Steam Version of Dead Space 2 Dead in the Water

[John Funk]

Steam Version of Dead Space 2 Dead in the Water

Planning to grab Dead Space 2 on Steam? You might want to wait a bit until it works.

In case you didn't hear, Dead Space 2 is coming out today. If you're looking to pick up the followup to Visceral's highly-rated space horror title, it's available on Xbox 360 and PS3, and if PC gaming is more your thing you could always download it from Steam ... in theory.

Users on the Steam forums [http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1730273] are reporting that their copies of Dead Space 2 won't properly activate when the serial key is entered. It's unclear whether this is happening to all copies of the game or just some of them, but either way EA's serial key generator appears to be seriously borked.

A Valve representative said that [http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?p=20462185&postcount=64] the digital distribution giant was aware of the issue and had contacted EA to get it resolved soon.

Man, for all of the convenience of digital distribution, there's really something to be said for just being able to slip the disc inside your Xbox 360 or PS3 and start right away, huh?

(Via VG247 [http://www.vg247.com/2011/01/25/steam-version-of-dead-space-2-refuses-to-activate/])

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[Azaraxzealot]

another reason why it sucks to be a PC gamer... sometimes the games dont even work XD

Man, for all of the convenience of digital distribution, there's really something to be said for just being able to slip the disc inside your Xbox 360 or PS3 and starting right away, huh?

yep. pretty much what i said. some companies just dont know how to treat their paying customers :/

 

[Kroxile]

Seeing how I prefer to own real copies of my games, this is a non issue for this PC gamer.

 

[Delusibeta]

My money's on Valve getting a dud batch of CD keys from EA, or someone cocking up the key generation, or something. No different to GameStop selling a batch of scratched discs, or whatever (except that Valve doesn't tend to hand out refunds for key failures like this one).

 

[Danpascooch]

another reason why it sucks to be a PC gamer... sometimes the games dont even work XD

Man, for all of the convenience of digital distribution, there's really something to be said for just being able to slip the disc inside your Xbox 360 or PS3 and starting right away, huh?

yep. pretty much what i said. some companies just dont know how to treat their paying customers :/

Steam (run by Valve) doesn't know how to treat its customers? I've never heard anyone argue THAT before, hell, they gave EVERYONE A FREE COPY OF PORTAL when it came out for Mac, I'm sure this is a mistake on EA's end.

 

[Something Amyss]

Steam (run by Valve) doesn't know how to treat its customers? I've never heard anyone argue THAT before, hell, they gave EVERYONE A FREE COPY OF PORTAL when it came out for Mac, I'm sure this is a mistake on EA's end.

Apologetics never get old.

 

[Azaraxzealot]

another reason why it sucks to be a PC gamer... sometimes the games dont even work XD

Man, for all of the convenience of digital distribution, there's really something to be said for just being able to slip the disc inside your Xbox 360 or PS3 and starting right away, huh?

yep. pretty much what i said. some companies just dont know how to treat their paying customers :/

Steam (run by Valve) doesn't know how to treat its customers? I've never heard anyone argue THAT before, hell, they gave EVERYONE A FREE COPY OF PORTAL when it came out for Mac, I'm sure this is a mistake on EA's end.

i would never accuse valve of messing up. yeah, i AM talking about EA here. for a company that wants to prevent piracy, the way they handle it sure encourages it

 

[Danpascooch]

Steam (run by Valve) doesn't know how to treat its customers? I've never heard anyone argue THAT before, hell, they gave EVERYONE A FREE COPY OF PORTAL when it came out for Mac, I'm sure this is a mistake on EA's end.

Apologetics never get old.

I don't even really use steam, I'm a console gamer all the way.

I just know that they have offered amazing deals to their customers, and a good service, and it's wrong to assume this problem is on their end when we don't have that information.

 

[Mr. Socky]

I got it from Direct2Drive. I got it ten bucks cheaper, and it ran fine about 5 hours before the game was supposed to unlock. Life is good.

