Valve and Vivendi Part Ways

IGN has news that the long running suit between Valve and Vivendi has finally been resolved. There has been some sort of settlement reached, the immediate result being that as of August 31st Vivendi will no longer be distributing Valve titles. From the article: "Valve has not announced a new publishing partner, or whether the company will now solely rely on Steam for distribution. A new publishing agreement would almost certainly be needed for the Xbox version of Half-Life 2 scheduled for release later this summer."

WOW

[UnHolyRam]

There's a shock. As if anyone couldn't see this happening. Now I wonder how many people will take this chance to start bashing steam once again

One word:

[kaellinn18]

Advertising.

As well off as Valve is, I don't think they have the experience or the connections to run the kind of advertising blitz that an experienced publisher can.

Re:One word:

[rsmith-mac]

but most self-publishers get relegated to a tiny wire cd rack in a forgotten corner of the store if they get into the store at all.

Just because Valve is an independent developer doesn't mean they'll be an independent publisher too. It's highly likely they'll have an agreement with another publisher like id does with Activision or Irrational Games had with VUGames for Freedom Force 2. In both those cases, the devs are contracting out the publishers to do specific work; VU got paid to promote and shelve FF2, but the sales revenue itself went to IG since VU was already paid for its work. Valve will just do a similar setup, publishers will all compete for the HL2 contract, and the winner gets a steady income no-risk contract doing work for Valve.

Re:Valve and Vivendi split up?

[Anonymous Coward]

She split up Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. It's a pop culture reference.