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EA to distribute Valve games
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 Re: EA to distribute Valve games
Posted by Rumple on Tue Jul 19th at 4:35am 2005

? quote:Internode Games Network
Sydney, NSW ? July 19, 2005 ? Electronic Arts, the world?s leading interactive entertainment company and Valve?, the award-winning studio behind the blockbuster franchises Half-Life? and Counter-Strike?, today announced that the two companies have entered a multi-year agreement to deliver a collection of Valve games to players worldwide. The first two games to be released under this agreement are Half-Life 2: Game of the Year and Counter-Strike: Source? for PC, both launching this spring. In addition, Half-Life 2 for the Xbox? video game system from Microsoft, currently in development at Valve and targeted for release in October, will be published and distributed worldwide by EA.



?At EA Partners, our mandate is to seek out the world?s top studios and game franchises, build partnerships, empower the development teams and help get these great games to more people in more countries than ever before. We consider Half-Life and Counter-Strike to be two of the best game franchises of all time,? said Tom Frisina, Vice President and General Manager, EA Partners. ?We could not be more excited to have the opportunity to help deliver these outstanding games to players around the globe.?



?EA is the worldwide leader in bringing best of breed games, for all platforms, to market,? said Gabe Newell, Valve?s founder and president. ?Valve games have sold over 18 million units at retail since Half-Life shipped in November 1998. By combining EA?s unparalleled operation structure and distribution channel with Valve?s award-winning development teams and games community, we?ve established an awesome combination for delivering great products to console and PC gamers around the world.?



Half-Life 2: Game of the Year is a special edition release of the best-selling and critically acclaimed title that includes Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike: Source, plus Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, and Half-Life: Source.



Counter-Strike: Source takes the world?s number one online action game to new heights atop the Source engine with brilliant graphics, enhanced versions of the classic CS maps, all-new CS maps, offline skirmish play with AI bots, and more. It also includes Half-Life 2: Deathmatch and Day of Defeat?: Source.



Half Life 2 for the Xbox system defines a new benchmark in console gaming with startling realism and responsiveness. Powered by Source technology, Half-Life 2 for Xbox features the most sophisticated in-game characters ever witnessed, advanced AI, stunning graphics and physical gameplay.



For more information about EA please visit http://www.ea.com and for information about Valve, please visit: http://www.valvesoftware.com


Good thing or bad thing? Thoughts?



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 Re: EA to distribute Valve games
Posted by Madedog on Tue Jul 19th at 8:12am 2005

Don't care actually. They didn't even become publishers as some people thought, but distributors, so that Valve will still decide all the release dates...

I won't complain until games do get to shells of the markets in Estonia.



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 Re: EA to distribute Valve games
Posted by wil5on on Tue Jul 19th at 10:21am 2005

Given EA's reputation, I'd rather they have as little to do with valve as possible. It seems like Gabe's keeping as separate from them as possible, having EA as a distributor gives them the advantage of getting their games to a much wider audience than Vivendi could, and prevents EA from f**king up a good thing by having too much involvement with the franchise. As far as I can see (someone like KFS would have a much better idea of whats going on) it looks like this will mean more sales and profit for Valve, and more chance of HL3.


&quot;If you talk at all during this lesson, you have detention. Do you understand?&quot;
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 Re: EA to distribute Valve games
Posted by French Toast on Tue Jul 19th at 2:38pm 2005

Let's hope EA doesn't release patches that make the game don't work *cough*Battlefield 2*cough* and then release a HOTFIX that doesn't do jack either *cough*battlefield 2*cough*




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 Re: EA to distribute Valve games
Posted by SpiKeRs on Tue Jul 19th at 3:06pm 2005

I know EA have a pretty dodgy reputation but i dont really see why, anyone care to elaborate? Suppose its like the whole Microsoft hating thing?

EA are getting in on this because of Steam imo. Content delivery like Steam is ultimately the future for gaming, and EA are bound to be interested in that.




