Half-life2 held hostage by Vivendi?

According to Doug Lombardi, Valve completely self-financed HL2. I'll dig up the quote in a moment.

Edit: Here you go.

GameSpy: To what level has Vivendi contributed to the development of Half-Life 2? Have they funded any of the game's development, or has it all been self-funded outside of the publisher?

Doug Lombardi: Valve has provided all the funding for Half-Life 2's development.

 

That's nuts, how the hell do they recoup the expenses of devs cost and make a profit ?

HL2 will probably sell 800,000 -> 1,000,000 copies the first year thaats still not that much money

That's what 50 million in profits which has to be split between a number of parties.

I would love to see what their expense budget looks like.

 

I'd wager that $40mil also covers the Source engine, the Steam framework, and whatever else they're working on at the moment (Team Fortress 2?), so it's an ongoing investment.

 

Don't forget the vampire game based off the source engine has been liscensed and is almost ready to launch , and they just liscensed it out to a mmorpg company plus other companys that are going to liscense it . Then they will make money off mods (the textures and engines are already there) team fortress and other things

 

Oh, I haven't forgotten Vampires. If HL2 is delayed, Vampires can't be released.

 

man i feel bad for that company . If i were them i'd sue vivendi

 

Yeah, Troika's been getting the 'bend over and receive the dry run' from publishers lately.

 

as much as i dont like Steam, i will use it for HL2, just so my money doesnt go to these "publishers" but to the people who acctually made the game.

i really think if Steam becomes success others will follow with their own Steam-like systems, or maybe Valve is even thinking to licence Steam?
that would explain $40M they invested.

if every developer has his own delivery system then "publishers" will have hard time competeing in the market and it might turn good for consumers....us, gamers.


go Valve.

 

If all the publishers go down, who's there to fund the new guys with ideas and no money.

 

Glad to see I'm not the only one who had that thought.

Not to mention distributing it it to the stores and creating publicity for it when it's done...
If you're going to distribute it on the net, how will you (initially) pay for the bandwidth? That is, if word of mouth actually generates any sales...


So I'll be buying the boxed version.

 

Developers who actually understand how to make good games... oh the horror.

 

It will go back to the days of smaller developers semi-self publishing - just like in the days when Doom and DN3D were launched. Possibly by using Steam like services. It will work out better than big publishers producing more generic rip-off while stealing IP from the people who make it.

If you think about it, who is making the top flight games nowadays? It's the developers so big they are in control of their own IP. The Epics, IDs, Valves, etc. As soon as big publishers dictate where thing are going, we get buggy RTS and FPS cash-in clones. You only have to look at what happens when the big publishers like VU, EA, etc start owning developers and IP to see that publishers are more of a hinderence to the industry, not a help.

Just like the music and movie industry that the publishers have modelled themselves on, technology is erroding the position of the big middleman who control everything - and that's a good thing in the long run. Publishers should be working for developers, not the other way around.

 

There are already smaller self-financed developers such as Lionhead having a stable of smaller developers that are helped to publish and develop. Incidentally, Lionhead was started after EA bought and subsequently destroyed Bullfrog, one of the oldest, most original and creative developers ever.

 

And Peter Moleynoux (whatever) said in an interview that it was tough getting appropriate funding without a publisher and that he wanted the government to subsidise video game development (yup, that's what he said).

 

That's because publishers treat developers the same way that music publishers treat bands. Publishers pay up front, but then they own all your work. Publishers sign you up to legal slavery in some cases. Looking at their track record, publishers make a lot more duds than they do good games, so publishers don't have any high ground when it comes to being able to build good games.

If developers were treated like companies that needed funding, they could get the money to produce products from investment or bank loans (as do most companies), and not get screwed in the publisher system where you have to sell your soul.

 

Arts grants are handed out left right and centre over here for all sorts of things, ranging from the expected (short films, independant theatre, etc) to the downright bizarre (Some local moron got a grant to make jewellery and hide it in public rubbish bins. Hide it in bins. I'm 100% serious.), so I don't see why small-time games development couldn't fit in there.