Valve and Vivendi Legal Battle Over Online Distribution May Delay Half-Life 2 (News)

Funky Zealot, GamePro

01/10/2004 12:25:12

As a legal feud between Half-Life 2 developer Valve and publisher Vivendi Universal Games continues over Valve's Steam online distribution service, terms of the contract revealed that the publisher could delay the game by as much as six months.

The legal battle originates to a case back in August of 2002, where Valve accused VU Games of a breach in contract for (now defunct) Sierra On-Line distributing Half-Life to internet cafes. Alleging further that royalties were not paid for with Counter Strike: Condition Zero, VU Games fired back with its own lawsuits, saying that Valve founder Gabe Newell and marketing director Doug Lombardi mislead the publisher by bypassing VU Games' retail plans with the Steam online delivery service. VU Games demands to have the intellectual property rights to the Half-Life franchise, which it handed over to Valve in negotiations in 2001.

Under the terms of the contract, VU Games can push back the game by up to six months after the acceptance of the gold (final retail) version of the game - meaning that at worst, the game could be delayed to 2005.

However, such a move would hurt the already financially struggling publisher, which posted a loss of 111 million euros (AU$190 million) last quarter, and would benefit from the release of the high profile game during the lucrative holiday season to bolster its so-far disappointing fiscal year numbers. On the flip side, the publisher may also come to the conclusion though that the game is high profile enough to guarantee sales away from the holiday season, and leverage that against Valve - a more risky conclusion to make given that the game is already infamous for delays.