Vevendi blocking early release of HL2!

[Furious_T]

Here is a recorded phone call that someone posted in the Steampowered forums concerning Vevendi blocking Valve from an early release of HL2 to steam purchases.(((CONTAINS EXPLICT LANGUAGE!!)))) Very funny and heartfelt by many of us!!! http://www.users.qwest.net/~amerrill/hl2msg.wav

Here is the offical news quote from valve:

Half-Life 2 For Sale?
November 13, 2004, 4:57 pm · valve

If you have purchased a copy of Half-Life 2, we are sorry you are still waiting to play. This is not Valve's choice. Vivendi is insisting that the game has not yet been released, and has threatened that Valve would be in violation of its contract if we activate the Half-Life 2 Steam.

Pretty sad that you can "Offically buy" the game at some reatilers but cannot play!!

[Raest]

LOL nice phone message

Kinda sucks that retailers in the US and certain parts of the world (believe Europe its turned up in) are taking people's money for a game you cant even play for 2 days.

Just push that red button Gabe and to hell with Vivendi.

To further illustrate the point that Vivendi are a pack of arseholes - this is what a moderator had to say on the Vivendi forum before the thread was deleted.

http://img115.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img1...ge=picture.gif

How retarded is this moderator....

http://community.vugames.com/WebX?14...10@.1dd857d8/2

If I were Vivendi, I'd be asking Valve to turn on the authentication. Heres why...

1) Joe Bloggs rocks up at a store , sees HL2 for sale and grabs it.
2) Gets home, installs and find he cant play it
3) Takes it back for a return.

Multiply this by hundreds of customers.

Vivendi and the retailers are gonna lose alot more money then Valve will over this - just look at the angry gamers on the Steam boards etc alot of who have cancelled their store orders and have ordered thru Steam. Lets face it, if you were gonna get the game thru Steam you would've preloaded a long time ago so VU isnt going to lose money to them. Holding the date to the 16th is going to drive refunds thru the roof and cause alot of people to turn to Steam.

[Howitzer]

I sure would like the Box. But I'd go steam just to piss off Vivendi. But then again I'm still not happy with valves horseshit. The game was supposed to be released september 2003. Whatever happened to "Don't count your chickens till they're hatched." OMG I'm sorry. Thats the way most game companies are. Hipe a delivery day then push it back. And take your money for pre-orders. I though Valve was going to be different. Holding out for 5 years before anouncing it.

[butterfly]

Glad I didn't preorder Daikatana

[Howitzer]

Originally Posted by butterfly

Glad I didn't preorder Daikatana

ROTF

[Raest]

Originally Posted by Howitzer

Holding out for 5 years before anouncing it.

To me that's the best move any company can do before announcing a "sequel" to a popular PC game, Duke Nukem Forever anyone?. They're biggest mistake was announcing it when it clearly wasnt ready.