All you naysayers...we're not dead yet!

Any more question Go to:

For Valve Software:
Doug Lombardi, Director of Marketing,
Valve Software
Phone: (425) 889-9642


For Half-Life 2 product inquiries please contact:
Amy Farris, Vivendi Universal Games
Phone: (310) 431-4371
[email protected]

These are office numbers and meant for our use. No home numbers.
 
Yes i agree with Spiffae.

I think it will be like HL1, one of the most popular games out there, i cannot believe that anyone that has HL1 and a internet connection could not know about HL2.

The only big difference i would see with the HL2 sales would be that they would be more instant than HL1.
So they might instead sell like 500k copies the first month. Unlikely HL1 which sold less, but grew and grew as the community rose.
 
Ok I just left a message for Doug....that means I have left phone messages today for Gabe, Doug, and a PR person at Vivendi Games. I gave them all my e-mail and phone number...I will let you all know if anything surfaces.
 
Originally posted by Spiffae
You say no records, no blips?

That's your prediction. I predict a sellout. I predict editor's choice awards, high marks, and a wave of mods so intense and so polished that the community doesn't know what to do with itself. I predict articles in The New York times Circuits section, Rolling Stone, and TIME.
Click to expand...

Don't take what I said too far. HL2 very well might sell out. I don't doubt editor's choices up the wazoo, along with high marks and tons of mods. I mean, kudos to quakeworld and all, but HL kinda defined what it means to be a successful modding platform.

What I don't think will happen is something like Myst or The Sims. This is because FPS simply aren't accessible to the mass market. To gamers, certainly. But The Sims is the best sellign game of all time because grannies and little girls play it.

As for articles in major publications, I'm unsure. You see Counter-strike pop up from time to time, inaccurately described, though HL itself is rarely mentioned in such articles. I think its more likely that HL2 and DOOM3 will make headlines because the games=violence loonies will point out how photo-realistic they are and are training us to kill yadda yadda yadda.
 
Ok, I got a reply from PHL. I think Amy Farris is giving us the run around. Here's what we know:

- The sites that have talked to 'their sources' at Vivendi are adamant that HL2 is delayed, and that they can't reveal their sources.

- Amy Farris is telling people "Valve is still working towards Sept 30". This is kind of a copout statement, it doesn't tell us anything about what Vivendi has decided.

It appears to me that VUGames is intentionally leaking the story that HL2 is delayed as though it were 'secret', but refusing to confirm it officially or even in an e-mail. Even if the leaks are not intentional, it's interesting that they will not officially confirm it yet. Maybe they're waiting for Valve to agree before issuing a press release, or maybe they're trying to wield their power over the release date to negotiate changes to the product or contract. Publishers are always big on adding extra levels of useless copy protection to games. They also loathe the idea of content distribution networks like Steam.

Anyway, speculation aside, I think we can assume that important people at Vivendi want HL2 to be delayed. Whether Valve agrees to this or not remains to be seen.
 
Originally posted by Typhon
Don't take what I said too far. HL2 very well might sell out. I don't doubt editor's choices up the wazoo, along with high marks and tons of mods. I mean, kudos to quakeworld and all, but HL kinda defined what it means to be a successful modding platform.

What I don't think will happen is something like Myst or The Sims. This is because FPS simply aren't accessible to the mass market. To gamers, certainly. But The Sims is the best sellign game of all time because grannies and little girls play it.

As for articles in major publications, I'm unsure. You see Counter-strike pop up from time to time, inaccurately described, though HL itself is rarely mentioned in such articles. I think its more likely that HL2 and DOOM3 will make headlines because the games=violence loonies will point out how photo-realistic they are and are training us to kill yadda yadda yadda.
Click to expand...

I agree, the only way HL2 is going to break out into the mainstream, is if its released on its original date(Sept. 30) word gets out that its fantastic, awesomous, and other big superlatives. So that word gets out and alot of Christmas shoppers decide to pick up a copy for someone they know.
 
Originally posted by Typhon
I think its more likely that HL2 and DOOM3 will make headlines because the games=violence loonies will point out how photo-realistic they are and are training us to kill yadda yadda yadda.
Click to expand...
Interesting point and actually one that may - sadly - be quite prophetic.

Jesus, I hate the Daily Mail.
 
E-mail from Kevin Bowen aka Fragmaster at PHL:

Chris_D: http://steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=9996

http://hl2.burstfire.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3288

Both links contradict what you posted yesterday on PHL... Thought I'd let
you know - it seems to me like Vivendi wanted to postpone it and Valve
didn't. Are you able to quote exactly what the VU rep said to you

Fragmaster: The game is delayed and we've already followed-up on this particular email.

I wish Valve would tell us what's going on - They're awfully quiet :(
 
Originally posted by El_Chi
Interesting point and actually one that may - sadly - be quite prophetic.

