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."
>Rilus, I don't think it is so much an issue with gameplay
>(when your actually in the game) even though people say
>this, I think it is more an issue of the 'cludgyness' of
>the Steam interface and that you are FORCED to have to go
>through it to play a game.
You can create desktop shortcuts for any Steam enabled game. Clicking it would start the game directly through Steam in online or offline mode. How is it different than having a splash screen before the start of a game? An idle Steam app takes zero CPU resources and doesn't talk to Steam servers in offline mode. So what's the 'cludgyness' that you are talking about?
>(when your actually in the game) even though people say
>this, I think it is more an issue of the 'cludgyness' of
>the Steam interface and that you are FORCED to have to go
>through it to play a game.
You can create desktop shortcuts for any Steam enabled game. Clicking it would start the game directly through Steam in online or offline mode. How is it different than having a splash screen before the start of a game? An idle Steam app takes zero CPU resources and doesn't talk to Steam servers in offline mode. So what's the 'cludgyness' that you are talking about?
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