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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?"
Half Life 2 - September 30, 2005
http://ipod.fresh27.net/
it's a court battle that won't even start before HL2 is released (if it's released soon...)...
Also, they've already said they are releasing it on Steam regardless of this case.
read here for more:
article on bluesnews.com
but if they do delay it, here's the upside.. the first motion may take a month to process, but the next motion will only be 2 weeks, then 1 week on the third, and so on.. it's only a matter of time.
heh
** "It's not my job to stand between the people talking to me, and the ones listening to me." -- Pego the Jerk
Ok since Half Life 2 seems to be soon enough (sooner than last year anyway!), how about Team Fortress 2! Only vapoware more vaporish than that is DNF.
For those who aren't familiar with an "Onos", it is a rather large rhinoceros-like creature from the HL1 mod natural selection.
They might as well describe the Half-Life 2 release delays in terms of uranium 238s half-life.
Somewhere, Duke Nukem is cheering, now that he's no longer the standard of perpetually pushed back release dates.
This possibility could be to Valve's advantage. They haven't released anything worthwhile since Team Fortress Classic and no one I know likes Steam at all.
Sort of amusing. I wonder if Id's getting a kickback from ATI, Nvidia, etc. :)
What will this mean for people who got the voucher with their ATI card? ATI promised to give them Half Life 2 (through Steam), but then HL2 was delayed so they didn't get it (they instead got the old half-life gams). Would it eventually be released through steam?
This really shouldn't ever have become an issue. The box-retail distribution model for games is still a viable one. Is it so important for HL fans to play the game as soon as humanly possible? What's wrong with buying it in store on the day of release?
How would Valve be harmed by giving in on this issue? How would the consumers be harmed?
IMHO, neither would, in any important way.
www.kitchengeek.com -- Nosh for
Steam is one of the worst programs I've seen in the last few years. Everyone seems to have trouble with it... why would ANYONE use it?
I'd much rather have a nice CD/DVD in my hand with the install on then a little code (which I could lose) to let me spend hours downloading it.
I'm trying not to sound like a troll but I really see no sane reason to download HL2 through steam and not just buy the damn CD. Preloading makes sense (install it faster) but why not get a nice shiney CD?
I like muppets.
I prefer Steam to other methods of purchasing a game. You don't have to go anywhere or pay shipping costs, you don't have to keep track of a CD, and hopefully, more of the money goes to the people that MADE the game, rather than filling the pockets of marketers and distributors. If I like a game, I want the people that made it to get the money, encouraging patches, new versions, and modifications. You see all this nonsense about Steam being terrible/people hating it/etc. I think they were using an earlier version. I'm a stickler about what I use / let run in the background of a Windows machine, even. I'm all about Firefox, nothing next to the clock, REALUPDATE.exe can die, all superfluous services are disabled. And still, this Steam software works fine and doesn't bother me. That's a bigger achievement than Realplayer can claim.
We are one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. Back to you with the weather, Bob!
This is a nice gesture to all those dial-up users who spent weeks doing the HL2 preloads..
I think HL2 will be better than Doom 3 as well, if it is released in the next month or so. If we have to wait for the trial (March 2005) and everything to be sorted out and it doesn't get released until fall 2005, its not going to be better, because it will be a year later, when every other FPS has "caught up". Once again, politics and legal are going to cost both companies a lot of money, both in fees and lost revenue from upset fans, and the delay making the game less desirable.
It probably would have taken less development time if they'd used coal or oil.
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
"On Friday, when asked if Valve was still intent on making Half-Life 2 available to gamers via Steam, regardless of what was determined on October 8, Lombardi replied, "Yes.""
So this means it's not coming out till at least October? WTF! I had my hopes up with this release candidate news, now this bullshit! Dammit, I'm going to be out of the country by the time it comes out! I may not be able to get it in any timely manner BUT via Steam.
Fer fucksake, games are perishible. Hype even moreso. The more they delay this thing, the less they're going to make off of it. The hype is at it's peak now, without ever having boiled over to the point of insanity (Phantom Menace, FF7). If they don't release this thing soon, they're gonna have another Daikatana on their hands.
Start selling the goddamn game, and settle out who gets how much in court!
Superior to DOOM III ?? Bah, both games were designed with different goals in mind in terms of gameplay, and the engines themselves are more or less equal in capabilities.
I for one would love to see the publisher cut out of the end price. New releases are sucking up $50 of my paycheck every time and it can only get worse. That said, Valve really needs to beef up its infrastructure before I'll join the service. I played CS on it and had nothing but problems with the service.
you deal with someone with no morals like vivendi and seirra and what do you expect.. why would they even have an agreement with them anymore, try to get out of it and just release everything yourself, the publishing company could be completely irrelevant with steam...
make it so that people can burn half life 2 cd's legally, then give them to their friends BUT with the catch that in order to decrypt it they gotta go pay valve directly online for the small program to activate it (they could sell it alot cheaper than normal and still make more money than normal, too)
replacing it with NEW Folger's Crystals! (lets see if they notice the difference)
Let me (nukepapa) be the first to label this kind of software as "LateWare" or "DelayWare".
