Big time lawsuits brewing between Valve and Vivendi

Delay?

I would think that given the fact that Valve is going after Vivendi for supposedly delaying condition zero that would further motivate vivendi to get HL2 out as soon as possible. Otherwise valve could go after them for delaying HL2 also. Another thing that I think is good to point out is that Valve is currently selling condition zero via steam. Whatever happens in the courts shouldnt delay this one bit.
 
cadaveca said:
the truth...you can never know the truth.

I think FragMaster had a better scope on the situation because he had more inside information than the majority of us. I think FragMasters letter is as close to the truth as we are EVER going to get...

Now that I'm leaving PlanetHalfLife and resigning as Site Director, I'd like to be a drama queen, burn a bridge or two, and possibly maybe explain a few things. I apologize in advance the incoherence of this babbling, but it's not like you're being forced to read this crap.

I started PHL in 1998, just after Half-Life hit store shelves. Half-Life: Day One absolutely blew me away. It was incredible. The full game was even better. I loved everything about Half-Life and I threw myself into the community. I made maps, I wrote horrible fan fiction (Walter's World), I spent hours playing HLDM (mostly on Gasworks). Half-Life is easily one of the best games of all-time (well, IMHO, at least) and nothing will ever change that.

I reluctantly left PHL in 1999 due to my increasing workload. During my first stint at PHL, I was mildly irked by things like the TFC delay, PowerPlay, and the confusion over TF2 (it's an expansion pack! Oh wait, it's not!), but these were just minor inconveniences and as whole I liked the way Valve did business. Their support of the mod community in those early days is the reason why Half-Life is still so popular today.

I quit GameSpy in 2000 and came back in mid-2002. When I took over PHL again, things had changed. Half-Life was clearly past its prime. Valve clearly wasn't the same company it once was.

In early April 2003, Half-Life 2 rumors started to leak out. Print magazines were given the exclusive on all Half-Life 2 information and online sites weren't allowed to post screenshots or previews until 5/8/03. I felt this was a pretty stupid thing to do—forcing people to jump through hoops and hunt down low-quality, blurry magazine scans to get a glimpse of the sequel they've been waiting five years for—but hey, that's just my opinion and I'm obviously biased about the viability of the print medium. Valve's doing essentially the same thing again this year; print mags saw HL2 awhile back and that information will start trickling out shortly.

I sat in on the first demonstration of HL2 at E3 2003 and was pretty damn impressed. When Gabe said that the game was coming out 9/30/03, I totally believed it. My interest in Half-Life had begun to wane, but that demo rekindled my interest in PHL in a huge way.

Two months later, things started to get complicated. In mid-July I heard from multiple reliable sources that Half-Life 2 wasn't going to make 9/30/03. Then I got hold of pretty conclusive evidence that Valve's Doug Lombardi had flat out told print magazines (off the record, of course) to plan on pushing their reviews of Half-Life 2 back to the Holiday issues. Then in late July, Vivendi announced that Half-Life 2 would be delayed to the holidays. Since I knew the delay was coming, I jumped right on this and confidently reported it as fact.

Unfortunately Valve—for whatever reason—refused to own up to the fact that Half-Life 2 was going to be delayed. Gabe made that ridiculous "First time I've heard about this" response, and other sites overreacted and assumed that this meant that Vivendi's announcement was a mistake. This situation was further complicated by Vivendi's backtracking: after Valve essentially refused to confirm the delay news, Vivendi was forced to (kind of) retract their original delay announcement. So tons of people incorrectly assumed this meant HL2 was still coming out on time.

At this point, I was stuck: I knew Half-Life 2 was going to be delayed, and instead of backing down and keeping my mouth shut, I kept (loudly) proclaiming that HL2 was going to miss 9/30 while other sites kept reporting the exact opposite, This was very frustrating, and if you were around during this period of time, you'll recall that I was acting like a real jerk. And to be fair to these other sites, they were being fed rather misleading information.

