Recently I wrote up a rant about how Valve's latest game Left 4 Dead should have only been released as a multiplayer game since in my opinion the single player aspect was extremely boring and repetitive. As I usually do with games that don't appeal to me, I immediately posted it up on Amazon as used and within twenty-four hours had already sold and shipped it out to the buyer for almost the same price I paid for it. Normally that is where the story would end, but this time around I got fucked royally, and not buy the online transaction, but by Steam.

A few days later the buyer contacted me that he had installed the game but was unable to play it do to a "duplicate cd key" error. He had contacted Valve's Steam support about the issue and they had replied with the following:

We do not reset CD keys from auction sites or in cases in which the game has been resold by another individual.

The buying, selling or trading of Steam accounts/CD keys is a violation of the Steam Subscriber Agreement.

I recommend you return the game and inquire about a refund.

My first thought was literally, WTF. I thought that the buyer was either trying to scam me or that Steam was really fucking confused. After all, I had purchased the DVD version of the game on purpose rather than use the downloadable content, yet as it turns out, the online activation is all the same for either. Following up on what I thought would be a mistake, I decided to contact them myself explaining that I had recently bought and tried the game and was giving it to my brother. Here's what I got in response:

Per the Steam Subscriber Agreement, Steam game subscriptions / CD keys are nontransferable and cannot be reset / moved between Steam accounts.

This has to be a joke, right? To confuse matters even worse they attached a link to their "CD key reset process" which completely contradicts what I was just told. Investigating a bit further I find that, yes, you can have your cd key reset, but ONLY if you receive the duplicate message yourself on the game that you bought yourself and not on someone else's account. So let me get this straight, I have to pay an extra $10 on top of the $50 I just paid in order to reset a key that no one else is supposed to have. Huh? And what is even worse is that they send me this directly below a statement that reads that cd keys "cannot be reset"!

Deciding that it wasn't the poor kids fault that I sold the game to I decided to just refund him the money once he sent it back, but this whole ordeal really left a bad taste in my mouth. I've been a faithful user of Steam for at least four years now and always thought the idea of immediate downloadable content was awesome, but if we have to completely sacrifice purchase freedom we're doomed. When I spent my $50 to try out a game I didn't know much about, I was expecting to be able to sell it if I didn't like it. After all, with the plethora of underdeveloped and broken game turds on the market there is a much larger chance of finding a bad game than a good one. With Steam's online account activation, you are permanently married to your purchase! There is no possibility of selling or even GIVING the damn game away. You're fucked! Say goodbye to your hard earned money and say hello to a game you have absolutely no interest in.

Not only might you be stuck with a game that you don't want, but encouraging single purchase media like this is also encouraging price fixing. One of the great things about used games is the ability to buy shitty games at a cheaper price. People might want to pay $50 on release day for the latest epic FPS, but when the $50 turd shows up people wait until sales fall and pick it up new or used for $25 or less. With Steam's single purchase philosophy they can effectively set the price they want you to pay for it! Even if the game has been out for a year and would normally sell for half it's original price, if you can't pick it up used Valve has you by the balls. They can drop the price $5 and call it a sale when normally you'd force them to bring it down $10 or maybe even $15 off list for a new purchase to compete with the used market. The final coffin nail then comes in the form of increasing game prices for increasing less game quality. Suddenly $60 is the base price, or $70, or $80, because there is no used market. Just look at the latest consoles. Granted they have a used market, but was anyone shocked when console games suddenly jumped from $50 to $60?

Normally I would expect similar bullshit standards  and trickery from electronic media, but not from hard copies. This is just totally unacceptable and unfortunately follows the trend of game developers these days. I shouldn't be forced into a game purchase because of gestapo licensing rules, I should be able to see if what you're releasing is actually a quality product first! We constantly hear from game developers how pirating and online distribution is killing game sales to the point where they can't stay above water, yet at the end of the day this is not the way to address it nor is it the problem. Shit games = shit game sales. Myself and most other people I know own the games they really love. You don't hear about amazing games like Fallout 3 and Half-Life 2 having bad sales due to pirating. No. Instead you hear about record sales. On the other hand you do hear about how games riddled with DRM like Spore become the number one pirated game. People pirate because of shitty game play and ridiculous online activation systems, DRM, and key restrictions exactly like Steam's.

Don't believe me, check out this torrentfreak article from back around Spore's release. By implementing these absurdly restrictive use rules, gamers would rather download the game for free than chance being cheated out of their money... and this is only the beginning of full frontal screwage! EA is becoming increasingly more hostile towards the legitimate user community, all while claiming to be protecting us against pirating.

So where does this leave me? Out of $50 and stuck with a game I hate... all in the name of ending game pirating. One thing is for sure, I will not be buying any more Steam games on a whim without thoroughly battle testing them first. If systems like this continue you can say goodbye to the used game market or "try before you buy" rentals. If this seems super restrictive now, wait until you see what will happen when game developers start getting their way. It's only a matter of time before even console games require online activation. Just look at the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 now. Both have constant internet links, as well as updates. Whats to stop them from requiring key activation? Nothing.