Anybody know much about law?

gambler2611 · July 10th, 2009, 10:57 AM

OK, so this is going to require a bit of explaining.

Half life 2 was released in 2004, and like a lot of other gamers, I bought a copy of the game. I went to a shop called GAME, paid to £30 or so it was to buy this game, went home a played it. At this point in time, me and my brother both played on steam.

After this, I decided to buy a special edition pack that gave me a cool tin box and half life source. This was about £25 I think, and I figured it was a pretty good deal. So I bought this, went home and activated it using aforementioned steam account.

Later, on the release of half life 2 episode one, my brother ventured out to the shop called GAME and spent another £20 buying another copy of half life 2, bundled with episode one and half life source.

Then, on the release of the orange box, my brother went and bought that for xbox, again paying a good £30 of his money on it.

So, to surmise, me and my brother own four copies of half life 2, three of which are tied to one steam account.

Since going to uni, I don't really use steam any more. I've been concentrating more on molecular orbitals and thermodynamics (as well as some pharmacology, mathematics and astronomy thrown in for good measure) and so I haven't really had time for gaming. However, I did go online and register a steam account so that I could play half life 2. I phoned my brother up to see if I could use the special edition key and pull it from his account to mine with no avail. Turned out I needed the cd. No problem I thought, I'll just do it in the holidays.

Coming back this summer, I decided that I could reward myself for doing well at university (achieved 77% average for Chemistry, my degree and core module) I would install half life 2 now that I had the cd and key in front of me. Alas, steam complained the key was registered to another account.

So, after e-mailing them telling me of my problem, and how only my brother at present could play the three copies of half life 2 registered to his account, they politely referred me to their disclaimer which reminded me I cannot transfer cd keys between steam accounts.

What is my position on this? It seems utterly ridiculous that I OWN three copies of half life 2 and yet because of little bits of circumstance, I cannot play any of them. I'm fairly certain there are laws against this, and I'm not trying to dupe anybody here, I just want to play half life 2!

What's the best way of going about this?

Cheers

Andy

Steve R Jones · July 10th, 2009, 11:37 AM

Quote:

they politely referred me to their disclaimer which reminded me I cannot transfer cd keys between steam accounts

You probably agreed to this during the installation....Darn fine print will get ya everytime.

bpadraic · July 10th, 2009, 11:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gambler2611

So, after e-mailing them telling me of my problem, and how only my brother at present could play the three copies of half life 2 registered to his account, they politely referred me to their disclaimer which reminded me I cannot transfer cd keys between steam accounts.

Unfortunately, by using Steam you agreed to their terms and conditions. If that stipulation is part of them, then you're bound, whether or not it's fair. On the bright side, Steam often has fantastic sales. You could probably pick up another copy quite cheap.

Aaron_8015 · July 10th, 2009, 11:46 AM

If your brother has 3 copies you can gift the extra copies to another steam account. I brought HL2 and episode one seperatly but had to buy the oranage box as they did not release episode 2 seperatly. I then had two copies of HL2 and Ep one which I gifted to my friends steam account.

gambler2611 · July 10th, 2009, 11:54 AM

No I think you can only gift games if you bought them through steam. It just seems crazy that in order to play half life 2 I have to buy it AGAIN for the fifth time.

Aaron_8015 · July 10th, 2009, 11:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gambler2611

No I think you can only gift games if you bought them through steam. It just seems crazy that in order to play half life 2 I have to buy it AGAIN for the fifth time.

Nope, I buy all my games in store (game funny enough) I have the cases for all of them, I never buy games from steam.

pullmyfoot · July 10th, 2009, 12:04 PM

Steam is pretty annoying in that aspect. He installed his copy of TF2 on his friend's steam account by accident once. Not a good idea.

EXreaction · July 10th, 2009, 12:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gambler2611

No I think you can only gift games if you bought them through steam. It just seems crazy that in order to play half life 2 I have to buy it AGAIN for the fifth time.

Once you activate it for your steam account you never need to buy it again. Use your old accounts and you will not need to keep buying them.

pullmyfoot · July 10th, 2009, 02:07 PM

Yah. I dont get why you had to buy it 5 times. If you want to use your account on another computer, simply go to the games section and double click on one of the games. It will download the game onto the computer and install it, so you dont need to buy a new one. I think you should drop valve an email. Its not in their policy to do something about it, but if they value their customers the least bit I think they will make an exception for a poor guy who has 4 HL2 games on one account...