Jesus, I hate the Daily Mail.
Click to expand...

feh. old argument. people complain, but the fact of the matter is that the games industry is making more than the movie industry is every year. they can do whatever they hell they want, as long as it makes money.
 
Personally I think there might be some sort of feud between Vivendi and Valve at the moment. Like someone just mentioned - publishers must hate the concept of content delivery platforms such as Steam and I bet Vivendi hate it. And you may notice that they don't seem to have any affiliation at present with Steam. They don't even host any content. In many ways, unless Vivendi buy into Steam, in which case personally I hope Valve tell them where to **** themselves, then Vivendi are going to lose quite a bit of money becuse of Steam.
Also it's not just the fact that people will cut out the middleman and digitally pay for the game. Also on a smaller scale Vivendi are going to lose out because Steam will cut out the need for people to download patches via the average website. And I don't know about you, but when I've got a game and I want to patch it to the latest version, I'd go to the publishers website. And if I go to the publishers website I see their banner ads, I'd see their upcoming games, I may think about buying their upcoming games. If Valve completely phase out the ability to download patches from websites then no-one that owns Half-Life 2 will need to go to their website. And that's a lot of hits they lose.

I also bet that Vivendi aren't too please about Valve signing Activison for DOD and other upcoming titles apart from CS:CZ and HL2. And also - it makes me wonder why Valve did that in the first place. I reckon there's stormy water between Valve and Vivendi at the moment.
 
Ritual Entertaiment's publisher is Activision

What you say are generally the truth. There seems to be no affiliation by steam and vivendi whatsoever.

They've already said they would give us the whole half-life, mods, expansions. As long as you own at least one of the titles. Which again is a huge blow in VU's pocket. Even though the game is 5 years old.

Right now its not pretty selfexplainable to see whats what.
Boomtown can as well not "reveal" their sources from the 7th july, so i'm starting to think that Vivendi is trying to murder Valve financially and then be the big savior and give them some help.
Or they can go to hell since they got the Half-Life franchise, so Vivendi can just get another one to work on it.


I havent seen any Valve Software shares, but if there are any they've certainly dropped.
 
I hope they release on steam.:cheers:

Chances of that...not to likely I think.

But still it'd be great, the game would be out for months before the box hits the store:cheese:
 
Who the heck is Vivendi anyway (rhetorical question)? Whatever happened to good ole Sierra and Valve?
 
Jack, they are releasing it over Steam but it will tie in with the date that HL2 hits the shops.

Vivendi is publishing Ritual Entertainment's Counter-Strike: CZ.


And as far as I know there is no outside funding whatsoever for Valve. So doesn't that mean there's no shares? I'm no good with all that kind of thing so I may be talking out of my arse...
What I've read Gabe say before is the only funding Valve have had is from the original HL1 series sales and from internal sources ie. all investments have come from Valve employees. I don't know, does that make sense?
 
d8cam - Valve still exists and remains unchanged apart from extra staff taken on for HL2.

Sierra is now a division of Vivendi Universal Games which is a division of Vivendi Universal.
 
Originally posted by Chris_D
Jack, they are releasing it over Steam but it will tie in with the date that HL2 hits the shops.
Click to expand...

Ok let me clarify.

I hope they release it on steam on the september date even though the box release might(Key word, might) be delayed till fall.
 
Vivendi Universal is the owner of Sierra, and holds the rights to Half-Life.

Anyways Half-Life 2 has been delayed.

The reason Gabe didn't know about this is most likely because it was a marketing decision.
The most likely reason behind this delay is the fact that CZ is scheduled to come out 9/15/03. Its release was going to be overshadowed by HL2 15 days later, so VU is pushing that back.

Valve shouldn't mind this, this is now a nice extra add on to polishing time of HL2.

And this way CZ has a chance to sell, and since HL2 has been delayed, fans will flock to buy it, as a filler to fill in the time to HL2.

It is delayed. Now you can sit in denial until September 30th and find out the hard way and be disappointed.
 
Thats why i hope that Valve do tell VU to go **** them selves and releases it on Steam.
 
Chris,

By definition, any kind of corporation has to have shares. What Gabe means is that little or none of the company's shares have been sold to outside investors. The employees and founders have supplied all the captial apparently. So Valve is semi-autonomous in that it doesn't have any external investors controlling the company's decisions. However, they are still bound by whatever contracts they've signed with Sierra/Vivendi. Hopefully they're not too restrictive.

EDIT: Hopefully their contract doesn't specify that they can't publish via Steam until HL2 is in stores. I'd be really surprised if that wasn't in there. Even if Valve released HL2 via Steam when it went gold, a week and a half before it was in stores, that would be a MAJOR revenue hit for Vivendi.
 
