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.