Isn't Blockbuster a Viacom or Time/Warner subsidiary? Lotsa mutual back-scratching going on there.

That's a thought - maybe Valve should up their licence fees for CyberCafes to like twelve-ty million shekels, then open their own chain of cafes when the indy ones go bust...

Valve did not make Team Fortress Classic. It was a conversion from a Mod made for... the original Quake? Not their design, they just ported it to their codebase. I don't even know what the other two mean, so can't judge there. Obviously, all the BIG Mods, the ones that kept Half Life in the picture for so long, were made by Mod Teams, not by Valve.


No, Team Fortress was for Quake. Team Fortress Classic was made by Valve for Valve. Robin (Cook?), the guy that created Team Fortress, is employed by Valve and moved from Australia to Washington to work with them. It had new features. DMC is Death Match Classic. HL2DM was Half Life Team Play. Valve kept pumping out internal addons.

If you buy a DVD, you do not have to pay for every person watching it.

How many times do I have to spell this out?
1) You are not paying PER PERSON, you are paying PER COMPUTER. It is a CORPORATE LICENSE.
2) If you buy a DVD you are not CHARGING people to watch it. If you are you are violating the LICENSE. CYBER CAFES are CHARGING people to play. This is the difference. They aren't letting people walk in and play, they are MAKING A PROFIT. Do you not see the difference between you having some friends over to watch a DVD and a cybe cafe CHARGING people to play a game?

That is bullshit, Beamer, and you know it. Warcraft, Starcraft, pretty much every Blizzard game allowed you to SPAWN a copy for multiplayer purposes only. All you could do with it was play multiplayer. Many online games have never forced you to authenticate both copies while playing, so you could play with a few people at the same time. It's only recently that we've begun to see this fucking idiotic "if two people in your household want to play the game, you have to buy two copies of the game" nazi crap.
When Microsoft started enforcing this shit for Windows XP, everyone shat all over themselves saying how fucking absurd it was that you couldn't install a copy of Office on two computers. Now game developers are doing it, and it's all fine and dandy.

Wrong. Wrong Wrong Wrong. Blizzard was always the exception, and that's because Spawns were slaves limited to a master. Could not play without the Master.

Office was ALWAYS limited to one computer. People that put them on multiple computers were PIRATING. It's just Microsoft had no way to prevent it at the time. Now they do. Go read your EULA for ANY version of Office and you'll see this.

This has ALWAYS been the way, it's only recently that they've been able to enforce it. But the rule has ALWAYS been spelled out. It's just that no one bothers to read and they think piracy is ok. Most people think they own software when they buy a CD. Most people are wrong, you merely own a license to the software and the CD it is printed on, you do not own the software.


As for Blockbuster:
[b]Redstone, called as an adverse witness by the plaintiffs, did not dispute that Blockbuster paid less for each tape under its revenue-sharing deals, under which it paid up to $7 per tape upfront and then handed over 40 percent or more of its rental income.

Revenue-sharing replaced a system under which Blockbuster, like its competitors, paid roughly $60 per tape and kept all rental proceeds.
[/b]
There you go, that's how video rental businesses work. Most stores pay $60 for a tape, often more, Blockbuster pays $7 and then 40% of their profits. Maybe Valve could sell HL2 to Cyber Cafes then take 40% of their profits and split it amongst all developers? Is that a better deal?



The reason I defend Valve is because they're doing nothing wrong other than taking money that belongs to them. It belongs to them because they did the work, therefore they're the ones that earned it, not the cyber cafe. Otherwise I could just charge people to play on my computer and call it a business. Everyone is getting so worked up over it based on false assumptions about the way entertainment licensing works. No one bothers fact checking or asking a lawyer that's done work in the entertainment industry, but here one is, answering all your questions, and still you argue. I did work in a law office dealing mostly with licensing agreements before my first year of law school - I was steeped pretty well in this casework.

This comment was edited on Dec 1, 01:10.

Mod teams did not give us HLDM Teamplay, TFC or DMC. Those all came from Valve after release. Those would be what I was implying.

Valve did not make Team Fortress Classic. It was a conversion from a Mod made for... the original Quake? Not their design, they just ported it to their codebase. I don't even know what the other two mean, so can't judge there. Obviously, all the BIG Mods, the ones that kept Half Life in the picture for so long, were made by Mod Teams, not by Valve.

