Valve and Vivendi Universal Games Settle Lawsuit

[Chris D]

An interesting press release has just appeared in my inbox from Valve's Doug Lombardi:

Bellevue, WA and Los Angeles, CA - April 29, 2005 -- Valve and Vivendi Universal Games (VU Games) today announced the settlement of a pending federal court lawsuit filed by Valve in August 2002. The parties have resolved their differences, and the settlement provides for the dismissal of all claims and counterclaims. Under the settlement agreement, VU Games will cease distribution of retail packaged versions of Valve's games, including Half-Life®, Half-Life 2, Counter-StrikeTM, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero and Counter-Strike: Source, effective August 31, 2005.[br]Additionally, VU Games has notified distributors and cyber cafes that were licensed by VU Games that only Valve is authorized to distribute Valve games to cyber cafés and grant cyber café licenses. Cyber café operators that were licensed by VU Games have also been notified that any license agreement from Sierra Entertainment, Vivendi Universal Games or any of their affiliates or distributors that may have granted rights to use Valve games in cyber cafés, whether written or oral, is terminated.[br]About Valve[br]Based in Bellevue, Washington, Valve is an entertainment software and technology company founded in 1996. Valve's debut title, Half-Life, has won over 50 Game of the Year Awards and named "Best PC Game Ever" in the November 1999, October 2001, and April 2005 issues of PC Gamer, the world's best-selling PC games magazine. Valve's portfolio of entertainment titles also includes Counter-Strike, Day of DefeatTM, and Team Fortress® and accounts for over 15 million retail units sold worldwide, and over 88% of the PC online action market. Information about Valve's Cyber Café Program can be found at www.steampowered.com.[br]Vivendi Universal Games (VU Games)[br]
Vivendi Universal Games (www.vugames.com) is a global developer, publisher and distributor of multi-platform interactive entertainment. The company is a leader in the subscription-based massively multi-player online (MMO) games category, and also holds leading positions in the PC, console and handheld games markets. Its development studios and publishing labels include Blizzard Entertainment®, Radical Entertainment(tm), Sierra® Entertainment and Massive Entertainment(tm). VU Games' library of over 700 titles features owned intellectual properties including Warcraft®, StarCraft®, Diablo® and World of Warcraft® from Blizzard; Crash Bandicoot®, Spyro The DragonTM, Empire Earth®, Leisure Suit LarryTM, Ground Control® and Tribes®. VU Games also maintains strategic relationships with industry leading content partners, including NBC Universal and Twentieth Century Fox.

Definitely a surprising turn of events, but I'm sure you'll agree it seems to be a success all round. Congratulations Valve and VU Games.[br]Update: Also, for those of you worrying that we might be left with Steam as the only option for buying Valve games, I received this response from Doug Lombardi earlier:

We are making arrangements to continue retail distribution of our products post August 31. Should have more details to share soon.

At the moment the current speculations are that Activision may take over from VU Games. Remember, back in April 2003, Valve signed a multi-title deal, all starting with Day of Defeat, who are also publishing Day of Defeat: Source, so they may also take on the rest of Valve's back catalogue.

 

[One_ar]

a Staff doubleposter, looks great

 

[Ames]

Under the settlement agreement, VU Games will cease distribution of retail packaged versions of Valve's games, including Half-Life®, Half-Life 2, Counter-StrikeTM, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero and Counter-Strike: Source, effective August 31, 2005.

Say what?

Who's going to distribute these games now?

 

[Chris D]

I'm assuming it may be Activision... or Steam :|

 

[Asknoone]

Its most likley Activision, as they did DOD...I think. Yey maybe we'll get better boxes!!

They wont just put them over Steam...it just wouldn't work.

 

[forg0tt3n]

Wow no more retaildistribution for now, will the games be pulled from stores immediately or over time...or sold off???

Hopefully they'll find another distributor.

 

[Kanehdian]

I hope Activision or Ubisoft publishes Valves games now. VU Games makes really crappy boxes. I mean, all they have are the CDs in paper sleeves and a piece of laminated paper with the control scheme on it! Every other publisher at least user a jewel case!

