people writing down serial keys in stores (many stores used to have such things on display)Ĥ. getting their computers exploited (there were several worms afaik that stole cdkeys)ģ. sloppy caretaking of covers etc on local LANsĢ. No, most keys that people experienced that already were in use, were because of a handful of different things:ġ. and as far as i know, no key generators checked with the WON network, so you'd just have to try (and that takes at least 15 seconds). giving that the game has sold something like 20 million copies, that would turn out to try at least 20.000 keys before hitting one successful.
The serial code for Half-Life is 14 digits, meaning a total of 289.254.654.976 possible combinations. They're pissing on their feet though, with the hl key system horribly sucking too(it's not really that uncommon that you lose your key to someone running some keygen, leading into some major suckery to get it back, in some cases people have bought the game still in wrappers and went home for some cs and noticed that the key was already in use).