Most of the above stuff I already talked about in this editorial from September, but there's one key piece of information I left out: In August, I made a mistake. I was recruited to work on Prima's Half-Life 2 Behind the Scenes book and signed an NDA. Now I was privy to all sorts of Half-Life 2 information and quickly became 100% sure the game was going to slip, but thanks to the NDA, I couldn't say a damn thing about any of it. This was INCREDIBLY frustrating. I haven't even mentioned I was (emphasis on was) working on the book until now, and even then I only mention it because word leaked out on some other forums recently and there's no point in denying it.

In late August at ECTS, Valve's Doug Lombardi and Greg Coomer were both quoted as saying that the 9/30 release date was still happening. Lombardi told a co-worker of mine, to his face, that the game was still coming out September 30th worldwide. Some would call this marketing, but I'd call it lying.

I visited Valve in early September to conduct interviews for the Behind the Scenes book. It was quite a bit of fun, but I was a little disturbed by a few things. I won't get into the specifics, but information wasn't matching up. Things said during the E3 demo turned out to be either misleading or untrue, for example. I don't want to say exactly what kind of state the game was in when I was there, but you'll recall that when other fan sites visited Valve later that month (BEFORE the source code leak, even), they were unable to see the game. Now, if the game was in a playable state and supposedly ready to go gold within a couple of days, don't you think they would have shown it off?

Then the source code leak happened. I feel sorry for Valve that this happened because there's a possibility this could have a slightly negative on HL2 once it's finally released, but they really should have taken more precautions in the network security department. At first, Valve claimed that only 1/3rd of the source code was stolen, but once people compiled working versions of the game, well...

The Anonymous Leaker, despite being an asshole such as myself, was basically correct. HL2 wasn't nearly as far along as Valve was hinting at, and a lot of the things Valve showed in the E3 demo were misrepresented. Did he really release all the work Valve had done on HL2? To be honest, I don't know for sure. It's a possibility. Valve certainly made little effort to dispute his claims.

Valve didn't announce that Half-Life 2 would be delayed until 9/23. This, to me, was inexcusable. It takes ten minutes to send out an email.

OK, now you may be saying, "so what, why are you still crying about things that happened last year?" I think it's important to reiterate this story because it shows what kind of company Valve is. I don't feel they respect the community. If they did, they would have just confirmed Vivendi's delay announcement in July instead of stringing people along.

Where is Half-Life 2 now? Beats me. I haven't kept up with the past 5-6 months of development and E3 is coming up anyway, so you'll see for yourself. I do know that content has been cut from the game in an attempt to get it to ship sooner. Will it ship this year? I guess there's a 50/50 chance, but keep in mind that this is the same company that took three years to add bots to a mod they didn't even make and slap it in a box.

Now, I could go on and on, talking about Steam, all the screw-ups with Counter-Strike: Condition Zero (I mean, JESUS, how do you declare a game GOLD, say it's FINISHED, and then not ship it until NEARLY SIX MONTHS LATER?), how Valve has messed up their relationships with Ritual, Gearbox, Vivendi (do you think Vivendi is a big fan of Steam?), and ATI... I could point out all the things Valve said they'd do but didn't, like releasing the HL2 benchmark or the SDK. I could whine on and on about how maddening it is to get flooded by mails from people complaining about how people can't play Half-Life anymore thanks to Steam or how Valve's customer support is non-existent. But the bottom line is this: I am not a fan of Valve anymore. I don't believe a damn thing they say and I'm sick of their bullshit.

Valve needs to learn how to properly communicate with their online fan base and treat their fans with respect. That means not telling your fans 7 days before the ship date that HL2 is delayed. That means not giving out vague "oh HL2 will be released this summer and by the way we didn't say summer of what year and it's always summer somewhere in the world so who knows LOL we'll see!" answers to direct questions. That means not streaming a couple hundred megs of cache files to Steam user's hard drives without their permission or knowledge.

I feel most of the problems at Valve are due to the ineptitude of one individual in particular. I'm not going to name names, but you can probably guess who I'm talking about. This person is easily the worst person I've ever met during my time within the "video game industry," and that's saying a lot, considering that this business is filled with superstar jerkwads like... well... me. I don't feel that he does his job properly, and he isn't what I'd consider to be a decent, trustworthy, or moral human being.

