Hey guys

I'm in the UK eagerly awaiting 7am on Friday (have work at 11 so will be asleep for unlocking). my question is this; I have purchased the game through steam and pre loaded it, so it is sitting on my pc locked till Friday. Would it be illegal to download the game (that i have legally bought) and play it tomorrow?

As far as I understand (and if I understand what you mean), it is legal as long as the first date of release has passed-- I did this with the PC version of DR2, and had no issues playing it a day or so early (based on the UK Street date, which was about a week after the US, as I understand).

The preload is for server load issues only. You are not legally allowed to play the game until the date at which it is released in the area you live in. This is why the game may be on your PC, but is locked in Steam until that day comes and Steam downloads and decrypts and installs the data on your machine.

The date of release is not a question in the legality. If you circumvent technological protections (cracked copy), it's illegal. If you engage in the downloading and uploading (P2P) without the authorization of the copyright holder, it's illegal.

Those are the shorts of it.

Thanks.

I don't think we should continue this discussion.