# General Business Category > Scam Alert Forum >  Right this is the best scam ever!

## tec0

You go to Musica and purchase a game made by Steam aka Valves. The gameâs name is Left 4 dead 2 of PC. Now you will pay R350 for the game but donât be fooled you cannot play the game because it needs to download about a million Gb of BS before the game will install.  :Rant1: 

Then you lose constant connection to the server and re-download it over and over again till youâre cap is dead!   :Rant1: 

Beware: Valve aka Steam IS a scam because the game does not work as an original thus donât lose your money with this one.   :Rant1:

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## tec0

The point of buying original games is to be able to buy it install it and play it. NOT SO, I have a good mind to go to the consumer counsel and fight for my money back. I am so angry I will do just that! Why is it always the f*cking customer that gets it in the ass!

There is really no point in buying any Steam of Valve title anymore it really is a scam... They are selling you an incomplete piece of software that is incapable of functioning by itself. 

The point of having an f*cking original is to avoid being raped by patches and updates that escalate into the thousands! Yes work it out at R2 per 1Mb it is just so aggravating!

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## twinscythe12332

gigs would be incorrect. unless of course you forgot to put the DVD in during the install and install it off the disc.
Part of the APPEAL of the steam system is the updates. your games constantly have the latest version of the game installed, so if you decide to play via lan you and your mates have the exact same copy with the correct patches. contrast this to how modern warfare won't let you even see games without the same version number as yourself.
it doesn't re-download patch files. It downloads them in individual parts. I can close the program at 25% and get the 25% again when I load it up.
left4dead and left4dead2 have always been pointed as online play games. The whole idea is a co-op experience. I've played the game by myself. it isn't as fun as with a couple of mates. 
the other thing to understand is that the system was designed in an area of the world where the internet is fantastic. You cannot blame them for having good connectivity. blame the blood sucking leeches you're using.
if updating bugs you so much, set it to start up in offline mode. it doesn't check for updates and lets you do what you want to (play the game). activation is done through steam, which will require you to be online.

A scam usually involves some instant benefit to the scammer (money given, information received). The benefit steam is given is better control over registered serials. And advertising. I hate the damn adverts.

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## tec0

Well I donât care it does not work even with the up-date installed and best of all it wants to update and update and update... well I am sorry but this is not what we as customers pay for. Yes it sais on the box it needs online activation! It is NOT however stated that it needs the f*cking internet just to f*cking work!  :Rant1: 


I am sorry but what is the point of the game if you canât bloody play it

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## tec0

Right, in the end this is a scam because firstly have a look on the back of game. It is not stated that the game will need high-speed internet and 2 GB of updates. It is not stated that the offline mode is disabled permanently. It is not stated that you will need to update it constantly and above all it is not stated that you need an online account to play single player. Thus it is a scam because you paid for an original copy of the game. The original is unable to function thus it cannot work properly thus you where given something that is incomplete and when you bay a game you donât expect a demo. No you want a fully working game and Left for dead 2 is not functional thus it IS A SCAM thank you.

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## tec0

Online registration killing video games? Yes in the end everybody wants to scream piracy and then we have RICA monitoring our every download but what about criminals like these. What has been done to protect us the customer against SCAMs like these? 

First you pay for the Game.
Then you pay for the download and activation. 
Then you pay for the 100mb updates just to get it to work. 

Really come to think about it, it really is the perfect crime because the criminal is always the customer. And the customer is always wrong. Well from this point forward I will no longer invest money in PC games. If it needs any kind of activation I will not be interested. The truth is if we as South Africans refuse to partake in there BS. Then they will need to change their attitude towards us the customer and we might then get proper working games again. 

Fact is we enjoy NO protection from crappy buggy games but the game developers can put us in prison. It might be just me but I am not taking it anymore. You can help by holding a consumer strike! Yes together we can make a change! Start now by simply not buying a game that needs online registration that is all YOU need to do. Let us see what they will be selling by the end of 2010 if no-one is buying their games.  :Whistling:

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## tonyflanigan

Go tecO!  I feel your pain. What really p**s on my parade are games that need online activation, yet nowhere, but NOWHERE on the packaging does it tell you that it needs online activation. The boys have a pc, but they DO NOT have an internet connection. We buy games for them, and check the packaging THOROUGHLY for any indication of online activation being needed, and we still get caught. Having tried to load a game that needs online activation, the trick then is to return the sodding thing, 'cos it cannot be used. That is an art.

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tec0 (29-Dec-09)

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## tec0

Well I am tired of this kind of thing. Itâs about time we start to act against such publishers and force them to produce a fully working game. EA games made a game called âHell Gate Londonâ to-date this game never functioned properly ever! Itâs simply eats your memory to the point where the game just lags and bombs out. To-date this problem was never fixed by EA as the only patch I can get is basically found on âless then recommendableâ websites and as usual it is really BIG so I never could play the game that cost me over R500!       :Rant1:

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## tec0

Well it continues. I have written a letter to Muscia and ask them if they think that if it will be ok to get my money back. I specified the following grounds. > Game specified activation only. >No ware is it specified that the game is actually an online only game. >After the massif updates I still couldnât play single player offline mode as shown in the screenshot.

Now I donât think Muscia is to blame for this but I do think more time must be invested to make sure that the products that they are selling is âworkingâ and that all the information on the box is correct. Still I would rather never buy a steam title game again because to them I am just another nobody. I e-mailed there support team and asked for help but to-date nothing... 

Now when you are scammed all the telephone numbers are useless as is all the contact data. So, if not in America then surely in South Africa there is NO support and they sold a game with incomplete information on the back. So in my eyes Steam is scamming the South African public. 

Steamâs lack of interest and lack of response shows you that they are taking money and IS giving nothing not even a working product in return. How can this NOT be a scam?