 

[mindlesspuppet]

From what I gather the boxed version for PC has the same issue, not just Steam.

 

[Nikolaz72]

Thing is, if your mother moves your pc while its on (Which she wont). The disc inside wont be useless afterwards (Like the Xbox) Damn i mean, if i bought a cd and it got ruined the same day because of that i'd be more sad than not having to pay more and wait a little while for the CD key.

Another thing i wonder about is why the escapist is making an issue of this but didnt say anything with Total War or Risen?

 

[the_pleasure_is_mine]

Man, for all of the convenience of digital distribution, there's really something to be said for just being able to slip the disc inside your Xbox 360 or PS3 and start right away, huh?

Amen to that. Getting my 360 copy this Friday.

I wish there weren't these sort of complications on any platform.

 

[KennyNOL]

Yeah which is why I prefer a physical copy over a digital download anyday.

 

[teh_gunslinger]

Steam (run by Valve) doesn't know how to treat its customers? I've never heard anyone argue THAT before, hell, they gave EVERYONE A FREE COPY OF PORTAL when it came out for Mac, I'm sure this is a mistake on EA's end.

Apologetics never get old.

Except it really is EAs fault. Valve doesn't hand out the keys. They just host the game for DL.

True. But Valve still has horrendous costumer support. When I bought Risen they ran out of keys. I submitted a ticket. It took a week and a half before they bothered to reply. They also said nothing on the forums about when it would be resolved. And that's just one of the problems I've had. When Season 3 of Sam and Max was released they held it back in order to coordinate with their god damn Mac crap at the time. Again: no word. The only person who told anything was Videogames Rodkin over at TellTale. Not a damn word from Valve despite it being their fault. The game was long released at TellTales own store.

So I'm getting a bit tired of all the apologetics who think Valve can do no wrong. They generally are crap at keeping their costumers informed of anything. I'm surprised they even admitted there is a problem in this case.

Also note the recent crap with disabled accounts and gift giving.

Oh, yea. One more thing: Valve has misunderstood the idea of digital distribution. Every game on Steam is about 30-50% more expensive than I can get a disc copy for. In the case of Dead Space 2: 50? on Steam. 25 or 30? on play.com. The same goes for Shogun 2. It's preposterous and downright infuriating. So don't defend Valve as being costumer friendly too much.

 

[Flying Dagger]

I've never really felt the need to play (or buy) a game on day one of release, so this doesn't really affect me.
Seeing as the steam version is usually only three quarters of the price of the xbox or ps3 variation, I'd say that the two days I predict this will still be an issue for are not that much of a price to pay.

 

[MikhailGH]

Another reason why EA sucks.
BTW I am still gonna buy the game one year later for 10$. XD

 

[Tzekelkan]

Man, for all of the convenience of digital distribution, there's really something to be said for just being able to slip the disc inside your Xbox 360 or PS3 and start right away, huh?

Man, you did not just go there. That wasn't just a jab at Steam though, it sounded more like you fear the future, where the horrible, horrible inconvenience of digital distribution (the Devil's work) will most certainly be more widespread.

Besides, from what I see of it, this has nothing to do with digital distribution, but with the DRM (game serial keys). Sure, they often come together but are two different entities.

 

[John Funk]

Man, for all of the convenience of digital distribution, there's really something to be said for just being able to slip the disc inside your Xbox 360 or PS3 and start right away, huh?

Man, you did not just go there. That wasn't just a jab at Steam though, it sounded more like you fear the future, where the horrible, horrible inconvenience of digital distribution (the Devil's work) will most certainly be more widespread.

Besides, from what I see of it, this has nothing to do with digital distribution, but with the DRM (game serial keys). Sure, they often come together but are two different entities.

I fear digital distribution? Geez, I wish someone had told me that before I bought all of these games off of Steam...

 

[Nincompoop]

Oh please! Now everyone's going like "Oh, look at the idiots buying digital copies!"
Seriously. Stop that.