Plus, Valve has gone over my head a couple of times and interfered (or attempted to interfere) with the content of this site, which I think is pretty sad. Forum posts of mine have been deleted on their orders and I've been forced to edit news posts because Valve didn't care for the information or opinions I was sharing. I'm sure they'll complain about this post and attempt to get it yanked, but I don't care.

Don't get me wrong, Valve has some of the most talented developers in the industry. Some really great people who I respect immensely work there. It's a shame that most of these guys have been working hard for years on projects that have yet to see the light of day. There are just a few bad apples spoiling the soup. Or something.

Oh man, this is possibly the most scary, convoluted thing I've ever written. ANYWAYS, it's obvious that I have no business running a site like PlanetHalfLife when it's obvious this crap has made me CRAZY INSANE, so it's time to give up my silly little crusade of constantly telling people that they're wrong and turn the site over to more professional management with a better attitude and perspective than myself. Jabberwocky will be taking over PHL and I'm sure you'll see plenty of other new faces on the site as well.

A few more things: First, I'd like to publicly apologize to Pratt for a comment I made in the forums which seemed to imply that he wasn't reporting news properly. I was wrong, and he has the right idea. Secondly, I'd like to thank the HL2.net forums for their... enthusiasm... and some of the most hilarious things I've ever read. I'll never forget that thread where somebody compared me to Hitler for saying that Half-Life 2 would be delayed last year. Lastly, I'd like to thank all the PHL readers who have put up with the peculiar brand of garbage I've been dishing out the past couple years and for suffering through those "funny" flash movies of mine.

Half-Life 2 will almost certainly be a great game once it's released and I can't wait to play it. Be patient, don't believe everything you read, think for yourself, and remember that history has a habit of repeating itself. Repeating itself. Repeating itself. THE END.
 
when it comes to the lawsuit, it works like this:

the games done. ready to ship.
this fulfills valve contractual obligation with vivendi for providing with games to release. this frees them to do whatsoever they wish with their IP.
In a move to aviod loss of revenue, and an early release of potentially the biggest game of all time, they filed a lawsuit.

Steam means alot of things. should valve have success with steam, and theyt go over 10% ofg HL2 sales via steam, then game/software publishers may be a thing of the past. No more cd's to copy, no big boxes or manuals to print. Heck, we live in a digital age, and those things are not quite wholely digital. All they need to do is distribute a little card with a cd key, and you go home and download it, or like some of us ahve done with HL2, you already have it preloaded. Punch in the number and play away.

although this is great for gamers(except for those that want a physical copy), it spells doom for companies like VUG. only makes sense that they are a little scared.
 
Wow, ImJacksAmygdala, i've never read that...it's sort of depressing. :eek: But, hey, HL2 does seem like it's going to be out before Christmas!
 
I feel most of the problems at Valve are due to the ineptitude of one individual in particular. I'm not going to name names, but you can probably guess who I'm talking about. This person is easily the worst person I've ever met during my time within the "video game industry," and that's saying a lot, considering that this business is filled with superstar jerkwads like... well... me. I don't feel that he does his job properly, and he isn't what I'd consider to be a decent, trustworthy, or moral human being.
wow, that's though. I wonder who is he talking about
 
I swear to god if they delay HL2 again I will kill everyone at Valve and VU
 
UKchaos2 said:
Maybe Doug?

Well I'm sure Doug is responsible for all of us purchasing ATI cards last September 2003, and probably even misled ATI, but was lucky enough to have the Source leak which gave Valve plausible deniability of any wrong doing. VUG seems to think that Gabe was untruthful with them about Valve's intentions of marketing games with Steam technology and I'm more prone to think that FragMaster was talking about Gabe Newell.
 
ImJacksAmygdala said:
Well I'm sure Doug is responsible for all of us purchasing ATI cards last September 2003, and probably even misled ATI, but was lucky enough to have the Source leak which gave Valve plausible deniability of any wrong doing. VUG seems to think that Gabe was untruthful with them about Valve's intentions of marketing games with Steam technology and I'm more prone to think that FragMaster was talking about Gabe Newell.
err... They admited the delay had nothing to do with the stolen source code, it merely added it.
 