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 Re: EA to distribute Valve games
Posted by Myrk- on Tue Jul 19th at 3:08pm 2005

EA rule the world <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif">

And French toast, I think your getting greatly confused... EA don't make anything- they merely package and sell it, blame the makers of the game for the crap patches.




-[Better to be Honest than Kind]-



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 Re: EA to distribute Valve games
Posted by ReNo on Tue Jul 19th at 3:18pm 2005

EA generally don't have the most wonderful of standards compared to many other publishers (eg. Ubisoft), yet due to their huge funds they can market the s**t out of their games, get exclusive stalls in shops and so on, and end up selling them to s**t loads of people. Its not uncommon for EA to have 6 or so of the games in the top 10 at any given time. They also have a reputation for buying up things (eg. their recent attempted takeover of Ubisoft), exclusivity deals (eg. the recent one with the NFL, thereby stopping competing companies making "official" american football games), forcing their unskippable logo on at the start of games (normally making the actual developer of the game seem second fiddle to them), and forcing horrendous working standards on some of their internal teams (unpaid overtime galore!).

That said, I'm sure some of it is down to "blind hate" a la Microsoft.




Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net



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 Re: EA to distribute Valve games
Posted by rival on Tue Jul 19th at 6:16pm 2005

i agree with reno about EA (no doubt better sells for valve), but HL2 for the xbox?
NO
it should not be converted over to the cosole, its a pc game meant for pc only i mean look at doom 3. it was a pretty s**tty game on the pc but on the xbox it was even worse. sure some games should be distributed around all platforms but i think hl2 should stay a pc game.


Bullet Control: $5000 for a bullet.
&quot;I would blow your f**king head off! ...if I could afford it. I'm gonna get another job, start saving some money... then you a dead man!&quot;



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 Re: EA to distribute Valve games
Posted by French Toast on Tue Jul 19th at 6:51pm 2005

? quote:
EA rule the world

And French toast, I think your getting greatly confused... EA don't make anything- they merely package and sell it, blame the makers of the game for the crap patches.



I just want to blame someone for not testing a patch and f**king up the game, which I've had to reinstall 3 times now.




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 Re: EA to distribute Valve games
Posted by ReNo on Tue Jul 19th at 7:14pm 2005

Why does it matter rival? You've still got the PC version. Nobody is going to force the xbox version onto you. I think its great that its going to be available for people without a PC - its a great game, and if more people can experience it thanks to the xbox, then why not? I doubt it will even be all that watered down - source was always designed to be a very scaleable engine - I'm sure it will look markedly better on the xbox than it will on dx7 limited PC hardware. Perhaps there will be less detailed models and textures, but the overall "oomph" of the game, with good physics and grand environments, will probably make a pretty successful conversion.




Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net



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 Re: EA to distribute Valve games
Posted by rival on Tue Jul 19th at 7:19pm 2005

i understand what you mean reno and if they keep it exactly the same in terms of story and levels then its fine. i know i probably wont play i just dont like seeing conversions unless they're decent!


Bullet Control: $5000 for a bullet.
&quot;I would blow your f**king head off! ...if I could afford it. I'm gonna get another job, start saving some money... then you a dead man!&quot;



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 Re: EA to distribute Valve games
Posted by ReNo on Tue Jul 19th at 7:32pm 2005

They won't change anything - or at least nothing significant. If anything you might see additions (eg. the "lost coast" chapter, or the something like the "decay" coop mode that came with HL for the ps2), but I doubt anything critical will be missing. It doesn't come with CS:S or, I imagine, HL2:DM however, thereby making it effectively more money, for less product <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/sad.gif">




Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net



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 Re: EA to distribute Valve games
Posted by habboi on Tue Jul 19th at 9:15pm 2005

EA are evil says this picture:

image

Nuff said!





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 Re: EA to distribute Valve games
Posted by wil5on on Wed Jul 20th at 12:46am 2005

I wonder if the xbox version will be able to load custom maps?