People that bought the ATI cards early were idiots.

So, just because someone is an idiot, Valve is perfectly in the clear for telling them lies and misleading them into buying a new graphics card for a game they damn well knew wasn't going to see the light of day for another year?? Give me a break.


Also, Valve isn't charging them a license per person, only a corporate licensing fee. This is a flat license per computer, so your facts are wrong there, too, Creston.

You will notice that I edited my original post not too long after posting it saying that I wasn't sure what kind of licensing Valve had now obtained. I never stated anything as a FACT, merely as an assumption. I even said that if Valve now had a per-seat-licensing (or its bigger brother, the site licensing), that I thought this was perfectly acceptable.

Every company does this. Every company has always done this. There isn't a single EULA out there that allows a game to be played on two PCs at once. It's something not often enforced because it's hard to enforce, but it's on every EULA, even ones from the 80s.

That is bullshit, Beamer, and you know it. Warcraft, Starcraft, pretty much every Blizzard game allowed you to SPAWN a copy for multiplayer purposes only. All you could do with it was play multiplayer. Many online games have never forced you to authenticate both copies while playing, so you could play with a few people at the same time. It's only recently that we've begun to see this fucking idiotic "if two people in your household want to play the game, you have to buy two copies of the game" nazi crap.
When Microsoft started enforcing this shit for Windows XP, everyone shat all over themselves saying how fucking absurd it was that you couldn't install a copy of Office on two computers. Now game developers are doing it, and it's all fine and dandy.

To take your often used "This is being done in hollywood, in music, everywhere" rhetoric into hand myself here, the software industry is the ONLY entertainment industry that forces you to buy a copy for EVERY PERSON IN YOUR HOUSEHOLD.

If you buy a DVD, you do not have to pay for every person watching it. If you buy a CD, you do not have to pay for every person watching it. If you buy a TV, you do not have to pay for every person watching it. I don't have to pay extra if more than two people sit on my couch. Anything I buy and take into my house is free for me to do with what I wish (observing copyright laws).
But the software industry wants to restrict what we can do with it. Do you realise that every EULA stipulates that if, for example, Valve tells you tomorrow that you can no longer play Half Life 2, you have to uninstall and DESTROY your copy, and tough luck about your money?

And this is what you're trying to defend?

Once again, I don't think Valve is being greedy for sticking up for its licensing fees, and I think they got a fair deal out of it. Cybercafes should just unanimously tell Valve to go fuck itself, and then no harm done. I have no problem with that. My problem came forth out of the idea that I first had, that Valve was asking for a licensing fee for everyone who would sit down and play that game, so it dwelled a bit and was kinda off topic.

A well thought out post, but your facts are still incorrect. Much like your post about Blockbuster, they have revenue sharing, so a chunk of their profits go towards licensing

I never claimed anything as FACT. Just as an opinion. I think you're wrong about Blockbuster (I don't think they have revenue sharing with the movie industry), but I don't really know enough, nor care enough about it to make an argument either way.

Creston

: :

When will people learn that Valve isn't doing anything new, they're just doing it in a new industry?

This reminds me of a story I heard from someone who told me that, I think it was HBO, was essentially going around to bars essentially trying to extort them by telling them they could not broadcast the Sopranos or Sex and the City without paying additional revenues...

Wrong. They were going after bars CHARGING people to watch HBO. So the bars were profiting despite doing nothing. Wait, that's right, according to people here they provided the cable and TVs. Yeah, because people want TVs with nothing on them.

Will bars and niteclubs have to fork over more money just to have the radio playing or the TV on??????

Only if they charge people to see it. And no, they don't have to pay for the radio, but they pay for jukeboxes. A company takes a cut of those profits. Do you know what that company does? They pay the record labels. They have to pay LICENSING FEES to put those jukeboxes in bars, and bars subsidize some of those fees.

So the bar is like the cyber cafe, the jukebox is like the computer, and the labels are like Valve. Should the bars be able to just buy CDs and put them in the jukebox and charge people to listen? Should the be able to buy a CD for $8 at Best Buy and make that money back on 16 plays? That sounds fair? Of course not. How is this different? It isn't. People here seem to argue that people go to the bar to see the jukebox, not to listen to it. Well fine, we'll have empty jukeboxes and see if they still get dollars.

