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The Price Tag of Exclusivity: ATI and Valve
The Inquirer has a piece up breaking down the millions of dollars ATI spent securing a "special relationship" with Valve prior to Half-Life 2 being released. The relationship resulted in a voucher being included with ATI cards for a free copy of Valve's hit game. From the article: "ATI gave Valve $2.4 million in cash for the deal. ATI also invested $1.2 million in marketing this great game. And last, but not least, was a cool $4.4 million that ATI and its partners spent for bundles. That amounts to some $8 million dollars....[ATI] sold an incredible lot of 9800XT and 9600XT cards just because of the nice voucher [for Half-Life 2]. That small piece of paper convinced many people to go out and buy an ATI card." A little salt with this article will help it go down easier.
I got an ATI card because I was told it had better performance than nvidia, especially in HL2. Now that I have my 9800, I realize what a waste it was, especially in Linux. HL2 was okay but definetely not worth getting this card for, especially for all the trouble it has caused (in an amd64 system). Next time I'm going nvidia.
This article simply gives some facts about how much ATi 'spent' on Half-Life 2.
However, how much the gain was is just speculation, but that there was a gain is sure.
The real winner here is Valve, of course.
HL2 units are CDs and booklets, nothing more, and valve can mass produce them like crazy.
;-)
Hellooo, Mr. Ieshan, 2005 called. Remember that Steam thing?
My copy of Half-Life 2 is just bits and bytes, and my authorisation details in a database somewhere. No physical packaging whatsoever - and I believe this is how many of the ATI vouchers were redeemed.
If the cost per unit allows them to hire talented people and take as long as they like on Half-Life 3, just like 2 was funded by the sales of the original game, then I'll be happy. Plus I've had excellent value for money out of the game so far anyway...
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?