Valve: We're going to eventually cut you guys outta the picture and begin distributing the game via the internet and our own in-house publishing solution instead of signing our games away to you forever.
Sierra: Oh no you don't...
I hope valve wins, it'd be nice to see these large game publishers dissapear.
Candy-Coated Knowledge
Just the other day I was complaining that there's no innovation in the gaming industry. It's nice to see that Vivendi found yet another new and original way to screw itself and alienate its remaining fans.
Perhaps once you start playing HL2 (haven't you seen any of the videos?), you'll realize then that even the engine is better. I'm not trying to diss DIII, it has it's place in the scary/pretty game department but I can only shoot so many monsters that jump at me after I open a door before it get monotonous.
Namaste
At this point, I doubt many people care how Half Life 2 gets to them, just so long as it actually arrives.
I personally recommend a few hundred rar files (and one or two with checksum errors of course) on a few hundred floppies.
Don't tell SCO, but I suspect some lines of Halflife 2 code may match theirs.
I saw an endif and a return near each other in the leaked version.
Vivendi Universal Games is suing Valve to prevent distribution over Steam. Considering how many people will be downloading or have already downloaded over Steam, it's no surprise. VUG is getting very very little out of this deal with Valve getting almost everything. VUG will do anything it can to prevent Steam distribution, since the dispute is over tens of millions of dollars in potential sales. Gamers are going to buy the game anyways, another 3-6 months or whatever it takes is not going to drastically hurt sales.
Bottom line: HL2 is going to be delayed until this is resolved.
I am defenseless. Use your button. Mod me down with all of your hatred.
The latest release schedule....
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Doom V
Duke Nukem Forever
Half Life 2
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Half-Life - universally praised for its gameplay and solid (at the time) editing tools. PC Gamer awarded it the highest score ever
- Team Fortress Classic - excellent multiplayer add-on that extended the game's life
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Counter-Strike - Valve's involvement with CS has been mediocre at best, from 'updating' maps and player models to altering traditional (and fun) parts of its gameplay
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Deathmatch Classic - A decent re-make of Quake DM--almost as good as the original--but Valve really should have been working on Half-Life 2 instead of this free and largely unnoticed mod
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Steam - a really, really unnecessary system that makes it difficult to run LANs, extract game content for editing, or install custom skins, maps, etc. Plus it still doesn't prevent cheating.
Given the current trend of Valve, I'd say the best thing they can do is drop Steam altogether and release Half-Life 2 just like the original. And maybe 4 or 5 Gold Editions or something.Hey Vivendi Universal:
License the Steam technology and platform from Valve and use it to distribute the other games in your library. That way you gain the benefits of an electronic distribution channel without having to do the blood and sweat part yourself and you reward one of your forward-thinking business partners.
Or you can sue said customer and make yourself look like the idiotic, money grubbing, fear-mongering institutions of the MPAA and RIAA, which are locked in the past despite all signs customer preferences are pointing the other way. Oh, that's right. Universal is a RIAA member. No wonder.
This is what you get when crotchety septegenarians managing a confused, out of focus multinational try to sell entertainment "to the kids". Heavy handed, out of touch business practices that alienate more people than they are trying to attract.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
Bugs or no bugs, Steam is unacceptable IMHO. When I buy a game on physical media, I have a tangible thing that belongs to me. I can install it on a new machine, I can lend it to a friend, I can sell it on eBay, I can keep playing it as long as I want, even after the publisher goes out of business. Steam allows none of that.
If Sierra goes belly up next week, how long do you think the Steam master server is going to be around? Probably not long. How can you sell a game you don't play anymore if it's on Steam? You can't! You don't actually have anything to sell, you've just been paying for access to someone else's game.
0 1 - just my two bits
... for not doing a Mac port.
Yes, God is a Mac Gamer. And He is pissed.
Maybe I'll check it out.
We know that Valve must be in the wrong here. After all, Vivendi has a long history of keeping the developer's/creative's best interests in mind. Anyone remember Vivendi's excellent (and forward-thinking) handling of mp3.com? (VU sold the domain, but not the music itself, to CNet, presumably for One Hundred Billion Dollars, as well as some sexual favors and two FREE Igia nail clippers.)
I mean, who wanted all those free MP3s anyway? Most of them were made by artists who would never sell albums anyway! VU was actually being polite, by helping those musicians who never would have 'made it' to get a real job, like making the Fajita Sandwich Wrap Melts that Vivendi executives get at Wendys.
*****
Dear Mary,
I yearn for you tragically,
A.T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.
Life in a Jar
Good riddance to big game publishers. They push early release dates, delay release dates, they're the ones who insist that you stick your CD in when you start up a game...good riddance.
Some of you may not like Steam (you probably haven't even tried it since it was the crappy beta...it kicks ASS now), some of you love it, but fact is, Valve is treading some innovative new game distribution ground here, and we should applaud them for taking a chance and sidestepping publishers all together. Isn't this in the same spirit of P2P music and other trumpeted mindsets?