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."

Re:Why? One Word...

[SteevR]

...distribution. These days it is possible for a developer to market their own title. Great leaps in manufacturing technology in this internet age have meant it is much cheaper to produce the physical media than it was in epochs past (early nineties), such as the CD, box, etc. What is barely possible for a newcomer is to break into the distribution channel.

Distributors are the ones that make sure boxes reach the shelves, at the right box width and height, at stores like Wal Mart, CompUSA, and Best Buy. Having the right distributors signed on is more important than having the right publisher.

As for a developer breaking into the distribution channel, I only know of one example: Id. Back when they were operating their own phone/mail order system for Doom, they offered up the shareware for free. I.e., they wanted no royalty take on the shareware copies that sold everywhere. Hence why you could find the shareware at anyplace that sold software, and some places that didn't (I remember a friend's picture from a convenience store in socal from that period, showing doom shareware up for sale next to the bubblegum).

Re:Why?

[Nebulochaotic]

Because it is for X-Box, not PC. In order to release a title for a console system, complicated contracts and agreements must be made between the console maker and the publisher. You can't just press DVDs for X-Box and sell them. Not only would they not work, they would be illegal to sell. Valve would likely have a difficult time getting microsoft to allow them to self publish the game for X-Box.

This doesn't even consider the shelf space purchasing and advertising that is likely needed for a big budget release as this.

These are the sort of considerations that are killing the garage game industry; except for PC games, it is now almost impossible to distribute games without a publisher.

Re:WOW

[Anonymous Coward]

Clarification: requiring gamers to connect to a company over the internet AFTER INITIAL ONE-TIME AUTHENTICATION.

I think even activation/authentication should be criminal, but I'll compromise if the other side's willing to compromise and not make me use a firewall to forcibly cripple Steam every time I want to play Half Life 2 without "reporting in" to the Gestapo.

Re:New rules, same game.

[Guspaz]

Fact is they NEED a publisher, if only because of the XBOX port of HL2.

But a few things about getting a new publisher:

1) Vivendi had a lot of control over HL2 because they put money in at the very start (HL1).
2) Tons of publishers will compete to publish Valve's games, and Valve can set any conditions or terms they want
3) STEAM's price was not much less than retail only because of contractual obligations to Vivendi. Similarly, Vivendi forced Valve to delay HL2's release via STEAM until the retail release date even though the game was done

I see lower prices. Not significantly lower, but with no middle man and no interference, we might see another minor price cut. Right now STEAM was $5 less than retail. Perhaps we'll see $10 less than retail.

In addition, I would point out that STEAM as a concept does not require a credit card to function. Valve could just as easily produce plastic cards that were sold in every game store that contained a CD key. Much like cellphone pay-as-you-go cards, a user could purchase a game (or just plain STEAM credit) in a computer store with regular cash, and use that online with STEAM. Valve does not require a publisher to do this, just a few people to organize it. In fact, Valve is a big/popular enough company that I imagine if they simply printed the cards, stores would ask THEM to carry them, Valve wouldn't even have to go out seeking stores.