Downloading Orange Box from Steam

[Jacques]

Today I bought the orange box mainly for Team Fortress 2. The problem is that the drive is not recognizing the DVD. So unless the shop returns the DVD and gives me a new one I am left with just the cd-key for the orange box. So I've got two options. Either download Orange Box from a torrent or through Steam. So my question is if I enter my product activation key in Steam, am I going to get the option to download all these 5 games through Steam without having to use my Orange Box DVD or is the cd-key going to get wasted?

[AnonymousBroccoli]

I've never bought a Valve game on disc, so please note that I could be wrong on all this. I've only used (legitimate) product keys that others have given me for my Steam games.

 

I'm fairly sure that The Orange Box requires you to validate your key using Steam, and permanently tie it to your Steam account, retail box or not. I don't know what the exact process is with the retail DVD, but I suspect it simply contains the game data, so you can use that to install, rather than downloading game files, which will likely be several gigabytes. (Not so much fun if you're on dial-up, obviously.)

 

I think if you enter your key via Steam, it will take you through the Terms of Service, and all that, and show you the list of games you've newly licensed. I think it should then give you the option to download any, all, or none of them at that point.

 

Long story short, I think you're safe with just the product key, as long as you don't mind downloading the games. Though if it's an option, I don't think it'd hurt to try to get a replacement disc.

[AnonymousBroccoli]

http://www.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_...pic_id=26210160

 

Is there multiple discs? Sounds like the guy in that thread used disc 1, which contained a Steam installer, registered the key in Steam, which then proceeded to download his games. He later used disc 2 (and maybe disc 1, I'm not sure) to install the game files, rather than download them on dial-up.

[Prophet of Mike Zagurski]

I bought HL: Episode One at Circuit City and then typed in the key without using the DVD in my drive. The game downloaded on my computer. You should be fine with the CD key.