Vivendi & Valve Settle Lawsuit

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We just received a press release from Valve, announcing that they have settled their differences with Vivendi Universal Games and are dimissing all claims and counterclaims in the lawsuit which originally started when VUGames put Valve products in internet cafes. Valve said this amounted to copyright infringement. Vivendi later counter-sued, saying it was mislead about Valve's online distribution plans, and claimed ownership of the Half-Life IP. Here's what will happen now

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 cafes and grant cyber cafe licenses. Cyber cafe 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 cafes, whether written or oral, is terminated.
Does this mean no more retail distribution for Valve games? No, Valve tells us they are working on post-August 31 deals but details are still being worked out. Expect to hear more about that before too long.

From The Chatty
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    April 29, 2005 8:46 AM

    Wow no more boxed copies of HL2 by Aug. 31, wonder if that will hurt sales, or if it even really will matter anymore by then

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      April 29, 2005 8:49 AM

      it just states that VU can't distribute them. Valve can distribute the game to the stores but with someone like VU that is now pissed off they may "influence" the stores to not sell the boxed copies of HL2.

      I wonder what VU got out of this though.

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        April 29, 2005 9:50 AM

        Well, they could try.

        Not much chance of getting a store to not carry HL2, though.

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          April 29, 2005 10:10 AM

          Why?

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            April 29, 2005 11:00 AM

            It's like a theatre refusing to show Star Wars; there's the potential for too much money to be made with a Valve or Id release - no store would choose to miss out on that.

            Also, it'd be illegal, anticompetitive.

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              April 29, 2005 12:27 PM

              But it does happen - Sony pressured GameStop (successfully) into not carrying Bleem for Dreamcast.

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                April 29, 2005 3:41 PM

                totally different dude, dreamcast user base was a f*ng joke compared to sony's.
                sony had more muscle than the company who made bleem, plus not everyone went and rushed to get their copy of bleemcast.
                HL2 has alot more demand

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      April 29, 2005 8:49 AM

      [deleted]

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        April 29, 2005 3:09 PM

        My bet is Activision, whom I believe distributed a different Valve release... I think it was one of the HL bundles?

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          April 29, 2005 4:08 PM

          either them or Microsoft. Valve is literally down the street from them.

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          April 29, 2005 5:35 PM

          Day of Deafeat atleast.

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      April 29, 2005 8:50 AM

      If I knew the retail version just had a cheap ass card for a manual I probably would've just downloaded it instead.

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        April 29, 2005 9:31 AM

        I bought one copy each way to be impartial.

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        April 29, 2005 9:51 AM

        got mine for 35 boxed, cheapest way ftw.

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          April 29, 2005 7:01 PM

          Ironically, buying silver on Steam cost me less then buying standard retail here in Aus.

          It's one of the reasons that I'm for Steam, I imagine a lot of people will find that even paying retail US prices will be cheaper then paying local retail prices.

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      April 29, 2005 5:26 PM

      Here's a crazy theory. Valve sold more than enough just via Steam to fully support themselves and have decided to, henceforth, only distribute their games (and maybe in the future other dev's titles too) via Steam. Stranger things have happened.

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