Yet another person with conspiracy theories that doesn't understand how the world of licensed entertainment works. NOTHING VALVE IS DOING ISN'T ALREADY BEING DONE IN MUSIC, TV, HOLLYWOOD, PRINT OR SPORTS. Why should COMPUTER GAMES be the only industry NOT making money off their product?

I'd like one valid reason for this, or one valid entertainment industry that allows people to charge for their product without licensing the right to do that.

No one has come up with a single one, yet they still maintain Valve is the greedy ones. Even Arcade systems had enormous markups to cover the burden, costs assumed by arcade owners because they charged people to pay.

All the posts I see here profiling Valve as greedy are starting to really hit home with me...I used to think that Valve was one of the good guys. But, my experience with Steam (my first with HL2) and this litigation leads me to believe Valve is on a quiet crusade to essentially control and dictate when and how we can experience their "product". Okay, granted this product is highly susceptible to copyright infringement, but trying to get cybercafes to buck up for providing LICENSED copies of their products to play is a bit much.

This reminds me of a story I heard from someone who told me that, I think it was HBO, was essentially going around to bars essentially trying to extort them by telling them they could not broadcast the Sopranos or Sex and the City without paying additional revenues...

The question here is...WHEN DOES THIS END? Do we get to the point where every time a business establishment that wants to provide a certain amenity or service to its customer as part of its value differentiator has to pay some sort of "usage fee" or "subscription fee" if they want to make it available to more than one "household"?

Will bars and niteclubs have to fork over more money just to have the radio playing or the TV on?????? Will we have to pay per flush? Shoot the power company could get in on the action too! THey could charge all businesses MORE because they are providing heat and light to more than just one "household"! Yea, lets all get our greedy little fucking fingers in everyone elses pockets!!!!

Valve, you make great games....

Your business philosophy and public relations strategy leave a HELLUVA lot to be desired.

Considering the bullshit I had to go through to get HL2 retail up and running, I am leaning towards it being the LAST Valve product I buy...

There will be PLENTY of other games out there that dont sniff my computer before they decide to let me install and run their little software application.

Sling

Would people object to Microsoft requiring a monthly fee because each computer at the cafe uses Windows XP? Or should it stay the way it is now where each copy is good for one computer and not one use? A rhetorical question I suspect.

Errr Beamer, MOD TEAMS gave you those multiplayer modes for free. Valve didn't give nobody nothing. They actually licensed those MODS, then rereleased them in Ultimate Guilty Platinum Extreme Deluxe Modded versions, and charged for them.


Mod teams did not give us HLDM Teamplay, TFC or DMC. Those all came from Valve after release. Those would be what I was implying.

People that bought the ATI cards early were idiots. Most posters on this board were well aware, constantly warning people against buying hardware before the games they wanted were released. Smart gamers wait until they have the game in their hands, knowing hardware only gets better and cheaper.

Also, Valve isn't charging them a license per person, only a corporate licensing fee. This is a flat license per computer, so your facts are wrong there, too, Creston.

Already there are companies that force you to buy two fucking copies of the same game to play with your wife online.

Every company does this. Every company has always done this. There isn't a single EULA out there that allows a game to be played on two PCs at once. It's something not often enforced because it's hard to enforce, but it's on every EULA, even ones from the 80s.

A well thought out post, but your facts are still incorrect. Much like your post about Blockbuster, they have revenue sharing, so a chunk of their profits go towards licensing. The fees come out the back end rather than the front.

BLOCKBUSTER PAYS HEFTY LICENSING FEES FOR EACH DVD THEY RENT

Actually, not anymore. Blockbuster buys in such big bulk that they pay very little per DVD. I worked for a videostore in Holland that worked along the same principle, and this was about 13 years ago, and even then they paid very little above and beyond what a consumer paid to purchase the movie (then on VHS).

Blockbuster would not "guaranteed in stock!" their new inventory if they had to pay massive charges on them. They buy so many of the new movies that movie publishers GLADLY give them great deals.

But then, this is the same in any industry. If you buy bulk, you get it for cheaper.

