As many of the people who have Left 4 Dead will know, Valve did not include Digital Rights Management (DRM) onto the disc(s). While this is rather good given the way the DRM controversy has exploded in the wake of the Spore debacle, it doesn’t mean Valve is just letting piracy happen. In fact, there is something they are doing about it that is kind of making it seem like they are conceding something to the public. That is, if you know it’s going on. It’s a way that really doesn’t make much sense to us, though it could make sense when you think about it, because it’s only happening to those that want to play multiplayer through the cracked L4D copies floating around the torrent sites. This could mean one of two things: Either they think the multiplayer is the key seller of the game (it’s what’s getting the game these high scores on the reviews so far), or….

….maybe even they think that the single player campaign in L4D sucks total ass.

As some reviewers have pointed out before, the L4D single player campaign isn’t all that is cracked up to be (we’re right now playing through the game and will give you a thorough review when we’re ready to tell you what we thought of it), and many people believe that the multiplayer sells the game for the company.

Thus, when the issue of piracy on their new game comes up, it seems as though Valve doesn’t give a crap about the single player experience being cracked, but they are defending their MP servers from the pirates like their lives depended on it.

DISCLAIMER: Game Gazette holds no responsibility over what transpires to your computer or, if applicable, your Steam account (or legal status) by using the following methods. Please proceed to try these at your own risk. We neither condemn nor condone these methods, and are only listing them for this story. We do not wish anyone ill for inventing these methods, either, as GG fully supports digital freedom.

The crack for the multiplayer, before Valve patched the game (and continues to and continues to in order to control this) is actually a file that one replaces in the Left 4 Dead sub-folder within their Steam folder (we won’t mention the actual file or where you can find it for obvious reasons, but just Google a few things that are related to this topic and we’re sure you’ll be able to find it). The thought is that when you replace this file with the cracked file and then edit another file in the main L4D folder (again, Google it), the servers will think that you actually own the game, and thus will let you into the servers.

Sounds simple, right? Not so fast. As we mentioned before, Valve is being a bit draconian about this whole issue, and maybe to some people it’s required and all good, but it still doesn’t make too much sense. The patches (which also fixes bugs that were within L4D when it released. Seems like an awful lot of small, easily fixable bugs to miss within the game, does it?) end up disabling whatever happened to that cracked file one replaced. Not only that, but the first patch made it so one would be required to run Steam (which is one pain-in-the-ass program to try to use sometimes, especially when installing something to use with it) in order to get into the online servers. Once one does that, it ends up checking that previously mentioned file for anything wrong with it. If it detects something wrong, then you see the lobby screen for two seconds (if that) before saying that you got disconnected. Even moreso, Steam also makes your IP Address avaliable to Valve to basically do whatever they feel is necessary to do with your account. Thus, when a new version of the cracked file is made and one uses it when connected to Steam, Valve is able to spot it rather quickly. They can not only release a new patch (to fix another small bug within the game, see where we’re going with this bugs-in-the-game thing), but ban the accounts of whoever had that file, sometimes even ban the IPs if they really want. While some people may be saying “good, Valve is doing the right thing,” Steam, as we have said, is not the most user-friendly program in the world to use. Not only that, but what is stopping someone at Valve from mistaking someone’s legit file with a pirated file and banning the account? That is, if certain tricks (we won’t mention them here) are used to even fool Steam into thinking everything is legit, and it seems like whenever Valve nips one person’s crack of the file in question, another version of the crack is made within a week, making this an ongoing battle.

However, this makes even less sense when you take into consideration another way some people have found to play the cracked copies online, using the cracked file and something else that we are able to mention here, frankly because with all of the Valve methods to thwart this issue, this one has yet to be touched. It involves the “developer console” that can be enabled through the normal options menu within the game, the cracked file, and a virtual LAN program called Hamachi. What Hamachi is for is to make anyone computer that is logged onto a created LAN server on the program think that they are actually in the same house or building, the same network (hence the meaning of virtual LAN). In other words, it’ll make the game believe that you are playing a local multiplayer game when you’re actually playing an online one. It does require additional commands via the developer’s console (which, if you have ever played a Valve game, you’ll be familiar with what that is), but it has yet to be touched by Valve. The only major issue, according to the website that we have discovered these methods from (which will remain anonymous, again for obvious reason, though, again, Googling it will probably bring up a certain forum where these things can all be found and talked about). By the way, don’t worry about using Hamachi, as it’s a pretty good program for legit reasons, as well. The program comes in either the lite (free) version, or a pro (premium) version, though we’re currently unsure about the differences between the versions. The free version works perfectly for this method, however, according to the anonymous site.

All of this seems to be trivial, though, on what Valve would admit through doing this, until you take into consideration this: Out of all of the battles around this file, the actual game itself has never been disabled for being pirated. Even when your cracked file has been compromised by one of the patches, you can still play the full single player game via the torrented files. This brings into question what the reasoning of this is. Did Valve themselves know that the single player wasn’t going to be as good and they thought it should be? Even though the game is getting high marks so far, there are concerns that the single player game runs smack into the repetitiveness wall, and that it grows tiresome after a few hours. Not to mention that the Source engine is showing its age in a huge way, as the graphics also leave something to be desire, according to the same people. Could it be that Valve does not care if someone hacks the game to play the single player game because they believe, as well, that the SP experience isn’t all that? Or is that a strategy seeing as everyone has a high opinion on the multiplayer that they believe that they will buy the game just so they can play online? Or is it both?

Though we may never know, the criticisms about the single player campaign within the game will give some people the thought that Valve is conceding something bad about Left 4 Dead, and with them getting very favorable reviews, this is the last thing they need: A DRM controversy of their own to deal with…and DRM isn’t even on the damn disc this time!