Valve Responds to Vivendi Delay Statement

[Netherscourge]

Valve Responds to Vivendi Delay

10/7/2003 16:18 PST

HalfLife.org has received a reply from Valve Marketing Director Doug Lombardi regarding the Vivendi HL2 April 2004 delay announcement:

"We are still assessing the effects of the attack. At this time, we have no further details we can share regarding the theft nor it's impact on the release of Half-Life 2."

courtesy of HalfLife.org



So once again, Valve and Vivendi are not on the same page.

Lovely.

 

[Buckyfg]

informative :/ this is getting me really :rolling:

 

[dis]

Which once again translates to, "yes, the game has been delayed, but right now we're only telling stores and not fans." Doesn't this kinda seem like what happened back with the whole Sept. 30 fiasco.

 

[Netherscourge]

Don't you love it? Vivendi comes out and gives a plain, bold "delayed until April 2004 statement," and Valve gives a "We have no clue" response.

Typical.

 

[Tek]

valve is such a tease.

 

[bate18]

valve knows if they confirm a delay it will send the community into a rage-filled uproar, and then everyone will be trying to d/l this supposed "beta"

 

[Cheetarah654]

a hot tease

 

[Anubis]

Vivendi told us the game would be delayed. Valve continued to promise us that we would be playing hl2 by the end of september. In the end, Vivendi won. I think I'll put my eggs in Vivendi's basket this round.

Anubis

 

[Buckyfg]

in response to bate18 :


You have a good point there, I dont want to ruin it for myself personally but it will definetly get those weak minded/willed more likely to grab it.

 

[smwScott]

I don't think I've ever seen a crappier developer/publisher relationship. How ****ing hard is it to pick up a phone and call Valve before you shoot your mouth off.

Anyway, they were right last time. It could have either just happened to work out that way or they got the game delayed. But as of now thats the most reasonable date I've heard provided they decide to rewrite the code. If they don't I expect to see the game before Thanksgiving.

IMO I believe that releasing the game as quickly as possible is the best way to kill off the source and beta leak. Sure there will be cheats in the beginning but they'll just have to patch it out. The longer they wait and the more it gets distributed the more Valves technology gets compromised. If they had the full game out very few people would care about incomplete code.

 

[Majin]

Yeah, if you ask me, just release at least the SP now, and maybe charge $50 and release a multiplayer download later, or just make the multiplayer come with other extras, like CS2 and TFC2. It would be much better in my opinion for them to do.

Apparantly, from what I've heard at least, the only things they seem to need to fix mainly is the Steam things, which is mostly for multiplayer, so it'd be better in all if they just fixed that later, I'd be happy just with Single Player for 5 months...

Oh well... I just hope they don't keep delaying it, then more people will get the Beta, and more might be released from the game, screwing Valve over in the end, when if they release it say by the end of October/Half-way through November, they'll get a lot of people to buy that, and not even worry about the Beta things.

Although I'd be personally fine just having to download tons of patches, as long as Steam doesn't go horribly slow with them.

 

[Gordon'sFreeman]

woohooo HL style release!
if that happens, its not worth buying. it will be out dated and i cant wait to see it crash and burn

 

[Mountain Man]

He didn't exactly deny the rumor, now did he?

 

[genocide604]

They have the game completed, i say they make an emergency release.. and get it out in the holiday release.. if possible release SP now.. and MP as a DL later.

 

[Vanthem]

Basically that Halflife.org news wasn't even worth posting. I understand why they did it of course, but it's still all but worthless in reality.

 

[Direwolf]

Is it possible that they are still trying to figure out what they should do?
The beta isn't even a day old.

 

[killahsin-[CE]]

Originally posted by Gordon'sFreeman
woohooo HL style release!
if that happens, its not worth buying. it will be out dated and i cant wait to see it crash and burn

i'd guess your joking.

There wont be an engine to date what valve was going to release on sept 30th for a long long time. Valve has a technology you have never seen before. HDRI, you will see it in carmacks engine after doom3, heh.

I wouldnt worry about hl2 technology being outdated anytime soon, Mr Freeman ...

 

[droper]

if you haven't realise people by the time gabe decides to release there will be mods already being played. This is a first.

 

[Netherscourge]

Ok - can someone explain this to me?

---Vivendi is the Game Publisher (Pays Valve money needed to make the game, pays to have the Game Boxed, Manuals Written, CDs Pressed, Advertising, Marketing, etc...)

---Valve is the Game Developer (Uses the money provided by Vivendi to pay it's programmers and artists to actually MAKE the game)

How come Vivendi can come out and declare the game will be delayed to April 2004 without any sort of confirmation or estimate by Valve? What's the point of Valve not confirming a delay if the publisher is stating the game will be delayed?

Who gets the final word on when a game will ship? Even if Valve says the game is Gold and ready to be pressed, packaged and shipped, does Vivendi have the authority to say "Too bad - it ships when we say it ships?"

I can only assume Vivendi has the final word because so far their statements have turned out to be true (9/30/03 pushed back to Holiday 2003)

I don't get this whole Publisher - Developer relationship.

 

[Flyingdebris]

its all happening too fast! The shit has hit the fan and now everything has gone berzerk! The guys at Valve are probably in a panic

 

[killahsin-[CE]]

Originally posted by Netherscourge
(Pays Valve money needed to make the game,


---Valve is the Game Developer (Uses the money provided by Vivendi to pay it's programmers and artists to actually MAKE the game)

Incorrect valve self financed hl2 development.

 

[unwound]

**** valve seriously, they keep talking about community blah blah blah and they cant even say things to the fans when its important

 

[tkday]

Just be patient people, valve will release a statement when they fully assess the situation. I'd say thay are still trying to work out the damage. I think they're trying to see how much is in the beta and what they have to do to fix all this mess. I'd say the game will be delayed until april 2004, but valve won't give a solid date until they know for sure. Not much sense crying about it and getting abusive.

 

[Stryyder]

Ok Guys, think about this.

Vivendi has a legal responsability as a public company to report the possibility or probability of a major title slipping as it will affect earnings which they report publicly.

In other words if Vivendi asked Valve are you going to make the Q4 2003 and Valve couldn't stake their life on it Vivendi is going to make a delayed statement.

The fact is that everyone at Valve is going to bust their ass to try to get it done but they themselves are probably unsure on if they are going to step on any more landmines. If whoever broke into the system was able to change the code as well as steal it we will have some real problems.

If they don't hit any snags we will probably have it before the holidays, if they hit any issues or find any more security concerns I will see you next year.

 

[spoon_T_Rex]

Originally posted by smwScott
I don't think I've ever seen a crappier developer/publisher relationship. How ****ing hard is it to pick up a phone and call Valve before you shoot your mouth off.

How do you know they haven't? For all we know is Valve is called, they tell Vivendi and then Vivendi releases the press release. Then Valve denies it to give people some hope in them and to, as it's been said, get pissed off and download the beta. Think about it, it's completly possible.