Valve & VUGames In Court

Haha. Go Vivendi.

Who smells Vivendi winning this, getting the rights to the Half-Life rights, throwing Valve out the door (who probably are broke after the case) and gives the franchise to another developer who will create a crappy Half-Life 3, which will sell good thanks to the name, and kill the series?

"Hi Vivendi, we kinda aren't done yet. Could you uhhh please sue us so we can keep working on it?"

Lets see...

No Babylon5 Into The Fire by Sierra

Cancellation of Farscape by the SciFi Channel (owned by VU)

And now this...if this effects this game in any way I have another reason to dislike VU.

I am unsure of whether this has been mentioned. But Vivendi are fucked either way this decision goes because if they get rid of Steam, they get rid of Half Life 2. The reason is simple: Source is built upon Steam :)

So, as I said: No matter which way Vivendi go, they are fucked. Well done Valve. I am proud...Fuck them like they fuck both you and us. YAY!

Hahahaha.... This is fucking great!!!!!!! I don't care if the game ever comes out as long as we keep getting gems like this story and the beta-leak. Keep up the good work Valve/Vivendi!

Whoops! Someone has an outdated business model that's about to collapse. Poor babies.

Does society cry for the middleman?

Does anyone know if Vivendi Universal has settled their case about overtime pay compensation?

Get real, there is no way in hell Vivendi will do anything to delay Half Life2 from appearing on store shelves. Their singleminded drive to get immediate cash flow will ensure that the trip to store shelves will be as quick as humanly possible.....

Let me see...

Valve conceptualised, designed, and developed Half-Life (What I am saying there is...IT THEIRS! Just like Star Wars is LUCAS' and NO-ONE ELSE's). It get's published. Both Parties make a fuck load of money.

Now:

Vivendi don't pay Valve royalties.
Valve states: "All money made from Half Life has fueled Half Life 2 development" (probably among other thing :D).
Vivendi are trying to FORCE Valve to publish with them AND not use something which Valve designed...ie STEAM!

There is much more but I read the fucking article and use your brains and PLEASE, someone explain HOW and WHY Vivendi have ANY RIGHTS TO HALF LIFE 2?

You want to know what I guess the initial payment to Valve was? Well, I'll tell you anyway - For the Quake Engine Licence. Now, if Valve have developed SOURCE and STEAM completely by themselves, funded by themselves and released by themselves, well WHERE THE FUCK DOES VIVENDI COME IN?

PUBLISHERS ARE SCUM. They make nothing and earn money from it and if the devs don't comply with them, they close them down.

That is the ONLY reason Valve hasn't been bought out of closed down - Because they FUND THEMSELVES because of success from a product which THEY made. So Vivendi are shitting pink because Valve are moving to Activision after HL2 release :) Why? Probably because Activision are one of the few companies (probably only) who don't give a fuck what they publish and when they publish it. How long have ID been with Activision now? ;)

For those of you who have read Masters of Doom, doesn't this remind you of id Software's relationship with GTI and how id (rightfully) screwed the shit out of GTI with shareware releases and ordering before they allowed them to put the game on store shelves? I still have my mail-order copy of Quake. :)

post in reply. long and juicy.

I hate Steam and the way Valve is trying to milk internet cafes out of every penny, so I guess I'm the only one who wants to see VUGames win.

I just read some comments at the /. post about this and they bring up a very interesting point.

If this goes though, if Steam distribution will get killed, where does that leave the people with ATI Vouchers? Getting a boxed shipped to them for free at ATI's expense? One could hope so... But will it happen or will they let the holders wait until Steam gets available (if ever)?

Vivendi accuses Newell of "Half truths."

lol

Will somebody PLEASE think of the children gamers!

I don't see how people can see publishers as all that evil here. As with most businesses, you need money to make money. In most publisher/developer scenarios, the publisher is the boss and the developer is the employee.

When someone builds a house, they pay people to build the house for them, then the funder sells the house and makes money, and the actual designers/builders don't get a cut. They get some money up front and money at the end (and probably a salary in between), but in the end the house belongs to the person with the money initially. It's just how capitalism works.

I don't think there's anything wrong with Valve or any other software company trying to bypass their employer to make money, it's just a question of how. Developers have been doing it for years with selling engines, for example. However most developers can't afford to market their own games or publish them in stores, which is where Steam comes in.

I don't know what happened between Valve and VUGames, but it really comes down to how honest they were with each other. Imagine if I work for a big company and I do contracts through that company for a client, then it's generally illegal (or at least immoral) for me to go directly to the client and working for them directly, thus saving that client money and at the same time making more money myself. By doing that I'm screwing over the big company that I used to work for, and I'm stealing the investment they put into getting that client. Seeing as I used to work for a company and now I do freelance work, I'm kind of in the same situation, and I really can't bitch about it. The company invested in clients and I shouldn't abuse my relationship with the client to my profit and the my previous company's loss.

