Court outcome?
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Tork
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Not guilty, case dismissed. :hmph:
soccerdude21490
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here is my opinion...
1.) Vivendi will NOT hold it back for 6 month.. if they do... they will probobly loose TONS of money
2.) If Vivindi does hold it back... I think Valve should be like "well.. screw you!" and relase it for full download on Steam.
3.) Valve will win the court case (I don't even really know what its about) over Vivindi because VALVE OWNS ALL!!!!
And I pray to god that they will release it before the end of teh year because I want HalfLife2 to beat Halo 2 and GTA:SA and all the other games people think that will with GOTY... cause then HalfLife2 will (in my opinion) earn the respect it owns from a lot of gamer consoles
1.) Vivendi will NOT hold it back for 6 month.. if they do... they will probobly loose TONS of money
2.) If Vivindi does hold it back... I think Valve should be like "well.. screw you!" and relase it for full download on Steam.
3.) Valve will win the court case (I don't even really know what its about) over Vivindi because VALVE OWNS ALL!!!!
And I pray to god that they will release it before the end of teh year because I want HalfLife2 to beat Halo 2 and GTA:SA and all the other games people think that will with GOTY... cause then HalfLife2 will (in my opinion) earn the respect it owns from a lot of gamer consoles
here's my opinion...
1.) Vivendi WILL hold the game back because if they don't they will lose TONS of money.
2.) Valve was like "Screw you!" and started preselling it over steam and giving away CS:S immedately as an incentive NOT to buy it in stores.
3.) I wonder how much it costs both sides to hire their respective army of lawyers. Got to give Vivendi pretty good odds on this one too though since they are a multinational, multibillion dollar corporation against a large but relatively smallish developer.
And I hope they release it in November because I really want to play something.
1.) Vivendi WILL hold the game back because if they don't they will lose TONS of money.
2.) Valve was like "Screw you!" and started preselling it over steam and giving away CS:S immedately as an incentive NOT to buy it in stores.
3.) I wonder how much it costs both sides to hire their respective army of lawyers. Got to give Vivendi pretty good odds on this one too though since they are a multinational, multibillion dollar corporation against a large but relatively smallish developer.
And I hope they release it in November because I really want to play something.
Mountain Man
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They've said a lot of things.maximus0402 said:
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Sven Viking
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I'm certainly no Vivendi fan, but I'm just wondering... what're everyone's exact reasons for hating Vivendi, if you don't count guesses at what they might do or may have done?
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Sven Viking
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zex said:
Ah, Vivendi are reckoning they own IP rights for Half-Life? I'm sort of behind of things, probably missed details of the legal proceedings. You'd think that'd be a relatively simple contract issue, but I guess you can never be sure with contracts.
Don't know who's in the right on which points of the legal battles (there seem to be a lot of points), but I think the treatment thing is sort of two-way... Steam is a huge threat to Vivendi and all traditional publishers. I think it's something that's inevitible, but you can see why publishers might be concerned (there've been fair number of bankruptcies in the industry already, lately).
f|uke
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They know they dont but they're acting like they do by trying to get a cut of Steam sales. VUg knows Steam sets a bad precident for them, and publishers are used to getting a fat cut of whatever, so they're taking VALVe to court even though it would appear they dont have a leg to stand on.Sven Viking said:
Are you the Sven? If so, any ambitions for a HL2 co-op?
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Sven Viking
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Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Under normal circumstances, you'd expect the contract would be fairly specific on who got IP rights, and this would be able to be sorted out pretty easily. So if Vivendi doesn't have a leg to stand on, why try? Who knows, maybe they just wanted an extra counter-claim to throw in along with everything elsef|uke said:
. It's a bit hard to make many conclusions on the little we know from the Gamespot article and such.Well, we've had some plans for a while now, but a lot's changed since August last year :/... we'll just have to take things as they come.
Mr-Fusion
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It's not specifically hating Vivendi. It's hating the very concept of a publisher. An entity that is in control of creativity. In control in order to exploit it and make money. Yes that's what business is all about yadada. But creativity is not about that. Money was not the motivating factor behind some of the greatest pieces of creative production in the past. Countless symphonies written by genius composers, artwork dating back thousands of years and amazing sculptures. Were they inspired by money? No.Sven Viking said:
Artists are trying to give us an experience. They try to ignite out emotions in one way or another. It's good and pure, it feels right (to me anyway).