 

[KU_]

It says effective August 31, so they got some time to sell. I hope a good publisher comes in.

 

[Asknoone]

I hope Activision or Ubisoft publishes Valves games now. VU Games makes really crappy boxes. I mean, all they have are the CDs in paper sleeves and a piece of laminated paper with the control scheme on it! Every other publisher at least user a jewel case!

And they put two crappy E32003 screens on the back :|

 

[Sprafa]

I need retail. And they're definitly not pulling anything out of the shelves. Moneh> Everything else.

 

[Asknoone]

I don't actually mind which way they take it, but all in all i would prefer to add a nice looking box to my collection

 

[Cons Himself]

VU Games = totally owned to be honest

 

[Feuyaino]

Under the settlement agreement, VU Games will cease distribution of retail packaged versions of Valve's games, including Half-Life®, Half-Life 2, Counter-StrikeTM, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero and Counter-Strike: Source, effective August 31, 2005.

Woah.

So, does or did ever VU have any rights to the HL2 property? THat is, can Valve go on and sell Aftermath with no obligation to VU? I'd hate to see something like the Relic situation with HW2, where they could make a sequel except they work for THQ and the property is owned by VU Games...

 

[SystemShock2]

the question is why would activision want to. They would get ripped off just like vivendi did and not get many sales. I'm guessing it's going to be steam only.

 

[T.H.C.138]

go VALVe!!

 

[ship]

"Hey Vivendi. Seriously, **** you!"

 

[DiSTuRbEd]

I'm assuming it may be Activision... or Steam :|

Have a good feeling Activision will help out, I think VALVe picked them to distribute DoD for a reason, because they knew short time in the future they would probably move over. But I am finally glad VALVe is getting out from under VUG!!!!!!111 GJ VALVE

 

[Lemonking]

kinda sad actually the go "steam only" way but I want boxes

 

[SFLUFAN]

I seriously doubt Valve will be partnering with ANY publisher now. And if they did, you can bet it would be on VERY favorable terms for Valve and not the publisher.

I wonder how much $$$ Valve parted with to convince VU to settle out-of-court.

 

[kupocake]

Not just the Cafes resolved... but Vivendi no longer distributing existing Valve Software titles? Woah. Look Pwnage up in the dictionary, because Valve just redefined it ^^...

Edit:
I feel sorry for all the monkeys who will lose their jobs in the Boxart department though. Expect them to bring a lawsuit for that Watercooler they were promised...

 

[SFLUFAN]

"Definitely a surprising turn of events, but I'm sure you'll agree it seems to be a success all round. Congratulations Valve and VU Games."

Success all round Chris? I don't see any real success at all for VUG in this matter unless you count the money they will save on attorney fees because the case will not be going to trial as well as whatever money Valve paid them to make this thing go away.

If anything, VUG is the unquestioned loser in this matter.

 

[DiSTuRbEd]

I seriously doubt Valve will be partnering with ANY publisher now. And if they did, you can bet it would be on VERY favorable terms for Valve and not the publisher.

I wonder how much $$$ Valve parted with to convince VU to settle out-of-court.

I don't I have a good feeling VALVe will have some kind of relationship with Activision for a few titles, because we saw DoD published by them.

 

[Xune]

I wonder how much $$$ Valve parted with to convince VU to settle out-of-court.

Teh Gaben loved them long time.

Seriously though, isn't is any developers dream to be their own publisher?

With Steam and the piles of cash made from the Half Life series ther're set for life.

 

[DiSTuRbEd]

If anything, VUG is the unquestioned loser in this matter.

This is always good, vengence for Tribes! :cheers:

 

[The Monkey]

Then who will distribute??

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

Valve announced a while back that Activision would be publishing their future titles.

Steam notwithstanding, Valve still need a publisher. A large percentage (I'd even go so far as to the majority of HL2 sales came from retail). Someone has to handle that. Someone has to deal with the publicity, promotion and advertising (who do you think paid for those TV spots?).
A developer isn't geared up to deal with all that. They'd be a publisher if they were.