No, no it doesn't. Movie theaters have to pay SIGNIFICANT fees to get movies so early. But they still have to pay LESSER fees to show old movies, such as when they are midnight movies. They can't simply go to Blockbuster, rent Back to the Future and put it on the screen, charging people to watch it, because the movie is 20 years old. They have to deal with the distribution center and pay a licensing fee to show the film.

Your idea is correct, but I believe certain theaters now GET money to have a movie released on a certain number of screens, and just kick back a percentage of the gross income.
But yes, you are correct in that they could not rent a movie, then show it and charge for it.
However, if I rent a movie, I am perfectly allowed to show it to my wife, and my friends, and my family, within the confines of my own home, as long as I don't charge for it.

My biggest issue is that this is going to lead to more and more developers forcing us to pay for EACH PERSON THAT PLAYS THEIR GAME.

Creston

Supyos:

I don't know if you were involved with LAN gaming as of 5 years ago, but I have been for the last 10. Allow me to tell you about a few things:

1. Before "cyber cafes", there were these little things called LAN parties. Cyber cafes were a commercialized extension of the growing popularity of LANs, many of whom were (and still are) non-profit enterprises. If you want to go calling chicken-and-egg, let's look back to the advent of cafes: started by many from the old LAN community who decided they wanted to make more money than the rest of us. You know what? They were called greedy back then, and that charge was rightfully made given the otherwise generous culture. LAN parties were and are still cooler, despite the growing pressure (partly from competition and partly from cafes) on admins to deliver tons of free swag and prizes in addition to flawless events.

2. How is an entire business model based upon the expectation that you can freely make one purchase of someone else's product and rent it out to people day-in, day-out? How do you expect to survive as a commercialized entity? Do you see people renting movies out of their homes? Every other entertainment industry has varying levels of protections against this kind of thing, and for cyber cafes to expect to receive free handouts (AND sponsorship of all things) for creating a small industry around this model without even consulting the companies they are taking product from, they are suffering from commercial myopia.

I also have the opinion that when you step over this line that I've outlined above and expect to run a business doing this kind of thing with gaming, you forfeit your rights to cry like an abused victim when you're no longer given a free ride. Businesses have fees. It should be expected. Movie theaters and equipment rental companies don't just buy a few items discreetly from suppliers and rent them off without permission - some cyber cafes do. Big difference. This doesn't mean I'm a full Valve fanboy; in fact I'm kinda pissed at them for the CS:S multiplayer move, Steam's nags and my wariness at the potential for them to start charging for content through their online platform, but it doesn't mean I'm standing behind a cafe anytime soon.

3. I was playing CS before its first public release because I knew of Gooseman from his Navy Seals mod for Quake, which I loved. Trust me when I say that this kind of tactical/action FPSing was very fresh back then, not completely overdone like it is today. R6 and CS were essentially your slew of options, unless you count SWAT 1 (which was FMV). Therefore I can tell you that CS would have been big regardless of its true delivery vehicle - although LAN parties in general (not just cyber cafes, which I'll remind you were much less prevalent back then) certainly had an impact on its popularity. Anyway, CS was on a track to become a big mod whether or not people like me were sick of it after 6 months and a shitty community. It was just made to be big given its timing and given the types of games/mods that existed at the time.

You can probably guess my, er, joy at hearing I'd be able to play the same 10 f*king maps over and over again 5 years later after imagining just how cool it would be to play real HL2 multiplayer with physics. I like some freshness in what I do with few exceptions (like the Quake/Diablo series, in my mind ageless fun due to the frenetic action and the special place in my heart for em).

4. In conclusion, I'd ask that you consider the role of cafes not as some kind of victimized culture that Valve is trying to pick off. A chunk of people cafes truly serve, for the most part, are those lacking enough horsepower or pipe to play games just the way they want to play. Those people, I'll remind you, already have knowledge of these titles beforehand that they want to play on good machines. They're already gamers. Therefore, does that mean cyber cafes are integral to the success of building word-of-mouth among gamers and spreading gaming to the masses like some evangelical outlet? Should games makers be forever in debt to them for some kind of imagined need?

No. They may bring in casual or new gamers who may discover new titles and act as a gateway to the hardcore gaming/tourney/LAN crowd. They are not the end-all-be-all of social gaming, and they weren't even around during the Quake days when I felt the community was at its strongest and most benevolent.

