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."
The reason VU doesn't want Valve to go ahead with STEAM as a distribution method is because VU has some shady behind the scenes deals with companies like EBGames and Walmart for exclusive shelf space, and likewise VU to those companies for giving them extra copies of VU's bestselling titles to sell. Some dinky little company might have difficulty attaining copies of the game to sell in comparison to the giants. VU will see a lot of money from the sales they make in those stores, and likely a lot less from STEAM distribution.
It seems that Valve is trapped between a rock and a hard place. If they cancel their STEAM distribution method they are going to risk pissing off ATI and customers who have already preordered the game on STEAM. ATI would have to end up shelling out a lot of additional money just to ship the game to people who haven't paid the $10 dollar shipping fee when they chose STEAM streaming in their Radeon 9600/9800 XT card deal. In addition to that, if they shipped it out to free for those customers they'd have to end up giving back everyone who already paid their 10 dollars. The results would be exponentially *bad*.
Edit: to Overron - unlike ID Software and Valve, Blizzard is fully owned by VU. There's no cutting them out. It's the reason why most of the big wigs left Blizzard a while back.
This comment was edited on Sep 20, 13:30.
It seems that Valve is trapped between a rock and a hard place. If they cancel their STEAM distribution method they are going to risk pissing off ATI and customers who have already preordered the game on STEAM. ATI would have to end up shelling out a lot of additional money just to ship the game to people who haven't paid the $10 dollar shipping fee when they chose STEAM streaming in their Radeon 9600/9800 XT card deal. In addition to that, if they shipped it out to free for those customers they'd have to end up giving back everyone who already paid their 10 dollars. The results would be exponentially *bad*.
Edit: to Overron - unlike ID Software and Valve, Blizzard is fully owned by VU. There's no cutting them out. It's the reason why most of the big wigs left Blizzard a while back.
This comment was edited on Sep 20, 13:30.
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