Jackl: At the moment the plan is to release it over Steam on the same day as it comes out in the shops. We're just unsure at the moment when it will be.

BlumenKohl - you're sitting there speaking like you're telling us a load of facts. The truth is you know no different from us. The facts are Valve have not commented on the delay and have said numerous times before it will be released on 30th September. Vivendi employees have been leaking to numerous websites that there is a delay. Vivendi PR people have announced today that the date is still 30th September. There is one e-mail, it's authenticity unknown, from Gabe stating that he knows nothing about it.

They're the facts.

Other facts relating to your post include the fact that Gabe said that he will not let CZ delay HL2, and if that were to happen he'd delay CZ until HL2 was out the door and have it ported over to the Source engine.

But then again what you said is a very realistic possibility. Gabe may not want to delay the game, Vivendi might - in which case he's f**ked because he obviously can't pull out and let Activison publish it - he'd have to go with what Vivendi say.


But also on the other hand we're over looking something. That e-mail from Gabe I mentioned above could be fake, and Valve aren't at all commenting because they won't be ready to release the game in September because it's not finished.
 
Originally posted by d8cam
Guys check out this hilarious post from a different forum:

"I don't get it, valve comes up with real-life physics in a game and meets it's deadline. Vivendi has to make a fricking box and they can't even get that done on time. It's not like this box is going to come to life and guide us through the game as your sidekick..."


lol
Click to expand...

Rofl thats awsome.
 
Chris_D it has never been said that Steam release date would follow nomatter what date.

I would more consider it as, if its out the 30th september then it will be released at the same time as steam.
 
Originally posted by FISKER_Q
Thats why i hope that Valve do tell VU to go **** them selves and releases it on Steam.
Click to expand...

I'm sure that that would be very illegal. I would be extremely surprised if there weren't numerous clauses in the Valve/Vivendi contracts strictly forbidding this from happening. The two formats will have to be released concurrently in order for either company to have a part in the deal.

I would also imagine that Vivendi gets a decent share of all sales, not just retail box sales. The real question is who controls the release date...I would imagine that that issue is very clearly written in the contract as well. Does anyone happen to know the answer to that? I may have missed it in all these posts...

Also, if Vivendi owns the rights to Half-Life (as has been stated in this thread), Valve needs to be careful not to piss off Vivendi or else they wouldn't be able to work on any more Half-Life titles (although I would imagine that Valve is tied to the series pretty closely and has a pretty big say in who can do development work on it)...

I hope that made at least a little bit of sense...it did in my head at least!

Ain't the law great?!?!?!
 
Originally posted by trantjd
I'm sure that that would be very illegal. I would be extremely surprised if there weren't numerous clauses in the Valve/Vivendi contracts strictly forbidding this from happening. The two formats will have to be released concurrently in order for either company to have a part in the deal.



Also, if Vivendi owns the rights to Half-Life (as has been stated in this thread), Valve needs to be careful not to piss off Vivendi or else they wouldn't be able to work on any more Half-Life titles
Click to expand...

Does Vivendi own the license to HL?:O

As for the Steam thing, we can always hope.:cheers:
 
Fisker_Q: I might be tired, I couldn't quiet understand what you were getting at in your last post.

It has been said that Half-Life 2 will be released over Steam on exactly the same date it's in the shops.
 
Originally posted by Jackl
Does Vivendi own the license to HL?:O

As for the Steam thing, we can always hope.:cheers:
Click to expand...

Not sure...I would be surprised if Valve had given that up way back in the day, but you never know.

Someone was speaking before as if the rights were Vivendi's so that's how I worded my response...but I sure hope it's not true! And I doubt that it is.
 
Jackl: We don't know for certain but Vivendi/Sierra has the rights to publish the whole Half-Life series. The reason we think this is that if they didn't then surely Activision would publish it.
 
If HL2 is released over steam more than a week before retail, it will kill the internet. You think downloading 100 mb of HL/CS patches is bad? HL2 will be gigabytes.

Actually, it will kill steam before the internet...
 
Originally posted by Chris_D
Jackl: We don't know for certain but Vivendi/Sierra has the rights to publish the whole Half-Life series. The reason we think this is that if they didn't then surely Activision would publish it.
Click to expand...

I missed that...why would Activision publish it? Is there an agreement between Valve and Activision for other titles?

Sorry for the ignorance here... :dork:
 
On Steam they'll probably start pre-loading it like they're doing with the HL2 movies to lighten the load a little so Steam doesn't die straight away like when they opened up the Steam 2.0 beta for the first time....
 
Originally posted by Chris_D
Fisker_Q: I might be tired, I couldn't quiet understand what you were getting at in your last post.

It has been said that Half-Life 2 will be released over Steam on exactly the same date it's in the shops.
Click to expand...

