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."
Contracts are fairly easy to breach if you have a good lawyer, and I imagine Valve does.
As mentioned, this is the way of the future for many companies. When they're big enough it makes sense to distribute themselves. They can charge less and profit more. Of course, they can't charge less yet, but the day will come. Publishers will still be needed to fund smaller games, but they'll do online distro, too.
Someone also mentioned battle.net - it's entirely different and very cheap for Blizzard. All battle.net is is a chat service, essentially. Very little bandwith is used. When you play a game you're direct connected to whoever is hosting the game - someone else's computer, not battle.net. All blizzard does is host the chats and matchmaking as well as store basic statistics.
As mentioned, this is the way of the future for many companies. When they're big enough it makes sense to distribute themselves. They can charge less and profit more. Of course, they can't charge less yet, but the day will come. Publishers will still be needed to fund smaller games, but they'll do online distro, too.
Someone also mentioned battle.net - it's entirely different and very cheap for Blizzard. All battle.net is is a chat service, essentially. Very little bandwith is used. When you play a game you're direct connected to whoever is hosting the game - someone else's computer, not battle.net. All blizzard does is host the chats and matchmaking as well as store basic statistics.
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Music for the discerning:
http://www.deathwishinc.com
http://www.hydrahead.com
http://www.painkillerrecords.com
Music for the discerning:
http://www.deathwishinc.com
http://www.hydrahead.com
http://www.painkillerrecords.com
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