I dont see how this might delay the game. If anything it might involve a few workers at Valve and Gaben, but there is always another 70 or so people who will still be at Valve working on the next RC
 
vicefredav444 said:
I did allot of research on the history of modern technology, trying to see what people thought of them in the early 1800s and 1900s. I noticed that almost everyone who broke the golden "rules", who tried something bold and new were the ones who brought about the most change in the world. You always had scientists with their theories, corporations with their rules bashing something new back then. Everything from electricity to the telephone, radio, planes, computers. It was hilarious, people are always so sure about everything. One WB executives quote was "movies with sound, are you crazy???"

there's a book (i forget) that talks about "paradigm shifts" in science, where most people will think inside the box and their ideas/experiments all perpetuate a certain theory until someone comes and radically changes the "paradigm". A good example is quantum theory compared to classical physics. really radical stuff at the turn of the 20th century. Flat out disbelieved by a lot of scientists until more and more incontrovertible proofs and experiments showed otherwise.

Here's a wild theory that has probably been thought of (i think no original thoughts), but what if there was a conspiracy and valve intentionally had their source leaked to throw everyone off the trail that their game wasn't finished and was an excuse to keep developing the game longer. it would also screw VU. yeah, it's a horrible idea. no developer would do that. ok, i'm done with conspiracy theories cause mine are not even plausible.


offtopic: anyone heard music by Nick Drake? he's found in the Royal Tennenbaum, Garden State, and Serendipidy soundtracks. he's awesome. too bad he died 30 years ago.
 
for all of fragmasters knowledge why didnt he know it was vivendi that shafted valve on cs:cz. heh
 
It was reported that VUG sat on the CZ RC for 3 whole months...

I think that most of us just thought it was because of the quality of the game at the time from leaked information, but now it appears it was for legal reasons.

I wonder if VUG will try to shut down Steam if they win....
 
that'll be lame if they sit on HL2 until a court decision is made on this lawsuit. Maybe that's why Gabe mentioned the RC was sent to VUG so that fans won't be angry at Valve if the game doesn't come out for months.
 
If this case isn't somehow miraculously settled soon, we could see a delay of HL2 atleast equivalent to the 4-month long delay that dogged CS:CZ AFTER it had gone gold in Nov 2003. This situation sucks.
 
Adidajs said:
i thought about this several pages back, but damn 14 pages and someone is bound to mention this. I work at a research lab. If i worked at a biotech company and i created, for instance, a new delivery method to transfect cells (like using carbon nanotubes), and i patented this, the company i worked for would probably own the patent since i created this while working for the company (if that was in the contract). Like Homer's example, even if i came up with the idea working at the company and DIDN"T EVEN MENTION IT, but it related somehow to my work, the company, EVEN AFTER I LEFT, could reasonably own a possible patent to that too. yeah sucks.

If Valve delayed this game because of this lawsuit, my faith in their company has certainly diminished.
I bet Valve did screw over VUG in their contract and it's coming back to bite them. To me it seems like Steam could be given to other developers like id and such so they too could bypass the publisher, and then Valve would become like a publisher. Ironic eh? seems to me like VUG should have seen this coming as a possibility with the speed of the internet now, digital distribution of music as stated earlier,etc. Steam is the obvious next step for distribution.

You're comparing [1] "work for hire" to [2] developer / distributor relationships. I'm an independent consultant and know there is a significant difference. It is all determined by the contract, which is extremely unlikely to support such an instance.
 
thats stupid because after hearing what some fans have post its seems that they want the game badly and are thinking about buying it thru steam but also want the CE, and what about this surprise about the CE that just spring up, maybe this lawsuit is being over exaterated
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It sounds as though they are required to publish the next few games through VU though. And it may even be HL2 specific in the contract.
 
Just a guess, imo, I don't believe the contract would be game specific. I think they are just required to make X amount of games through VU and not any other publisher. Since releasing it though Steam isn't really using a publisher, I think it would be legit.

However, I cannot deny the fact that it could be specific to HL2, since I can't be 100% sure.
 
Mountain Man said:
Why would Valve insist they were going to make the September 30 release deadline when they should have known for months before hand that they wouldn't make it?

In other words, open ended hypothetical questions don't really provide any answers.
3 words....