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## tec0

At this point in time we are forced to give up our personal information. 2K games basically want to know where you live before they will allow you to play their games.  I have a big problem with this because I see no use in them knowing where I live of what colour my anus is. 

This is testament that PC games are becoming a real pain and it is losing its appeal and I for one am done with their BS. I give the 2K team an e-mail demanding the codes needed to allow the game to work. What is the point of original games anyway? 

I for one am done with 2K, Steam and Microsoft Games. Because you cannot use them it is just impossible.  :Headbutt:

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## AndyD

If you registered your game serial no. with STEAM then the game cannot be resold. It will not be possible for another purchaser to activate it so I doubt Musica will allow you to return it for refund.

If hypothetically you were really desperate and you pm'd me and if hypothetically I hooked you up with a disassembler toolkit to modify the executable. With several hypothetical edits to the executable in IDA Pro and the game .ini file with a text editor. Also hypothetically you'd need to install some updates but you could download these from a third party mirror, using a download manager and you should be able to salvage things each time you loose connection if your ADSL connection is intermittent. Finally hypothetically you'd need to launch the game into a locally hosted server loader. Hypothetically I could give you instructions but it wouldn't be for novices. If, hypothetically, it sounds like it's outside of your skill set then there could be prepacked patching kits at gamecopyworld dotcom which means you wouldn't need to get your hands quite so dirty but I couldn't vouch for them not containing malicious code so hypothetically you would need to take the usual precautions like sandboxing or set up a vm. Any hypothetical info given above is for educational purposes only, I would not, no ways, never recommend you actually carry them out.

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desA (15-Feb-10)

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## desA

I do love this virtual, hypothetical world...  :Rofl:

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## BigRed

> I do love this virtual, hypothetical world...


Sounds like a nice game :Boxing: 

Sorry, couldn't resist

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desA (15-Feb-10)

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## tec0

Well both game titles are really not bad but again I cannot play them so good or bad it makes no difference. And by getting your hands dirty is a complex exercise but again the point of owning an original is so that you donât have to rewrite the EXE and INI files. 

This is the point that is getting me down. We are not the criminals why are being treated like criminals? No I am going to do whatever I can to get these publishers to notice that the original game market is completely bogus. 

People are losing a real amount of money here and I think it is time to makes some real waves.  :Batman:

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## AndyD

> We are not the criminals why are being treated like criminals?


It's a catch 22 thing. Steam is an anti piracy measure, all anti piracy measures make life difficult and in this case unbearable for legitimate users. This drives legitimate users to use pirated games which drives distributors to use more complex and convoluted anti piracy measures. It's a slippery slope and you're at the bottom of it Tec0.

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## tec0

My apologies, the problem is similar to Steams problems but I am pointing to 2Kâs âBioshock Super Hitsâ Addition.  Let me explain the problem in more detail.

I got the 2Kâs âBioshock Super Hitsâ yesterday and tried to install it. Needless to say it wanted internet connection and download about 20MB worth of patches while it installed. This is mandatory to get the game to work. 

Now there is no booklet or even an activation key in the box. Now After installation it is demanding to be activated with a Key that I simply donât have and it will not function without it. So A the game like steamâs game is incomplete thus they are selling us software that cannot function at all. 

Secondly once you go to the registration link on the 2K website. IT asks you for ALL your personal details and upon entering them and âregisteringâ You donât even get confirmation. Thus the game cannot be registered at all. 

In my opinion this is theft.

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## tec0

http://www.bioshockunlock.com/index.php#step1 

Still not working at all.  :Headbutt:

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## AndyD

Bioshock came with SecuROM PA protection. As well as the usual angle based protection it will also only work with online activation. SecuROM is a highly invasive protection system that doesn't uninstall properly and you need to dig out of your registry manually. The jury's still out on whether there's a rootkit element to certain versions of it as well.

You say there's no literature with the game, did you buy it second hand? If you don't have a keycode with the game then I don't fancy your chances of getting it to work legally.

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## QuintonIR

This is the reason why people start looking for alternatives to buying original games, and cracking them so the online activation is not necessary. Thats where you get fraud etc.

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## AndyD

But is it fraud if you have bought an original copy?

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## desA

Are their any serious people in this thread - everyone's playing games way too much...  :Rofl:

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## tec0

Finally got a solution to my problem. I broke both the disks and discarded it in the trash. I am taking up golf  :Thumbup:

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desA (16-Feb-10)

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## twinscythe12332

hahaha. I'll have to check my copy of bioshock tonight. if I remember correctly, the activation is done without the need for a serial key to be entered. I just clicked activate and it went about it there have been a few cases where I've gotten a game and it has an embedded activation key different to the box (so I get two activation keys).

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## tec0

Well I did phone the game shop just for interest. With this particular version of the game you need a CD key and it will activate automatically. However some of the die games were shipped without the CD key.  :Surrender:  

A few hours later they send me an SMS with the key in question but the CD is done for as in not even superman with superglue will ever fix that disk again.  :Slap:  

âjust for the record CD key = DVD activation keyâ I am just so use to say and write CD keyâ  :Big Grin:

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## twinscythe12332

hahaha, so all it would have taken was a quick call and you wouldn't feel like a chop now =P

With piracy being so high, I honestly think companies need to review WHY the piracy is occuring, before they decide on the next great security system. You're always going to have the bad apples who want everything for free and no effort on their part, but there are a number of people out there who would be more willing to buy, if a certain criteria was met. this ranges from free additional content that can only be used with an original copy, to slashing the prices. 99 times out of 100 a price cut will get more units sold, because by cutting the price you are ensuring the game is more available to lower income groups. It's all about giving a better balance rather than trying to take the gamer for a ride.

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tec0 (17-Feb-10)

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