Valve and VU Settle

[DragonDude]

Remember that lawsuit we all heard about around the release date of HL2, and some people thought it'd be an even further delay?

Valve and Vivendi Universal Games Settle Lawsuit

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.

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.

Take cover, the reign of Steam is nigh.

 

[itr]

They will have a publisher when the contract with VUG is over, don't worry.

 

[SaiyanPrideXIX]

That's ridiculous. Steam is quite possibly the worst piece of technology ever to exist on the internet, and the second worst piece of technology to exist in video games (Enter the Matrix being the first). I wish they'd just do away with it already.

 

[Ravendust]

Thank god it's finally over. To be honest I didn't think Vivendi would have much of a chance of winning really.

And I must be the only person who hasn't had any problems with Steam, I think automatic updates, patches and news, plus having all the games at your fingertips from one customisable hub that updates itself and links you to pertinent hardware patches is a great idea , and so far for me it's worked

 

[Brim]

Oh pride enter the matrix wasnt that bad

 

[TehMuffinMan]

indeed, try matrix online to change your ideas on the crappiest game system

 

[itr]

Thank god it's finally over. To be honest I didn't think Vivendi would have much of a chance of winning really.

Yep rumor has it too, the reason they didn't show off TF2 to the public is because they didn't want VU to publish it, so we may hear some info about it soon. :]

 

[sub]

Yep rumor has it too, the reason they didn't show off TF2 to the public is because they didn't want VU to publish it, so we may hear some info about it soon. :]

dont get my hopes up

 

[DragonDude]

Yep rumor has it too, the reason they didn't show off TF2 to the public is because they didn't want VU to publish it, so we may hear some info about it soon. :]

I hope that's the case, TF2 is the only Source engine game I've really wanted to play. *TFC nostalgia*

Some people have some problems with Steam, some don't. I've had my share, enough to lower my respect for it, but not enough to truly hate it. (I've long lost hope of ever seeing a useful "Friends Network" again...)

Steam is great in theory, but so is communism.

 

[Eon]

This is almost as exciting as 50 cent and the Game making amends. >_>

 

[tmisgod]

Ill agree i was with the steam haters at the beginning because of huge problems and bugs with the program but its gotten ALOT better and now is a fantastic piece of software the only problem will be when i cant afford inet and wont be able to play some games.

 

[Devion]

Ill agree i was with the steam haters at the beginning because of huge problems and bugs with the program but its gotten ALOT better and now is a fantastic piece of software the only problem will be when i cant afford inet and wont be able to play some games.

I agree, Steam was a pile of dogpoo when it first was released, but since like 6 months I havent had 1 problem with steam.

I hope they get Activision or EA publisher, atleast they make some commericials for the games they publish.

 

[DiebytheSword]

I hope they get Activision or EA publisher, atleast they make some commericials for the games they publish.

I hope they continue to self publish, so the money goes back to the people who make the game and not the greedy suits who push them out with bugs all over the code. I hope other publishers follow suit.

 

[SaiyanPrideXIX]

Ehh...Steam works but it's far from being a pillar of usefulness. I log on to play CS Source and it takes ten minutes to load the stupid "Latest NewS" thing. I don't want the latest news, I want to play the ****ing game, and I HATEHATEHATEHATE('Kefka' hate) when they put commercials into games.

Barring that, I believe that a lot of the problematic things that happened to people regarding the Source engine are Steam specific.

There's always going to be bugs, though. On the upside its not like Valve will actually be making another game for like 5-10 years, so maybe they can focus on making Steam...non-intrusive. Of course that isn't their goal at all--they want it to do everything BUT be non-intrusive. I guess that's why I hate it so much. If it worked like say...Norton AntiVirus...where it's there but it's not doing anything particular unless you want it to (or in Norton's case, if it's an emergency), I'd like it a lot better.

Either way I still hate Steam. It's intrusive and dirty and not at all a good piece of software (sorry, any program that took 20+ patches to start remembering my controls, or that can be completely broken if you run it with your numlock key on, or isn't smart enough to recognize your number pad keys as separate from your numbers--all of which has only been recently fixed--doesn't really strike me as new age tech-savvy. That, and the fact that it takes 10 minutes to connect to a game of CS because of the Message of the Day choking Steam to a grinding halt.)

I dunno. I feel sometimes like Steam is really just a tool being used by the Bush administration to train us all for the draft. Heh.

 

[Sonic the Vampire]

Steam loads fast for me, it does its job of finding me servers fast, connects me fast, and updates at my finger tips. I'm happy for them.

 

[itr]

Ehh...Steam works but it's far from being a pillar of usefulness. I log on to play CS Source and it takes ten minutes to load the stupid "Latest NewS" thing. I don't want the latest news, I want to play the ****ing game, and I HATEHATEHATEHATE('Kefka' hate) when they put commercials into games.

Have you even thought of going into "settings" ????? Because theres an option to disable it in there....

http://img112.echo.cx/img112/4785/look4vw.jpg

 

[Adaptus]

I tried Steam when HL2 was just released, thought it sucked donkey balls and waited.

About two/three weeks ago, I installed it again, and I found it to have become a very useful piece of software.

The only gripe I have with it is that I think the interface is really ugly.

 

[L]

Yeah, I dont like steam, All this effort to prevent piracy, and their games are still being stolen.
=\ Btw, Requiring to run Steam in the backround Is a horrible Idea.. Just steals resources from what ever game you want to play D:

 

[itr]

Yeah, I dont like steam, All this effort to prevent piracy, and their games are still being stolen.

Not really, if you compare their games getting stolen to any other company, VALVe has the least. Just go to steampowered.com forums and you will notice about 5-10 threads daily "account disabled" usually from attempted credit card fraud, etc.

 

[DiebytheSword]

On the upside its not like Valve will actually be making another game for like 5-10 years, so maybe they can focus on making Steam...non-intrusive. Of course that isn't their goal at all--they want it to do everything BUT be non-intrusive. I guess that's why I hate it so much. If it worked like say...Norton AntiVirus...where it's there but it's not doing anything particular unless you want it to (or in Norton's case, if it's an emergency), I'd like it a lot better.

How can you complain about intrusiveness and like Norton? CTRL+ALT+DEL and check task manager, the last time I checked Norton punishes your system when it's idle and really invades the works as far as Windows is concerned.