I think the fairest thing in the Valve/VUGames case is to have Valve split the marketing costs with VUGames according to the same ratio of Steam sales versus VUGames sales, in which case VUGames's investment in clients wouldn't be "wasted" on clients that VUGames gets nothing out of. Somehow I doubt that will be the actual resolution, but we'll see what happens soon enough I guess.

It all makes sense now. This legal dispute has been at the heart of the delay the whole time. No fuckin' wonder....

I could easily see a judge putting a hold on Steam until the case is resolved. Courts tend to restrain matters which are important to the case until the case has been resolved, as it would prevent 'ongoing damages' during the trial.

Vavle just NEEDS someone like Romero to do all the PR work for Valve. We'd be seein the best minute to minute updates about Vivendi all day.

Valve should of just gone with Activision in the first place.

zing!

Haha, VU wants the HL franchise, greedy sue. I hope VU loses, I don't care who's right or wrong, it's about the idea of using a interface like steam to publish a game. That's awesome. Publishers are too damn greedy and becoming useless yay! It's like what are the oil companies going to do when cars don't need it.

ATTN LEGAL MENZ

Do you "smell an injuction" ? I wonder if Vivendi can block the public release of HL2 until this gets sorted out...

MORRIS GET ON IT!!!!!!!111one

I noticed a lot of you saying this could hold back the HL2 release. Well while it's possible, chances are that release will remain on scheduel even if that means full Steam support. Once it comes down to it, if VU wins, Valve will just have to pay them back for all the steam sales they made. Whatever the verdict, I doubt either company is looking to hold back the game for another year.

surprised this hasn't hit CNN yet. go morris go

Looks like another interesting aspect of HL2's development isn't going to be covered in their "making of" book they're releasing.

With all that has happened to Valve, I'm sure that most of their staff either has no hair (by pulling it out so much over these things) or they have a lot grey hairs. Its been one problem after another for Valve. I sure hope this doesn't delay HL2. Hell, they just sent their RC and judging by the VU forums, the testing is going well. :/

Wow. It's a huge pressure tactic from VUG against Valve and it might just work. They can tie up this game in the courts for YEARS if they so choose, and despite the amount of money they stand to lose, they know valve will have to fold before they will. Not to mention it's a chance to still-born online game distribution before it even takes off. I'm not so sure we will ever see HL2 until it's well past its prime.

So does someone want to explain to my how the FUCK Vivendi can lay claim to the Half Life franchise? I mean where does one go from, "I make the boxes and the shiny CDs and drive them to stores" to, "I own this game".

What scares me is, considering how careless Valve was with their security, I don't have much faith in how careful they are going to be/were in their legal situation. I foresee them having already or will make a stupid mistake that will cost them the case.

None of this matters as long as Steam does what it was made to do. If it works come showtime, then its all over for Vivendi Universal and every other publishing overlord....

This doesn't seem like a big deal until you look at the upcoming deadlines

* All motions related to discovery must be filed by October 22, 2004
* Disclosure of expert testimony [by] November 5, 2004
* Discovery completed by November 18, 2004
* All dispositive motions must be filed by...November 18, 2004
* Settlement conference no later than January 20, 2005
* Mediation held no later than February 19, 2005
* All motions in limine must be filed by February 21, 2005
* Agreed pretrial order due March 9, 2005
* Pretrial conference to be held at 4:00 pm on March 11, 2005
* Trial briefs, proposed voir dire questions, jury instructions, and findings of fact and conclusions of law...March 16, 2005
* Trial date: March 21, 2005

Valve's legal will run out of funds. Vivendi Universal won't.

"Next....."

I wonder if this will affect HL2's release at all?

Not only I was planning on getting it via Steam for speed motives (it'll take some time to arrive here to Spain) but now they're trying to screw Valve there goes my new reason #2 for supporting Valve content distribution.

if it does indeed gets released thru it

Aw man. Here's to hope the game release will not suffer from distribution bullshit.

if I were the judge I'd be like, "Well, let me examine the Gold master of Half-Life 2 so that I can make a more informed decision about this." Then I'd call recess and run back to my office to install it.

Perhaps this is why the game was delayed for so long. Valve is not sure if it can sell HL2 over Steam without getting raped by VU in court.

It sounds to me that Vivendi doesn't want HL2 to go on sale until this whole deal is over with, otherwise as soon as they announce it gold Valve can release it over steam thereby stealing away the extra dough VU is looking for from its release.

They say they want the courts to stop Valve from releasing the game over steam, but since the trial date isn't until NEXT YEAR how does that fair on the release of HL2 in the near future?

When you read the update on Gamespot's site it sounds to me that VU may actually have the upper hand and could win the case even awarding them the Half-life franchise, despite what Lombardi says.

Either way, this is not the good HL2 news I was looking forward to possibly hearing today.