Doom3. Noone's perfect.

Ok, that's a twist to make 3 words, but basically ID had the same problem, so a miscalculation by Valve is a realistic possibility.
 
Lastly, I'd like to add that this didn't just start yesterday, so there is no reason to start panicking. This is something that has been going on for a while. If VU delays production, valve will seek to end the contract (in court) and will have a new publisher lined up in no time. Even with the smallest margin of proffit, and publisher is looking at a huge amount of $$$...so every publisher going to want their dirty little paws on every minute table scrap they can mannage.
 
chimpmunk said:
so.......


who are the bad guys? Valve or Vivendi?
i'm confused.
Valve is doing all of the hard work. Vivendi is trying to get as much money as they can mannage.
 
phantomdesign said:
Lastly, I'd like to add that this didn't just start yesterday, so there is no reason to start panicking. This is something that has been going on for a while. If VU delays production, valve will seek to end the contract (in court) and will have a new publisher lined up in no time. Even with the smallest margin of proffit, and publisher is looking at a huge amount of $$$...so every publisher going to want their dirty little paws on every minute table scrap they can mannage.

hes right Valve is being the bitch is this court. Valve is staying legal here but wants to squeeze all that is possible out of Vivendi because hl2 will be the best game to sell including better salles than hl. and they want to stop working perhaps and have a good life end of the story.

secondly:p.. Valve wants to release hl2 via steam wich will be profitable for them and not for Vivendi.. they wanted to release it at 8oct. i think Vivendi wasnt able to release physical copy's of hl2 by 8oct.

gg
 
Their both the bad guys. It sounds as though Valve has been purposefully dragging their feet on this game and Vivendi is hosing valve over on sales of their games. Their both trying to bet as much money as they can manage.

Also, even though this didn't start yesterday some of the legal ranglings are, and given the history with CS:CZ it's possible something similar will happen with HL2.
 
ImJacksAmygdala said:
I think FragMaster had a better scope on the situation because he had more inside information than the majority of us. I think FragMasters letter is as close to the truth as we are EVER going to get...

Two wrongs doesn't make a right.
 
Quixote said:
Their both the bad guys. It sounds as though Valve has been purposefully dragging their feet on this game and Vivendi is hosing valve over on sales of their games. Their both trying to bet as much money as they can manage.

Also, even though this didn't start yesterday some of the legal ranglings are, and given the history with CS:CZ it's possible something similar will happen with HL2.

If it does, then :flame: = ME!
 
I say if the game gets delayed WE SHOULD ALL BOYCOTT HL2!!!

Be funny if Valve wins and VU loses everything then Valve joins Activision.

My view is this:

VU is being hungry mongers, they give them the rights to sell online but now are trying to take it back. They will lose this case. Valve is not all that good too, they have a bad record and shouldn't blame VU for every mishaps.

They should have parted Sierra when they had the chance.
 
But the troubling thing is the fact that Gabe supposedly dismissed an Internet retaill venture as impossible, if that quote about him claiming it couldn't turn a profit is true it could harm Valve's case because it would be a blatant lie trying to make VU give Valve the internet retail rights. Only why they couldn't see through that cunning 5 year olds poker face style argument is beyond me.
 
Rupertvdb said:
But the troubling thing is the fact that Gabe supposedly dismissed an Internet retaill venture as impossible, if that quote about him claiming it couldn't turn a profit is true it could harm Valve's case because it would be a blatant lie trying to make VU give Valve the internet retail rights. Only why they couldn't see through that cunning 5 year olds poker face style argument is beyond me.


The quote from Newell

In September 2000, for example, Newell told Hubert Joly, then VUG's CEO, that "online is a way to nurture the retail business" and that he "could not understand how one can make money online today."


That's 4 years ago. 4 years ago it probably was impossible to make money from selling games online. Imagine Steam with everyone sitting on frickin' modems. It would not work. So I personally don't see any problems with that statement.
 
Well this sucks! I just posted a legitimate thread over at the Steam forums and it was locked within seconds without any information at all on the matter... you can find the thread here.

http://www.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=143631

Like the topic says will Vivendi shut Steam down if they win in court? If that happens what happens to my purchase of Condition Zero? I bought CZ through Steam and I do not have an actual CD key from my purchase! Only my account information allows me to play CZ....

