyer beware when purchasing products from valve or vivendi.
Hey, don't get me wrong, not trying to tick you off here, but almost all game reviews on valve games complain about the steam system making it impossible to play if you don't have at least a 1mb broadband connection.
A lot of people are refusing to get updated version of CS and the like because they don't want to be governed by the Steam "protection" *read : useless piece of Sh*t, which renders the games unplayable if offline*
It's to bad people have to find out the hard way that this "protection" scheme is an abomination, which should be forbidden under whatever is left of the consumer's fair use rights bill.
Yes, that's the setup (Steam) - it went through all that when I installed my old copy of Half-Life 1!
It took my serial # and unlocked Blue Shift, Opposing Force and Counter-Strike too :^)
At some point, they offered me Half-Life 2 for $39 bucks so I went for it.
Great game! But yes, the Steam and content of the games are always updating...
Plus, it takes a 'snapshot' of your system hardware configuration to contribute to Valve's statistical database.
Regards
I was mistaken in my last post. While installing and reading about the steam client, I understood that I would have to have an internet connection to play. After installing and updating, I disabled my internet connection with my firewall. After steam tried to connect with no success, it then allowed me to play the game in offline mode.
It worked fine, so it is not quite as bad as I initially thought.
