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Half-Life 2 can be delayed by Vivendi Universal for up to six months according to court filings. Could this be French retaliation?
Court documents from the U.S. District Court dated August 27, 2004, paint a bleak picture. Vivendi Universal Deputy General Counsel Eric Roeder stated, "Valve has announced that it will deliver a release candidate version of Half-Life 2 (HL2) (a game required under the 2001 SPA) to Sierra/VUG within the next few weeks. If Valve delivers a release candidate version that complies with the contract and is a Final Milestone, then VUG will have six months to release the product under the 2001 SPA. Valve is pressing VUG to release the product early within that six month window, and its representatives have made a number of public statements without our consent or concurrence that the product will be published and released to the general public in September of this year." Both Gabe Newell and Doug Lombardi of Valve Software appeared on GameSHOUT Radio, and have only stated that for their part, they "will have Half-Life 2 finished around the end of the summer of 2004", and at no time did they state any estimate of just when the game would hit store shelves.
As reported to you here and on GameSHOUT Radio, Vivendi and Valve are currently embroiled in a legal battle in U.S. District Court. Valve filed suit initially against Vivendi claiming that they were outside of the bounds of their software publishing agreement by publishing Valve games in gaming cafes throughout Europe. Valve further alleges that Vivendi withheld royalties from those gaming cafe sales. Vivendi in turn filed a counter suit alleging Valve was misleading about their intentions to market and sell Valve games, including Half-Life 2 by way of Steam. This would effectively cut Vivendi out of a piece of those sales according to Vivendi's claims. Now it appears that Vivendi Universal may be holding off on the release of Half-Life 2 in an effort to force Valve to back down from their suit. Some industry insiders believe that it may be much like a game of "chicken". "Vivendi could hold HL2 hostage for 6 months (or threaten to) if they want to force Valve to give in to demands. But Valve knows VUG needs the revenue." This will be doubly important to both companies as the industries greatest sales occur during the holiday season, and neither wishes to miss out on those revenues.
To answer the question you all are asking right now..."Can Valve release Half-Life 2 via Steam before the game is officially released by Vivendi Universal?" According to Valve's Director of Marketing Doug Lomdardi, "Half-Life 2 will be made available to customers who purchase via Steam at the same time it is made available at retail." When pressed further for an estimated release date, Lombardi responded, "We delivered the first release candidate last week, and hope to deliver the final version very soon." We can only be sure of one thing...when there are this many lawyers involved, you can surely expect the wheels to move very slowly.
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