Imagine a publisher had creative control over Michealangelo when he was painting the roof of the sistene chappel? "Ok it's too big! No-ones going to be able to view the whole thing! Make it a little lighter, and put some Germans in it and the word MOHAA but no swastikas or blood that's politically incorrect. OK?". Or today it would occur like this, Michaelangelo would approach the publisher for his idea for this painting and the publisher would turn him down saying "No, we don't view your idea as a profitable enterprise"
On the other hand not all publishers make wrong decisions. Sometimes they make great decisions!! Like when Valve were given funding to create Half-Life. It was a risky choice.
Valve in a way, are emulating the feats of George Lucas. He despised publishers with a passion (yeah i've been watching those documentaries on the DVD). They'd get too involved with the creative aspects of his films which he hated. He made enough money off A New Hope to be able to self-fund Empire Strikes back and escape the evil clutches of Jabba the 20th century fox. Likewise Valve are trying to sever all ties with Vivendi, they've self-funded their next game and as far as i'm aware Vivendi have had no say in the creative aspect of Half-Life 2.
It's only fair the developer has the power to choose what's in their game and it's fair that the developer receives all the profts from the hard work they put into the game. Vivendi are simply replicating CDs and distributing the game. That's factory level work. So Valve self-funded Half-Life 2, worked on it from line 1 to what it is now, created everything from the story, the sounds, animations,models, maps. Then Vivendi say "We want X% of all profit this game makes". What did Vivendi do to create the game? Nothing.
So there, it's not just a "I hate Vivendi" situation.
zex
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Yeah, Vivendi probably isn't too happy that Valve thought about the Steam concept before them. Publishers have been doing it the old way for too long and Valve finally came up with a new and easier way to get their product out the door.
But I was actually kind of wondering, is it saving any money? What would be cheaper boxing and printing on CDs, or using boatloads of bandwidth. :/
But I was actually kind of wondering, is it saving any money? What would be cheaper boxing and printing on CDs, or using boatloads of bandwidth. :/
Sven Viking said:
Well, no one is sure.
What I think has happened, one of the things at least, is that valve were given funding from vivendi a while ago (maybe while still under the name of sierra). This funding entitles vivendi uni. games (formerly sierra) a certain sum of money as they are the people providing the publishing equipment.
During the production of HL2, valve produced steam, which eliminates vivendi from any sales, basically cutting them out of a deal they had done the hardwork toward.
Vivendi aren't used to being ****ed over, it's normally the other way around, so they take valve to court (fair enough imo).
In short: Valve sign contract, valve **** vivendi over by developing steam, vivendi put on super angry face.
That's what I THINK has happened.
There are other issues being discussed as well, I think : >
That's the best summing up of the situation I've seen yet Cabb! If valve is allowed to publish with steam Vivendi will lose lots of money. And wether or not it's publishers are evil Vivendi is going to protect it's bottom line, which leaves us fans out in the cold. And brrr is it cold.
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Sven Viking
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Cabb & Quixote: Yup, that's pretty-much what I was thinking. Edit: Only thing is, how is it leaving us out in the cold at this point? Vivendi hasn't yet had time to delay the release, and I seriously doubt that they'll do so... in my opinion, the best way for them to protect their bottom line is to get the game released as soon as possible (well, before Christmas at least).
Mr-Fusion: I know what you mean, though often art requires money. Painting the Sistene Chapel took four years, and Michelangelo had numerous assistants who he hired and fired on a regular basis (he designed the whole thing, but painting everything by hand would have been unrealistic).
An interesting point is that he didn't want the job, by the way... he would have prefered to stick to sculpting. The pope at the time insisted that he handle it, and Michelangelo complained about having to do the job fairly frequently. Obviously, though, he was a brilliant artist, and the end result was magnificent... the point is just that artists in the past weren't completely free of outside influences. A number of other Michelangelo projects were never finished due to lack of, or loss of, funding.
As for Valve and Sierra/Vivendi specifically: Vivendi haven't had any creative control over Half-Life 2 (and as far as I know, Sierra didn't really impose any creative control on Half-Life 1, either), so I'm not sure that that's relevant in this case. As for money, it just depends on what their agreement was. If Sierra hadn't funded Valve in the first place, there might never have been a Half-Life. It's only fair that both parties keep to whatever arrangements they both agreed upon... what those are, I don't know.
