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WE REPORTED last week on the problems that many people are having connecting to the Steam servers to play Half-Life 2. We had lots of people emailing the INQ to say that you could always use offline mode to play without a net connection, but these people seem oblivious to reports online that many people are unable to get this mode to function properly.
More interesting, perhaps, are the legal agreements that surround a purchase of Half-Life 2. One is that no mention of Steam is on the HL2 box or in the End User License Agreement, yet it is required to play. The second is that where a gamer buys a copy of the game for which the CDKey has already been hacked, he will have to wait up to two weeks to get a replacement from Sierra/Vivendi, since shops will generally not take back opened software. The third is that no copy of the game can be sold without paying Valve a fee to transfer the CD-Key to another Steam account. ……The German Consumer Association has recently found that the packaging on Half-Life 2 is misleading. In a report made following complaints from the public, they said that the mere listing of an internet connection under the ‘other’ category in system requirements did not accurately describe the true extent of the internet tie-in with the game, and ordered Vivendi to amend the packaging and untie Steam from HL2 or face a hefty fine……[/quote:459c4fdd09]
full story http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=21105
its ain interesting legal read, later on it takes about what if you wanted to sell the games issue and if value if breaking the law….
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Not read the full article just yet, but my first comment would be that ‘misleading packaging’ (which is really what the German case is about) will be a case invoking contract law, and nothing to do with the EULA itself.
Moreover, the issue of the case will in turn depend upon what is the Law of the land in which the case arises, which is not the exact same for every EU Member.
German & French contract law is similar in many respects, much more so than IE/GB equivalents, particularly where competition and ‘market-medling’ provisions are concerned, since FR/DE have never had any quarms barging in on a market and tell the players how it’s played.
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