Essentially, I don't think Valve should bleed cafes dry because of the precedent I believe it will set, but I also believe it's naive to think cafes can be run forever without any kind of fee to take another company's product and rent it forever. Does this mean they should have to buy 100 licenses? No. But how about a site license program? There has to be middle ground wherein cafes can run without too much hassle and developers get some amount of compensation for what is a special situation - purchase of games for a business rental purpose.

edit: clarification
This comment was edited on Nov 30, 19:33.

I mean, didn't they give you a several free multiplayer modes for Half Life, released in official patches?

Errr Beamer, MOD TEAMS gave you those multiplayer modes for free. Valve didn't give nobody nothing. They actually licensed those MODS, then rereleased them in Ultimate Guilty Platinum Extreme Deluxe Modded versions, and charged for them.

This is not exactly the definition of "for free". Just because Valve was lucky enough that THEIR codebase got chosen for most of the Mods out there (as opposed to the Unreal codebase, for example), has made them into the giant they are today. Pure and simple luck. Only AFTER Mod teams started getting heavily involved with the engine did Valve throw them a bone and started working with them (because they damn well knew that this would increase the longevity of their title, and could lead to several re-releases, which = more money).

I don't think Valve is the Most Greedy Developer Evar, but let's stop pretending they're some kind of fucking saint. They did fuck over a ton of customers last year by lying about the release date, so everyone and his dog would go buy ATI's latest card, for which they received a fucking shitload of money, remember?

As for the lawsuit, it's bullshit. If a cyber cafe has 15 computers with 15 copies of Half Life, it should pay 15 licenses. Not 588000 because of the amount of players that MIGHT play on it. What the fuck is next? I have to buy an extra license for software if my wife plays it on our computer? And then another when my brother in law comes over and plays??

Any of you who are cheering for Valve in this need to realise where this is fucking going. It started with the EULA, and slowly but surely, more and more crap gets shoved up our asses when we buy a game.

Creston

Edit : I probably need to clarify that I'm not quite sure what the deal is with the cybercafes. In my opinion, they SHOULD be allowed to have per seat licensing. Ie, they have 20 computers, they buy 20 copies. That's fair. Shit, even MICROSOFT thinks that's fair. Do we need a bigger "Teh Man!!" than that?
But from some of the comments, it seems that that's what Valve now got? Basically, per-seat-licensing? If so, then that's perfectly fair as far as I'm concerned.

However, I AM worried that this EULA bullshit is going to keep going further and further. Already there are companies that force you to buy two fucking copies of the same game to play with your wife online. I'm not talking about MMORPGS, I'm talking about things such as NWN. Which, in my opinion, is absolute fucking bullshit, and any company that adheres to such a policy can kiss my fucking ass. (except Bioware, since their games are too good... )

As far as Steam being used in an effort to get out from under the thumb of the publishers, I fail to see how this is automatically "A wonderful effort on our behalf"?
Who guarantees me that Valve's next game isn't simply going to cost 50 dollars over Steam? Why WOULDN'T they charge 50 dollars for it? Most of you paid 120 dollars for the same game plus two fucking stickers and a tshirt! Just because they COULD lower the price for their next game doesn't automatically mean that they will. In fact, I'm pretty sure that they won't.

Also, this isn't the first time that developers tried to get out from shitty publishing deals. Remember the Gathering of Developers? Before they degraded into Just Another Publisher, they had very good ideas to make life better for the developers. Their biggest problem was that 3DRealms was their biggest developer, and they never made anything anymore.
Valve isn't exactly breaking new ground or anything. I think it's more a fact that bandwith prices are coming down rapidly that something like this becomes feasible for a developer to do. Two years ago, the thought of letting 500000 people download 4 Gigs was enough to make grown men weep.

This comment was edited on Nov 30, 19:30.

I've been slightly correct about Blockbuster.


They USED to pay licensing fees per DVD. VHS is still often set up this way, where if you look some VHS tapes are $100 to buy for a consumer and $200 to buy for a renter.

In 1997, though, Blockbuster changed this. They now pay what we pay per DVD. On the backend, though, they partake in revenue sharing.



So there you go, you can either do it this way or you can give Valve a cut of your profits, like Blockbuster does with Hollywood. Anything else and you're making money from their work. I mean, there's no reason you NEED to have HL on you PCs, assuming people are coming in to use the computers and not the software on the computers...

