No Half-Life 2 on Steam?

Karl the Pagan writes "Following on the heels of a previous Steam-related story, Vivendi Universal may block Half-Life 2 distribution via Steam. Additional motions can be filed until November 18th, but since Sierra/VU have final QA approval on the HL2 gold is it possible they could delay the game until after the court decides on these motions?"

Great news

[wigle]

This possibility could be to Valve's advantage. They haven't released anything worthwhile since Team Fortress Classic and no one I know likes Steam at all.

ATI bundle?

[dinojemr]

What will this mean for people who got the voucher with their ATI card? ATI promised to give them Half Life 2 (through Steam), but then HL2 was delayed so they didn't get it (they instead got the old half-life gams). Would it eventually be released through steam?

Re:Worth the wait.

[Nos.]

I think HL2 will be better than Doom 3 as well, if it is released in the next month or so. If we have to wait for the trial (March 2005) and everything to be sorted out and it doesn't get released until fall 2005, its not going to be better, because it will be a year later, when every other FPS has "caught up". Once again, politics and legal are going to cost both companies a lot of money, both in fees and lost revenue from upset fans, and the delay making the game less desirable.

well

[extra the woos]

you deal with someone with no morals like vivendi and seirra and what do you expect.. why would they even have an agreement with them anymore, try to get out of it and just release everything yourself, the publishing company could be completely irrelevant with steam...

make it so that people can burn half life 2 cd's legally, then give them to their friends BUT with the catch that in order to decrypt it they gotta go pay valve directly online for the small program to activate it (they could sell it alot cheaper than normal and still make more money than normal, too)

Delayware

[nukepapa]

Let me (nukepapa) be the first to label this kind of software as "LateWare" or "DelayWare".

So, in short...

[TyrranzzX]

Valve: We're going to eventually cut you guys outta the picture and begin distributing the game via the internet and our own in-house publishing solution instead of signing our games away to you forever.

Sierra: Oh no you don't...

I hope valve wins, it'd be nice to see these large game publishers dissapear.

sensationalism at it's best

[Anonymous Coward]

and I thought only foxnews.com and cbs could make such a big deal out of such a small thing..

HL2 will not be delayed... VU has been dying to get this game on the shelves since last year and they know how much money it's worth to get it out now instead of later. They've been losing money and need to get some profit on the books, delaying HL2 won't help that.

Re:Worth the wait.

[planckscale]

Doom III = shoot, move, shoot, move. The AI sucks and that's the main point. No cooperative play except for a bot that crawls along and follows you sometimes. Also, there's never a moment you can see more than 50' into the distance. No drivable vehicles. The only thing I can think of that might hold a candle to HL2 is the sound effects.

Perhaps once you start playing HL2 (haven't you seen any of the videos?), you'll realize then that even the engine is better. I'm not trying to diss DIII, it has it's place in the scary/pretty game department but I can only shoot so many monsters that jump at me after I open a door before it get monotonous.

Wrong

[Seoulstriker]

Vivendi Universal Games is suing Valve to prevent distribution over Steam. Considering how many people will be downloading or have already downloaded over Steam, it's no surprise. VUG is getting very very little out of this deal with Valve getting almost everything. VUG will do anything it can to prevent Steam distribution, since the dispute is over tens of millions of dollars in potential sales. Gamers are going to buy the game anyways, another 3-6 months or whatever it takes is not going to drastically hurt sales.

Bottom line: HL2 is going to be delayed until this is resolved.

Re:Impatience and gamergeeks.

[jpop32]

How would Valve be harmed by giving in on this issue? How would the consumers be harmed?

Consumers? No harm (mostly benefits, actually). Valve? All the difference in the world.

Steam is, if you haven't noticed, Valve's way of getting rid of publishers/distributors altogether. If they can release the game simply by p2p-ing it to the buyers there is no need for deals with publishers. And publishers take in _most_ of the money you plunk down besides the cash register in the 'brick and mortar' store. So, their incentive is clear.

Now, being forced to DL 200+MB whenever Valve releases a newer version/patch/DRM/whatever in order to continue playing the game is just an added bonus. And complete control over the installed games, forever, is just icing on the cake.

Yeah, I think Steam is evil in the same sense the Real Player is (was?) evil. I wish it to fail, badly.

That being said...

/me starts up Steam to play a game of Day Of Defeat...

Re:Steam is handy, I think

[Tim C]

Can you really blame them for having their MS software exploited?

Yes, yes I can. The guy got exploited on a machine that had access to their single most valuable resource - the HL2 source repository.

Why was something that precious, and that big a target, on a machine that was net-accessible? Why was he running a known vulnerable piece of software on it?

Sure, I take the odd chance with my machine too - but I'm not given access to that sort of stuff. If I was, I hope I'd be a little more careful.

Re:Steam is handy, I think

[Citizen Gold]

Why was he running a known vulnerable piece of software on it?

The game is developed on Windows right? Makes it kind of hard to avoid the "known vulnerable piece of software"...

Re:Steam is handy, I think

[Electrum]

Do you trust your credit card to be stored on Valve servers? The same ones comprimised by a simple e-mail exploiting an Outlook vunerability sent to Gabe?

Do you trust handing your credit card to someone at a restaurant, store, etc. who is making minimum wage? At any rate, who cares? If your credit card gets stolen, you are liable for at most $50 and usually $0. It is the merchant who takes the stolen credit card who loses big time.

Re:nope...

[Some_Llama]

"Somehow, I think Vivendi isn't terribly concerned."

Vivendi isn't concerned about losing one of if not THE biggest earners of their whole software line?

"Lose a developer who has slipped numerous deadlines and is literally years behind schedule on the release of their one project?"

Didn't they announce plans for HL2 in 2002? plus this isn't one project as in one game... this is a whole engine which will license many other games and provide much additional revenue much like HL1 did... I don't think I am wrong when I say Sierra exisits because of HL1.

Re:nope...

[ADRA]

This one little developer has surely made Sierra Fists full of money from the HL+mod franchise. How many other games do you see on store shelves 5 years after it came out?

I'd really like to see Valve dump Vivendi and stick it out themselves. Online distribution IS possible, as steam has shown. Pox and all, it is possible.

Also, I'm not sure of Gabe Newell's motives of saying what he did, but back in the days of 2000 Broadband adoption was nowhere near what it is today (especially in the states). Maybe he actually wasn't lieing at that point?