Half-Life 2 goes to the extreme to prevent pre-release piracy

November 13, 2004

Like movie industry, the game industry has its own major piracy issue of games getting leaked before their official release. Either games get leaked out during the Journalist review stage or get distributed online as soon as the game becomes available in at least one part of the world.

With the world now eagerly waiting for Half-life 2's release date and the previous concern about the half-life 2 code leak, Valve
has really put on their thinking caps this time to prevent anyone from running a pirate copy before its official retail release date - Tuesday 16th.

To combat leaking during the Journalist review stage, they have decided not to release any previews to Journalists but instead fly them to their offices to test their game. To avoid a released game in one part of the world reaching another part where the game has a later release date, Valve has decided on a worldwide single release date. Finally as the game media must be distributed to retail stores prior to the release date in order to allow them to make it available on the official release date, Valve has implemented online product authorisation and activation and Valve will not allow its system to process any authorisations until the official release date. GristyMcFisty used our news submit to send in the following news:

The gap between those who have the game and those who don't have it yet is part of what drives people to pirate games. This week, Halo 2 was released two days earlier in the US than in the UK. With the worldwide community created by the net - indeed, by Microsoft's own Xbox Live - having a bunch of your friends play a game 2 days before you can is unacceptable to many. Companies don't appear to understand that staggered worldwide releases aren't conducive to their anti-piracy cause - either give gamers the game at the same time, or put up with the fact that people will get it elsewhere. Companies can't create the amount of hype that they do then expect gamers to sit back while other people play games they can't get their hands on yet.

Which is why Valve's anti-piracy plan is such genius. I mean, it's utter, simple, calculated, but undoubted genius. Valve decided that the best way to stop piracy was simply to give everyone in the world the game at the same time. Early code to journalists? Fat chance. If journalists wanted to play the game early for reviews, Valve flew them to their offices in Seattle so they didn't have to send out copies. Online media won't get copies until the day before release to prevent leakage. But - and this is the kicker - US, UK, Italy, China, France, Germany - they all get localised versions on the same day, Tuesday the 16th, next week.

Not only that, but to beat those tricksy retail staff that pinch from the stockroom when the game arrives, they have added in an online authorisation system which means that no-one can play the game until Valve has hit an online switch that says the time is right. Whilst reports have been showing up across the net of gamers having boxed copies in their hands, no-one can play them because Valve hasn't bodged the switch-on. Perfect.

Read the full article here.

Well, let's see if their anti-piracy measures turn out as planned. Unlike Music CD and Video-DVD releases, a software anti-piracy measure can be improved version after version making it possible for the company to get the maximum sales during the peak sales period in the few weeks following the release. By the time someone develops a way to copy their CD or circumvent its anti-piracy measure; the sales would be down to the point where piracy will no longer have much of an effect.

Source: The Inquirer