Surely Valve are entitled to charge whatever they like for their product. Seeing how democracy has become bunk, the only power the little people have left is as consumers. So you think Valve charge unfairly high premiums for their product? Don't buy it!

As for the cafes, I guess this leaves them with two choices: they either continue to offer Valve games, and pass the cost onto the consumer, or they no longer offer Valve games, and price themselves favorably compared to cafes theat do. Which of these choices is the right one to make depends on whether the consumers would be prepared to pay a little extra to play Valve games as opposed to other companies' games. A little market research on your existing customer base would give you the information you need to make this choice.

If it turns out that people would rather not pay the extra to play CounterStrike or whatever, then Valve will be the long term losers, but I suspect they've followed this line of reasoning themselves, maybe done a little market research too, and have decided they can come out in front with this licencing system.

[I have never set foot in a CyberCafe and do not own any Valve games. No animals were harmed in the writing of this post]

Because porn sites can advertise free porn and charge for a membership.
Still don't understand?

No. That makes no sense. What does porn have to do with anything? Where do you see "free porn" costing you money? You, sir, go to the wrong websites.

They charge for the use of the machine, not for the privilege to play the game.

In that case no one should complain if the game isn't there. Because, I mean, they're just paying for the machine, so if they don't like Valve's rules they wouldn't mind no Valve games.


Valve must not realize this but 5 years ago HL multiplayer sucked and nobody knew about Counter-Strike. I would bet that AT LEAST 10% of the people who played Counter-strike for the first time played at a Cybercafe or heard from a friend that played it there.


Actually HL quickly became one of the top games played online. Not like CS, but it was very competitive and probably #1. I also think you overestimate how many people use cyber cafes. I know of two in Boston, and I've never seen more than one customer in either.

We don't make a ton of money like most people think, actually most barely make it.

Ah, that explains it, you run one of these. Of course you don't want to pay legal fees!

Hollywood and Blockbuster get a bulk deal on their dvd's don't they?? Then they turn around and sell the dvd when they are done renting it for how much they paid!!!

Well, that's not true at all. Hollywood and Blockbuster pay SIGNIFICANTLY more for movies than we do. Why? BECAUSE THEY HAVE TO PAY LICENSING FEES. Your entire argument is DESTROYED. Must I repeat? BLOCKBUSTER PAYS HEFTY LICENSING FEES FOR EACH DVD THEY RENT

Now IF and only if a cybercafe got the game 6 MONTHS before the normal public did. It would be ok to pay these developers big fees, because the place would be packed all the time. A game they can't play at home for another 6 months yeah!!!
This will never happen, but it gets the point accross.

No, no it doesn't. Movie theaters have to pay SIGNIFICANT fees to get movies so early. But they still have to pay LESSER fees to show old movies, such as when they are midnight movies. They can't simply go to Blockbuster, rent Back to the Future and put it on the screen, charging people to watch it, because the movie is 20 years old. They have to deal with the distribution center and pay a licensing fee to show the film.


Nothing you have said about Hollywood has any basis in fact, you're actually making things up and taking huge, false assumptions.

If you can prove to me that Valve is not being greedy after this post I give you props.

1. People don't realize the potential advertising that that cybercafe's do for the game company and it's game. Oh wait some companys do...NVIDIA-ELECTRONIC ARTS-MICROSOFT-INTEL-AMD-LUCASARTS-NOVALOGIC-ETC- These are HUGE companies and they don't charge cybercafes outrageous fees to use there games or product in this setting. They actuallly give FREE software and hardware cause they understand that FREE advertising can't be passed up.

2. Valve must not realize this but 5 years ago HL multiplayer sucked and nobody knew about Counter-Strike. I would bet that AT LEAST 10% of the people who played Counter-strike for the first time played at a Cybercafe or heard from a friend that played it there.

3. Valve is THE MAN in this situation and cybercafes are the little guys. We don't make a ton of money like most people think, actually most barely make it. It is a fun hobby job that gives lots and lots of people oppurtunity to play stuff they might not be able to with friends. But ya know what the way valve is handling things they are gonna close more stores and make less money overall. It's not just because of what they are doing, but if others see they can charge these fees every other company is gonna charge and fees will be so high every cybercafe will be gone.