&quot;If you talk at all during this lesson, you have detention. Do you understand?&quot;
- My yr11 Economics teacher



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 Re: EA to distribute Valve games
Posted by Windows 98 on Wed Jul 20th at 2:13am 2005

The first Xbox version of CS sucked big time. I own it. It came out around... 3 months before HL2 i believe, they should have waited till they could get source on Xbox. It might have out sold Halo 2 if they did.



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 Re: EA to distribute Valve games
Posted by ReNo on Wed Jul 20th at 2:22am 2005

Outsell Halo 2? Thats bulls**t and you know it :P CS's popularity on the PC isn't really worth anything for the console market, at least not this late in the lifespan of current ones. I doubt any IP that translates from PC to console could outsell something like Halo 2, and I'd be amazed if HL2 makes any sort of hugely significant sales that reach, say, the system's all time top 10.




Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net



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 Re: EA to distribute Valve games
Posted by Windows 98 on Wed Jul 20th at 2:50am 2005

? quote:
Outsell Halo 2? Thats bulls**t and you know it CS's popularity on the PC isn't really worth anything for the console market, at least not this late in the lifespan of current ones. I doubt any IP that translates from PC to console could outsell something like Halo 2, and I'd be amazed if HL2 makes any sort of hugely significant sales that reach, say, the system's all time top 10.


Hmm, i guess we wil just have to wait and see <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_smile.gif">



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 Re: EA to distribute Valve games
Posted by ReNo on Wed Jul 20th at 2:54am 2005

Hehe, very true <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_smile.gif">




Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net



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 Re: EA to distribute Valve games
Posted by DrGlass on Wed Jul 20th at 3:21am 2005

The only beef I have with EA is the rape of artistic and unique games.

They are almost a invterted valve, where valve puts the game above all else. EA has to keep the game above only the bottom line. They may have 6:10 top games, but they are the MTV of the game industry. Same thing over and over again, then every once in a while they get their hands on true unique game that some how keeps its creative freedom and those are the true blue great games, and what push EA further into the spot light (which in turn makes people hate them for nothing more that being bigger than everything)




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 Re: EA to distribute Valve games
Posted by KungFuSquirrel on Wed Jul 20th at 3:59am 2005

? quote:
i mean look at doom 3. it was a pretty s**tty game on the pc but on the xbox it was even worse.


Says one person. :P D3 on the Xbox has sold phenomenally well and a lot of review sites consider it the 'better' version thanks to the addition of online coop and probably the fact that the game had to be trimmed down a bit (a process I was maybe a couple weeks shy of helping with! :o ). It became more focused and also is light-years beyond most FPS titles on the consoles, ports or not.

Things like D3 and HL2 on the Xbox are huge. It's putting the core FPS franchises into a sector of the industry starving for FPSes in the wake of Halo and other efforts that have fallen short of its smash success. HL2 probably won't outsell Halo/Halo 2, but it'll still be huge and could rank up there. Halo itself still only sold something like 5 million copies, with initial sales of Halo 2 at 5 million as well and the remaining 1 million of the shortly-post-halo2 numbers of 11 million from the PC version (or something similar). We know HL2 has sold at least 1.7 million copies; my guess would be nearing the 3-4 million mark now on PC alone. Put that on the Xbox and I could see at least another 2-4 million, especially with the sort of marketing oomph EA could put behind it compared to, say, Vivendi (or Valve themselves).

As for the deal as a whole, Valve is working with EA Partners (a branch of EA) that just puts third-party games on shelves. Valve is probably in a position much like Will Wright right now. Why is Spore being made? It goes against everything that any major publisher would even consider. But it's Will Wright, who has made EA ridiculous sums of money in his previous products. They cannot afford to lose him, even though I bet execs are peeing their pants wondering if that game will take off. Given the third-party interaction and the market power that Valve has (and the ability to go anywhere), EA can't dick 'em around.


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