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."
This whole law suit doesnt even look to pertain to HL2 at all. But instead the way valve has been using Steam to distribute games Vivendi is still selling. The only way any of this will effect HL2 is if Valve decides to hold the game back until they get what they want, in which case Vivendi will probaly force them to release it.
All that aside, the whole deal with publishers being the problem with games is slightly off base. Sure they push for a lot of things that would be better off not done, but they also push for games to go out the door. A lot of companies wouldnt ever hit their release dates in a timely matter if it wernt for publishers holding their paychecks. Sure you can think that thats why games come out not done or buggy, or what not. But really you should look towards some of the developers as either not putting in the time, or not being as good as they should be. This isnt to lay blame on either side, because its differnt for every game, and probaly ends up being equal problems among both sides.
Now something that shouldnt be over looked, is that if a publisher loses a big development company like Valve, then they lose money. And by them losing money they are even less likely to take up that risky project. Publishers need big money makers to allow them to take these risks with small start up companies. What if they had decided to never take the risk with HL, the whole project could have gone down the tubes.
As for Online distribution, it may be the way some people perfer to buy games, but will never take the place of the actuall box sale. Reason being, that if a company wishes to sell both ways, they have to meet retails demands, and if you undercut the retail chains they arnt going to want to do buisness with you. So you are left with the dession of getting the box copy and any special deals they include with it, or download the game for the same price without getting anything but the game.
All that aside, the whole deal with publishers being the problem with games is slightly off base. Sure they push for a lot of things that would be better off not done, but they also push for games to go out the door. A lot of companies wouldnt ever hit their release dates in a timely matter if it wernt for publishers holding their paychecks. Sure you can think that thats why games come out not done or buggy, or what not. But really you should look towards some of the developers as either not putting in the time, or not being as good as they should be. This isnt to lay blame on either side, because its differnt for every game, and probaly ends up being equal problems among both sides.
Now something that shouldnt be over looked, is that if a publisher loses a big development company like Valve, then they lose money. And by them losing money they are even less likely to take up that risky project. Publishers need big money makers to allow them to take these risks with small start up companies. What if they had decided to never take the risk with HL, the whole project could have gone down the tubes.
As for Online distribution, it may be the way some people perfer to buy games, but will never take the place of the actuall box sale. Reason being, that if a company wishes to sell both ways, they have to meet retails demands, and if you undercut the retail chains they arnt going to want to do buisness with you. So you are left with the dession of getting the box copy and any special deals they include with it, or download the game for the same price without getting anything but the game.
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