Mr-Fusion: I know what you mean, though often art requires money. Painting the Sistene Chapel took four years, and Michelangelo had numerous assistants who he hired and fired on a regular basis (he designed the whole thing, but painting everything by hand would have been unrealistic).
An interesting point is that he didn't want the job, by the way... he would have prefered to stick to sculpting. The pope at the time insisted that he handle it, and Michelangelo complained about having to do the job fairly frequently. Obviously, though, he was a brilliant artist, and the end result was magnificent... the point is just that artists in the past weren't completely free of outside influences. A number of other Michelangelo projects were never finished due to lack of, or loss of, funding.
As for Valve and Sierra/Vivendi specifically: Vivendi haven't had any creative control over Half-Life 2 (and as far as I know, Sierra didn't really impose any creative control on Half-Life 1, either), so I'm not sure that that's relevant in this case. As for money, it just depends on what their agreement was. If Sierra hadn't funded Valve in the first place, there might never have been a Half-Life. It's only fair that both parties keep to whatever arrangements they both agreed upon... what those are, I don't know.
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Sven Viking
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Note: I mean the above separately from whatever legal wranglings are going on currently. I only have a vague idea of who's claiming what, and I certainly don't know all the facts of the matter, or what Valve's agreements are with Vivendi. I expect there'd be plenty of reasons for us all to hate Vivendi if we had the details... I seriously doubt Valve would have intended Sierra/Vivendi to own the Half-Life IP, for example, and if they're claiming those rights it'd seem pretty reasonable to assume they were in the wrong. I was just a bit concerned that so many people seemed to be becoming so angry due to implied wrongdoings.
K
krytical
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so who wants to do the dirty work and make a bomb and blow vi up?
when u do make sure u give credit to ***** because they want credit for that kinda thing and you dont want to be arrested so let them take the fall and then sit back and chill :smoking:
when u do make sure u give credit to ***** because they want credit for that kinda thing and you dont want to be arrested so let them take the fall and then sit back and chill :smoking:
"Vivendi wouldn't never do such a thing, unless valve were already having been going to do that"Shuzer said:
Sven: As much as Steam is a threat to Vivendi, Valve must also realize that their online only plan won't work. But that's not the case though. Sierra broke their rights by giving free licenses to cyber cafés.
As you say Vivendi/Sierra didn't/don't own the IP rights, so they shouldn't have done that.
Vivendi/Sierra have had some influence on the work of Half-Life, possible also Half-Life 2.
Sierra had a contract to give out 800.000$ to Valve, which they didn't do on time. They gave them 30.000$ in advance and they had to wait for money. And the limited profits by any retail sale also gives them less money.
Less money = less work.
But again Retail can't be denied, i actually counted on a lot more buyers through steam but we still hear people waiting for retail and stuff. And considering all the advantages with the Steam version it surprises me a lot.
Woo hoo agreement by the mighty sven! I love the bod by the way and am really looking forward to what you guys can hopefully do with HL2. On another note even though I think profits over all would be maximized by releasing before christmas Vivendi has a history of holding back releasing games. CS:CZ being the most applicable.
Why did they dely release of CS:CZ? In one word: steam. Vivendi's brass isn't dumb and they know given the marketing stratagy of Valve they stand to lose millions. Especially since Valve is making the steam versions so attractive compared to the retail versions and the early release of CS:S.
Why did they dely release of CS:CZ? In one word: steam. Vivendi's brass isn't dumb and they know given the marketing stratagy of Valve they stand to lose millions. Especially since Valve is making the steam versions so attractive compared to the retail versions and the early release of CS:S.
Crash Happy
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I believe that the six month rule applies once HL2 has gone gold, not from the first RC.
However, if Vivendi think they have a win-able case there's no point holding up the release, since when they win they'd get the cash back-dated plus damages.
It's only if the counter suit is a bargaining chip that Vivendi start to have reason to delay release.
Personaly, i think release in Nov but it's not like I have any inside information.
However, if Vivendi think they have a win-able case there's no point holding up the release, since when they win they'd get the cash back-dated plus damages.
It's only if the counter suit is a bargaining chip that Vivendi start to have reason to delay release.
Personaly, i think release in Nov but it's not like I have any inside information.
O
oldmeng
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zex said:
That statement just made me laugh so hard I put in my AIM profile.
Nice 1 bud....... :cheers:
