Taulin wrote:
Either way, I agree, if Steam is a court issue, and the date is March 2005, then we probably won't see a Steam deployment until then.
Nope. You're wrong there. The STEAM release will be going along as scheduled e.g. when the game goes gold, immediately. This whole issue isn't specifically about the release of Half Life 2 but rather Valve's use of STEAM in general. It covers the entirety of their CS:Condition Zero, CounterStrike and Day of Defeat STEAM releases of which only Valve has made money out of. There is no reason to delay the STEAM release of Half Life 2, of which the preloads have already begun, just for the court date.
Not to mention that this would also open room for a countersuit from ATI to VU for the Radeon 9600/9800 XT HL2 promotion deal that the two companies agreed on. Basically, ATI would stand to lose quite a bit of money from the distribution if it is delayed any longer, and furthermore they would lose their advantage over nVidia in the retail market if STEAM tanks. They'd have to shell out money to send a boxed copy of HL2 to everyone who chose the STEAM deal and they'd have to give everybody else who paid their S&H fees their money back. They can't afford to lose that much.