I've not read that. I've only heard that it will be out the 30th september, which is/was/were(whatever) also the boxed release date.

So i think what he meant was that it would be out on steam the 30th september.

And if Vivendi gets off their asses then they can release it at the same time.

I do remember he said that it would be out the 30th september nomatter what would be up with the international releasedates.

If he surely has said like "Half-Life 2 will be on steam when the boxed version is out, regardless of releasedate" then please fill me in.
 
Originally posted by Demonmerc
If HL2 is released over steam more than a week before retail, it will kill the internet. You think downloading 100 mb of HL/CS patches is bad? HL2 will be gigabytes.

Actually, it will kill steam before the internet...
Click to expand...

Trust me, after the planetside beta thing, and my 3mbit cable, I have more then enough exprience and patience to DL HL2.
 
If they will use the p2p system anytime soon i dont think it will be the big problem.
 
Ah ha! Reading over trantjd's excellent post, I had a thought: Because of the simultaneous release via Steam and retail, Vivendi is incentivized to have as many boxes as possible lined up in stores on the release date, because everyone who finds an empty shelf at the store is going to go straight home and buy it over Steam. Since Steam purchases would provide smaller reveunes to Vivendi than retail purchases, Vivendi needs to fabricate as many boxes for retail as possible before release to keep Steam from stealing sales.

So here's the scenario:
Valve: 'According to our latest estimates, we'll have a gold build around Sept 23. That should give you just enough time for you to get some boxes into stores before--'
Vivendi: "TO HELL WITH THAT! We're going to manufacture for 4 weeks before release, we're not letting Steam steal half our sales! HL2 is postponed."
Valve: "Uh, but we told everyone Sept. 30, and we still think it will be ready by then."

So this is how we get Vivendi PR people 'leaking' their postponement wishes to the media along with e-mails saying 'Valve is still working toward Sept 30th', and Valve pretending like they don't know what's going on.

Just a thought, take it with a grain of salt. You have to admit though, Vivendi is going to want to keep stores stocked so people don't go home and buy it off Steam. There's a lot of motivation for them to make the time between 'gold' and release longer than usual.
 
Gold dates are normally 2 weeks before release.

And still i dont think Gabe would mind making it gold a week or 2 before. As of september the only thing missing in Half-Life 2 was the rest of singleplayer campaign, the sdk and some placeholder arts that needed to be replaced.

So they've gotten rougly a year to make singleplayer campaign done. I think now they're done with the game, and only bugfixes and artfixes await.

Else i would not've thought they would release the movies, or work on the SDK for that matter.
 
Originally posted by dscowboy
Ah ha! Reading over trantjd's excellent post, I had a thought: Because of the simultaneous release via Steam and retail, Vivendi is incentivized to have as many boxes as possible lined up in stores on the release date, because everyone who finds an empty shelf at the store is going to go straight home and buy it over Steam. Since Steam purchases would provide smaller reveunes to Vivendi than retail purchases, Vivendi needs to fabricate as many boxes for retail as possible before release to keep Steam from stealing sales.
Click to expand...

You've got some great points there! The best one of course being your first sentence :cheers:

Aside from that though, the idea of Vivendi and Valve actually competing for sales is an interesting one. I like your scenario! I could actually see that being the case. Hehe, I can also picture Valve finishing the game on like August 15 and then just sitting on it up until the last possible moment to allow Vivendi to get a few boxes on store shelves!

Can't you just picture the Valve staff sitting there with a gold copy of HL2 giggling maniacally for a month! Heck, they could even start working on HL3 in the meantime!

Heck, I'd rather see Valve get more money than Vivendi anyways (especially if Vivendi is really trying to pull stunts like this!). I'd really like to have a HL2 box, but I'm tempted to use Steam just to support the developer over the publisher... Long live the Napster mentality!

Very interesting...you raise some cool points dscowboy!
 
Originally posted by trantjd
Can't you just picture the Valve staff sitting there with a gold copy of HL2 giggling maniacally for a month! Heck, they could even start working on HL3 in the meantime!
Click to expand...
No. Are you serious?

Originally posted by trantjd
Heck, I'd rather see Valve get more money than Vivendi anyways
Click to expand...
I'm with you on this one... Valve didn't rely on any publisher to fund this game, they don't need a publisher to promote this game. Practically the only purpose I see Vivendi serving in terms of HL2 is the manafacturing of the copies and boxes, plus its distribution.
Which is of course highly important, but not quite as important as publishers' roles are usually. All credit to Valve and therefore more money to them as well.
 
Clearly SOMEBODY is spreading misinformation, and frankly I don't think it's Spiffae and Amy at VU. Dunno whats gotten into Fragmaster though.

This is the weirdest thing I ever saw ..
 
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