Valve versus Sierra [Sep 20, 2004, 11:34 am ET] – Share – Viewing Comments
Valve vs.
Vivendi Universal dogfight heats up in US District Court on GameSpot (thanks
Democritus) reveals some details of a behind-the-scenes legal battle between
Valve and Sierra (now part of VU Games) over Half-Life and Half-Life 2 that's
been brewing for several years now. The article picks through details of a
recent court filing by Valve that reveals the current state of the litigation,
which has its next court date on October 8, though an actual trial is not
scheduled until March 21, 2005. Included are disputes over what
role Steam is to take in the game's distribution and who actually holds rights
to the Half-Life intellectual property. Here's a segment that summarizes some of
this:
In court filings, Sierra/VUG says that the current distribution of Half-Life 2 via Steam exceeds the scope of the current software publishing agreement between the two parties. It is apparently seeking the court's assistance in compelling Valve not to use Steam as an avenue of distribution.
On Friday, when asked if Valve was remained intent on making Half-Life 2 available to gamers via Steam, regardless of what was determined on October 8, Lombardi replied, "Yes."
Interestingly, and in spite of the ongoing legal dispute, Sierra/VUG still wants to work with Valve in the future and is asking the court via filings to force Valve to work with it on whatever is next in the development pipeline. It asks the court, in filings, "for a declaration that Sierra and VUG have the right to a fourth engine license pursuant to the terms of...the 2001 Agreement."
According to Lombardi, "We're going to meet the obligations of our current agreement."
Could someone please sum up whats wrong with steam?
Some of the concerns of STEAM are:
1. Not having control of what goes on - not seeing exactly what STEAM is doing to your files makes some users uneasy.
a. Being able to patch your game at your own leisure is sometimes necessary if there are side effects of the patch (losing save games for one).
b. Theoretically it may be possible to not only download files, but also upload files.. using your PC and bandwidth as a file server.
c. Spyware
d. Performance hit - Is a mid to low end PC going to take a significant performance hit in a single or multiplayer game with STEAM running in the background?
2. Your PC requiring Valve's servers much in the same way a MMOG requires servers could be a problem.
a. Look at WoW and SWG. They had problems recently due to a tornado hitting their server farm. WoW testers were not able to log in this weekend. Imagine not being able to play your favorite single player FPS because of this.
b. Situations where local internet is temporarily not available
c. LAN games - will they happen with HL2?
d. If a million people send an authorization request at the same time (release day.. whenever that is), will STEAM be able to handle it?
This comment was edited on Sep 20, 12:25.
Some of the concerns of STEAM are:
1. Not having control of what goes on - not seeing exactly what STEAM is doing to your files makes some users uneasy.
a. Being able to patch your game at your own leisure is sometimes necessary if there are side effects of the patch (losing save games for one).
b. Theoretically it may be possible to not only download files, but also upload files.. using your PC and bandwidth as a file server.
c. Spyware
d. Performance hit - Is a mid to low end PC going to take a significant performance hit in a single or multiplayer game with STEAM running in the background?
2. Your PC requiring Valve's servers much in the same way a MMOG requires servers could be a problem.
a. Look at WoW and SWG. They had problems recently due to a tornado hitting their server farm. WoW testers were not able to log in this weekend. Imagine not being able to play your favorite single player FPS because of this.
b. Situations where local internet is temporarily not available
c. LAN games - will they happen with HL2?
d. If a million people send an authorization request at the same time (release day.. whenever that is), will STEAM be able to handle it?
This comment was edited on Sep 20, 12:25.
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