4. The idea about DVD movies. Hollywood and Blockbuster get a bulk deal on their dvd's don't they?? Then they turn around and sell the dvd when they are done renting it for how much they paid!!! So basically they are making tons of money being able to rent then sell the same DVD! I don't claim to know the licensing deals they have but I bet it is more favorable to them then the movie studios.

5. Lastly people point out movie theaters. Now IF and only if a cybercafe got the game 6 MONTHS before the normal public did. It would be ok to pay these developers big fees, because the place would be packed all the time. A game they can't play at home for another 6 months yeah!!!
This will never happen, but it gets the point accross.

So all in all cybercafes are the little people and THE MAN is trying to squash them with their greedy little hands. Kill the hand that helped make you popular. Those Bastards!!!!

-supyos

I still don't see how it is fair for a cafe to buy a game for $40 and charge someone $5 an hour for it.

Because porn sites can advertise free porn and charge for a membership.
Still don't understand?

They charge for the use of the machine, not for the privilege to play the game.

No, if Vivendi was violating a contract then those licenses were illegal.

And Vivendi was violating a contract.



Meanwhile, Vivendi's position means nothing. As the summary judgment proves, their version of these contracts aren't all that correct. Regardless, Valve cannot undercut them because Valve cannot undercut its retailers. Even if there is nothing contractually stating this it is just bad business. You do not cut your arm off...


Call us gullible all you'd like, but we seem to be the one with the proper grasp on both business and law. And, if I were you, I wouldn't argue contract law with me.

The cafes are illegally using ALL this software.

I am amazed at just how ignorant you are. No, every cafe is NOT using all of this software illegally. Ever software developer has its own unique contract with its publisher. In many if not most of these contracts, the publisher owns the complete distribution rights to the software including distribution for commercial use. Other game publishers including Microsoft have been much more generous than Valve in licensing their products to cybercafes and game centers. Some publishers have even given licenses to some cybercafes and game centers for free just so their games become more popular.

I still don't see how it is fair for a cafe to buy a game for $40 and charge someone $5 an hour for it.

The cybercafes weren't buying the retail game product from Vivendi. Vivendi was giving them a commercial license. Valve was just not satisfied with the amount of money it was receiving from these sales and wanted to cutout Vivendi.

In addition, cybercafes are offering a lot more than just the ability to play Valve's games. The rental fee pays for the use of the cafe's equipment and facilities. Customers don't bring their own PC's into these businesses and the cafes don't hand them a Half-Life CD to play.

Also interesting that people are so afraid that Valve might charge a monthly fee to play HL yet so happy when someone else charges an hourly fee for it...

If Valve were giving me the use of a top of the line PC and a LAN speed Internet connection in the hourly fee to play its game as the cybercafes do, I would not complain. Think Valve can deliver that PC and connection to me via Steam, idiot? LOL!

This comment was edited on Nov 30, 12:10.

doug lombardi addressed that awhile back. Valve couldn't undercut the price of the game simply because it would've caused a breach of contract with VU.

LOL! Man are you gullible. Vivendi's position is that any sale of the game to the public by Valve is already a breach of the contract. That is why Vivendi is suing Valve. Valve is already undercutting Vivendi just by selling the game to the consumer. The price has nothing to do with it.

This comment was edited on Nov 30, 12:13.

Other software publishers are and have been happy to fill this void.

Are you certain they are happy? Or do they just not have the legal staff to fight this battle? I'm sure many developers are watching this and hoping to get a piece.

When I said "HL" I meant software in general. The cafes are illegally using ALL this software.

I still don't see how it is fair for a cafe to buy a game for $40 and charge someone $5 an hour for it. We can't charge people for it. Also interesting that people are so afraid that Valve might charge a monthly fee to play HL yet so happy when someone else charges an hourly fee for it...

People even GO to cybercafes anymore?

Would they go if the computers didn't have HL installed? No.

Sure they would and do! Many cybercafes do not offer Valve's games precisely because of Valve's exorbitant license fees. Other software publishers are and have been happy to fill this void. This is simply about Valve's greed. When cybercafes could buy Valve's games through Vivendi, Valve still made money from the sale of each game. Valve just wants more.