With luck, Steam is going to act as the great leveller - redefining the relationship between developer and publisher. The developer writes the game, the publisher publishes it. The profits should be far more evenly divided, not 90/10 (if you're lucky) in favour of the publisher.

 

[SFLUFAN]

"I'd even go so far as to the majority of HL2 sales came from retail"

Actually that may not be the case. According to the latest issue of Computer Games Magazine, in an article on the continuing conflict between publishers and developers, industry insiders/analysts estimate that Valve might have sold as much as TWICE the amount of copies of HL2 via Steam as VU did via retail. This would translate into about 3.4 million copies sold via Steam.

Now, I don't know the accuracy of this estimate but in light of what happened today, it would seem reasonable that Valve had enough financial clout to make VU "walk away" from this confrontation and the only way they could do that would be from having enough financial resources from the Steam HL2 sales to make it work.

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

I only considered it because the weekly charts still have HL2 selling strongly at retail. It's very hard to say until Valve release their own figures, unfortunately.

 

[Pauly]

Please valve choose activision(they most likely will because DOD was activision) ubisoft always makes you make an account to play online and ALWAYS puts their logo when you boot up a game. Go activision/valve

 

[SFLUFAN]

Activion would bend over backwards to have Valve as part of their publishing empire. Think of who they would be associated with then: id, Valve, Raven, Infinity Ward - that's a very powerful lineup they would assemble to confront EA

 

[Dr. Freeman]

well hopefully a good publisher takes over and does the HL series some justice as far as retail versions go.

 

[Sentinelrv]

OMG!!! VALVe is FREE!!!!!

 

[^Ben]

Ubi or activision, lets face it the advertising campaign for HL2 was utter crap. They need to get some proper TV adverts going.

Ubi and activison know how to set that up, sold over 1.7 million copies, if it had the same marketing campaign HL2 had I doubt it would be anything near that number.

 

[Hyperion2010]

Steam = win!

and, without any real advertising

Most Popular for PC

1. Half-Life 2
Lowest Price $21.02
2. World of Warcraft
Lowest Price $37.55
3. Doom 3
Lowest Price $17.51
4. Brothers In Arms: Road To Hill 30
Lowest Price $34.90
5. The Matrix Online
Lowest Price $46.50

thats from gamespy

 

[Hobo89]

Lets just hope that it wont hold back their products to the public or delay it at least. For it's fine to make the game but then u need distributer and what Valve has only been mentioning over time is that they wish to see Steam dominate the game distribution for it saves shelf planning

 

[PaulStD]

It looks like VU got nothing out of this.
Why would they settle on such unfair terms?

 

[SFLUFAN]

It looks like VU got nothing out of this.
Why would they settle on such unfair terms?

VU got the benefit of not fighting Valve in court in a potential losing case. Once Valve won that initial round in court last year, the writing was pretty much on the wall for VU's chances to successfully contesting the rest of the case.

Prolonging the case would only have resulted in more attorney costs for both sides and, if VU lost the case, they would have to pay Valve's attorney fees as well. In the long run, VU's attorneys probably recognized that it would be better to settle and be done with the matter and walk away with whatever settlement amount Valve was willing to pay than drag it out much longer.

 

[Resvrgam]

Goodbye retail SKUs and hello Steam ;(

 

[Mountain Man]

I don't see any real success at all for VUG in this matter unless you count the money they will save on attorney fees because the case will not be going to trial as well as whatever money Valve paid them to make this thing go away.

If anything, Vivendi paid Valve to make this thing go away. You don't end up as big a loser as Vivendi and walk away with a fat out-of-court settlement in your pocket. Basically, this settlement is VUG's way of saying, "We don't have a case and we know it." Trust me, Vivendi got the six-inch shaft, and they felt every inch of it!

 

[nvrmor]

can someone post a link to valve having an agreement with activision for future titles? if that is true, why no mention of activision showing valve product at e3? isnt valve showing everything at m$ booth. didnt m$ publish xbox counter strike, and most likely hl2?