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."
What I would change?
I would simply do the games like before, with an integrated Steam-light client (if they dont want to use WON) so you can still launch the games with the normal game browsers like All Seeing Eye, GameSpy, Kwery (sp?) etc. Password and login would only be needed if you have Steam standalone for downloading games, mods, patches etc. People who love their friendslist and other stuff in Steam could simply still be using their loved Steam, while people who dont want that useless stuff simply used the game itself and their prefered game browser for playing the game.
I wouldnt limit the games to the newest versions. CS lost most of the good players and clans just because of that 1.6 forcing. Other mods even went poof because they lost fans because of Steam. And most small mod teams simply ceased to develop further because of Steam.
An extra program just to launch games from a single developer is simply stupid. Also the user friendlyness is nonexistent in Steam. Why do so many menus and unnessecary clicks to get into a game and why is the server browser so crappy? I didnt like the old Half-Life browser (thats why I used ASE, actually I dont know a single person who used the ingame browser) but this one is even worse by far. Then the bug that you cant assign the controls to any key anymore. That bug is old as Steam but has never been touched.
I am not talking about update programs like the one that comes with Neverwinter Nights, Sacred, etc. Steam is something completely different.
________
I don't like arguing. Why can't we all just get along instead of fighting and arguing?
I would simply do the games like before, with an integrated Steam-light client (if they dont want to use WON) so you can still launch the games with the normal game browsers like All Seeing Eye, GameSpy, Kwery (sp?) etc. Password and login would only be needed if you have Steam standalone for downloading games, mods, patches etc. People who love their friendslist and other stuff in Steam could simply still be using their loved Steam, while people who dont want that useless stuff simply used the game itself and their prefered game browser for playing the game.
I wouldnt limit the games to the newest versions. CS lost most of the good players and clans just because of that 1.6 forcing. Other mods even went poof because they lost fans because of Steam. And most small mod teams simply ceased to develop further because of Steam.
An extra program just to launch games from a single developer is simply stupid. Also the user friendlyness is nonexistent in Steam. Why do so many menus and unnessecary clicks to get into a game and why is the server browser so crappy? I didnt like the old Half-Life browser (thats why I used ASE, actually I dont know a single person who used the ingame browser) but this one is even worse by far. Then the bug that you cant assign the controls to any key anymore. That bug is old as Steam but has never been touched.
I am not talking about update programs like the one that comes with Neverwinter Nights, Sacred, etc. Steam is something completely different.
________
I don't like arguing. Why can't we all just get along instead of fighting and arguing?
I have given up on waiting for BIS to come back to their senses and do a real ArmA 2 successor.
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