This is a quote from the Inquirer found here http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=18598

As of right now, Vivendi's position is that Steam is an illegitimate way for Valve to get its software out, and Vivendi does appear to be attempting to get an injunction to prevent Valve releasing the software over the distribution system. The publisher even goes so far as to claim, in its legal documents, that Gabe Newell deliberately concealed the capabilities of the Steam system from it and misled it over Valve's distribution intentions.
Will my CZ be shut off even though I paid money for this product or will i get a CD key if Steam is shut down and won is brought back? Whats really going on? I think some PR info on this is required considering every game news site on the net is reporting this....

WHY AM I NOT SURPRISED AT VALVES SILENCE??? :angry:
 
ImJacksAmygdala said:
Well this sucks! I just posted a legitimate thread over at the Steam forums and it was locked within seconds without any information at all on the matter... you can find the thread here.

http://www.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=143631

Like the topic says will Vivendi shut Steam down if they win in court? If that happens what happens to my purchase of Condition Zero? I bought CZ through Steam and I do not have an actual CD key from my purchase! Only my account information allows me to play CZ....

This is a quote from the Inquirer found here http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=18598


Will my CZ be shut off even though I paid money for this product or will i get a CD key if Steam is shut down and won is brought back? Whats really going on? I think some PR info on this is required considering every game news site on the net is reporting this....

WHY AM I NOT SURPRISED AT VALVES SILENCE??? :angry:
Almost any company that faces the kind of legal problems that Valve is facing right now keeps their mouth completely shut, they won't say anything at all. Vivendi is also being completely silent, so far Homelanfed has asked them a few questions and Vivendi has just responded with "no comment".

Don't expect any answers from either company.
 
Steam won't be shut down, as it's the online authentication system for HL and all it's mods, and for HL2 as well.

If Vivendi are granted the injunction, then Valve won't be able to sell HL2 via Steam. They may still be permitted to distribute HL2 for those with ATI vouchers, however.
 
Also, there will be titles in the future that won't be published by Vivendi. For example, Day of Defeat was published by Activision. Providing they welcome the Steam distribution system, they may publish future Valve titles for them and allow Valve to distribute across Steam.

Either that or Valve may have to start of a fresh publishing deal for future non-Half-Life titles with a publisher where Steam is in the equation right from the start.

Does anyone know if Valve buying Vivendi out of the Half-Life rights would be an option?

E.g. Valve turning around to Vivendi and saying "We'll give you $x if you give up all rights to the Half-Life franchise".

It'd have to be a massive amount of money for Vivendi to do this I suppose, but is it possible/worth it for Valve if they are going to be able to pimp Steam distribution and double the money they'd normally get from retail?
 
I read somewhere that Valve worked a deal with Seirra for the HL rights so they could use Steam legally to distribute HL content. I think it was during the CZ release, but appearently Vivendi thought different...

Wasn't Vivendi a parent company of Sierra, and isn't Sierra gone now? maybe this is why Vivendi is just grabbing straws now?
 
Chris_D said:
Also, there will be titles in the future that won't be published by Vivendi. For example, Day of Defeat was published by Activision. Providing they welcome the Steam distribution system, they may publish future Valve titles for them and allow Valve to distribute across Steam.

Either that or Valve may have to start of a fresh publishing deal for future non-Half-Life titles with a publisher where Steam is in the equation right from the start.

Does anyone know if Valve buying Vivendi out of the Half-Life rights would be an option?

E.g. Valve turning around to Vivendi and saying "We'll give you $x if you give up all rights to the Half-Life franchise".

It'd have to be a massive amount of money for Vivendi to do this I suppose, but is it possible/worth it for Valve if they are going to be able to pimp Steam distribution and double the money they'd normally get from retail?

Well i believe a report said that vivendi's massive red numbers might get them to sell franchises out.

It would indeed be possible that they could buy the name.

It might even be used as an argument why Vivendi shouldn't be allowed to keep the name, since their moneyproblems might not be fit for the title at all.
 
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