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Valve Hands out 30,000 Lumps of Coal

by Steve Gibson, Dec 22, 2004 5:37pm PST
Related Topics – Steam, Valve, Games: PC

Some of you may recall the first round of Steam bannings and it looks like Valve isnt done. If you play naughty you dont get to play at all. 30,000 more people were banned today for things like cheating or entering 50 different fake CC #'s for example. The statement from Valve:

Today Valve disabled more than 30,000 Steam accounts which had been used to try to illegally gain access to Valve games without a valid purchase. Valve takes such activities seriously and reserves the right to disable Steam accounts engaging in piracy, cheating, illegal activities, or any other activity in violation of the Steam Subscriber Agreement. The accounts that are disabled today will not be reactivated.


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Comments

30 Threads | 144 Comments
  • #83
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    By: arkanian9 x
    Reply
    Over the years many game companies have delivered either good or bad products, the bad games have left a pretty bad taste in my mouth after parting with my hard earned cash. Ive probably wasted thousands of dollars over the course of ten years on garbaged games.

    I can see how one may loose faith in the developers to deliver a solid title and we the consumer may decide that stealing a game is our way to solidify our loses over the years of buying games.

    As far as people stealing games such as Half Life 2 after knowing how much hard work that went into bringing us a great gameing experience. I dont feel one bit sorry for any accounts that were banned based on their findings.

    The cheaters of the internet are in a league of thier own, they search for ways to cheat as soon as they get an idea of how a game is written. These people dont have the RIGHT to complain about being "Permanently banned" from playing a game that was either purchased or stolen. They gave up thier rights when they cheated the system!
    Dec 22, 2004 9:58pm PST
  • #64
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    By: Kryn x
    Reply
    While people who enter fake CCs into Steam should rightfully be denied from using Steam's purchasing system, I don't know whether it's ethically right to completely kill their account and ruin any CD keys they have bought legally.

    People who get barred from the online ordering system may just give up, go to the store, and get a boxed copy, and Valve is kind of throwing the baby out with the bathwater because they don't like someone's character.

    Keep in mind, I'm not arguing whether they have the right to do this, they obviously do. I'm debating whether it's a good business move
    Dec 22, 2004 7:34pm PST
  • #53
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    By: richcz3 x
    Reply
    The most likely scenarios are

    Valve is working closely with banks and there is only one way to get multiple Steam purchases on one CC. Believe me it's a long process to clear more than one license and its done over the phone. You have to FAX your Drivers License and photocopied CC front and back. The second someone tries to dupe the 1 license per credit card system that is grounds for banning.

    One person buys the game off Steam. That's all legit. Then said person distributes files over a LAN. Remaining systems use some cracked files to play. I don't know if Valve would play the guilt through association though.
    Dec 22, 2004 7:12pm PST