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No Half-Life 2 on Steam?
Karl the Pagan writes "Following on the heels of a previous Steam-related story, Vivendi Universal may block Half-Life 2 distribution via Steam. Additional motions can be filed until November 18th, but since Sierra/VU have final QA approval on the HL2 gold is it possible they could delay the game until after the court decides on these motions?"
Wow......
We will probably see a resonance cascade before we see the release of HL2.
Vivendi/Universal may not be the only people to get angry at Valve for their use of Steam to distribute HalfLife2.
Currently the Halflife2 preloads are optional downloads, but there is no indication of the *size* of these downloads. Outside of the USA many people are charged for excess downloads on Broadband.
As an example, http://www.bigpond.com/ (Telstra Bigpond) here in Australia charges AU$0.15 per extra megabyte. One of the recent preloads was approximately 1gb of data. An unsuspecting family which was already at it's download limit would be up for AU$150 in charges for that download alone (which happens in the background, and can continue after a reboot) - close to double the price of the game itself.
When will the first "Customer sues Valve" postings begine ?
Note: Please don't change the topic to "ISPs shouldnt charge for excess" - the point is that some still do.
-- Game Development Blog
Valve vs. Vivendi Universal dogfight heats up in US District Court
The two-year-old dispute playing out in Federal Court revs up as milestones, court date approach.
Last week, news of Valve finally shipping the Half-Life 2 release candidate to publisher Vivendi Universal Games (VUG) grabbed headlines. However, behind the scenes, the two companies have been involved in a much less upbeat kind of transaction--an ongoing legal battle that has garnered little attention from gamers.
On August 14, 2002, Valve served its then-publisher Sierra On-Line (now Sierra Entertainment, a Vivendi Universal Games brand) with a lawsuit in US District Court of Washington, Western Division, alleging copyright infringement--the result of Sierra placing Valve games in Internet cafes in the US and abroad. "Sierra has in the past and continues to reproduce, use, distribute, and/or license one or more of the Valve Games with regard to 'cyber cafes,'" the complaint read. "Sierra's activities are outside the scope of Sierra's limited license...and therefore constitute copyright infringement in violation of the Copyright Act of 1976."
And so it began.
Since that filing, more than a dozen lawyers have left their stamp on the over 200 documents and exhibits (the most recent filed just last week) that have crossed the desk of the honorable Thomas S. Zilly, the judge mediating the dispute.
Presiding over the claims, counterclaims, motions, answers, declarations, applications, amended complaints, and other minutia of the case, Zilly is in the middle of the legal equivalent of a barroom brawl. In court filings, attorneys for Sierra/VUG allege that Gabe Newell, founder and managing director of Valve, conveyed "misleading half-truth[s]" to them, and that various ensuing conversations between Newell and Sierra/VUG executives were colored with "misrepresentations and concealment." Valve's marketing director Doug Lombardi is also described as having made "false representations" to Sierra/VUG execs.
"Valve sued Vivendi for copyright infringement back in 2002 over their unauthorized distribution of our products to cyber cafes," Lombardi told GameSpot last Friday. "We later had to add breach of contract claims for, among other things, refusing to pay us royalties owed and delaying Condition Zero out of the holiday season."
That lawsuit became more complex when Sierra fought back with a counterclaim. "Almost a year and a half into the lawsuit," Lombardi continued, "Vivendi responded by making a number of claims in an attempt to invalidate our agreement and be awarded the ownership of the Half-Life intellectual property. We expect to prevail in this lawsuit."
Though the density of the legal documents makes for arduous reading, they yield many fascinating nuggets of information. For example, the first Half-Life, which went on to win numerous awards and reap huge profits for both developer and publisher, was delivered to Sierra after an almost laughably meager $800,000 advance--the initial payment was a mere $30,000 when Newell and Sierra On-line reps signed their first software publishing agreement on April 27, 1997.
Currently, the case stands here: After Valve's initial lawsuit alleging that Sierra illegally distributed Half-Life to game cafes, and Sierra/VUG's counterclaim that accuses Valve of circumventing Sierra's retail plans by distributing Valve games via Steam, the two sides have both submitted motions for summary judgment on lesser points.
"Our court date [a jury trial to address the complaint and counterclaim] isn't until March 2005," Lombardi said. "The October 8 motions relate to two legal issues. We expect those issues to be decided in our favor."
For readers not familiar with the case (that is, just about everyone), the overall timeline is referenced in documents filed by VUG attorneys on Wednesday, September 15, 2004. In those documents--a second motion "to compel production of [Half-Life 2] source code"--Sierra/VUG attorneys stated their case in filings as fol
Noone writes jokes in base 13!
Oh I'm sorry, you meant good reasons for us, the customers? Well, tough luck, because apart from being able to install directly after paying for it online, there aint none
Hate me!
Halo for the Mac
And you missed the part where sierra renegotiated with valve and valve got the ability to distribute online. Sierra's saying they were misled, that valve downplayed steam. Sierra didn't realize at the time they were selling away their publishing rights.
Candy-Coated Knowledge