http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.110599


And I was hoping those 2 companies would put their differences behind and put the Blizzard games on Steam. (Though it became clear that that was never gonna happen when they introduced the new battle.net accounts)
That Blizzard bit-torrent downloader is a bad joke compared to Steam.

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SaintK: I'm completely lost

Blizzard make so much money they don't need the support from valve/steam, and vice versa. I would like to see nearly every game on steam though, so its a bit lame

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a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a pig

I love blizzard games, however the way they make you download patches through torrent (not even quick torrents) is terrible, took me forever.

for such a big company just can't be bothered to pay for proper downloads.

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Computer is fixed. That is all.

Summary of what this is actually about:

The original suit was Valve v. Sierra. It was about Sierra not paying valve for cyber cafes and stuff. Then Sierra was taken over by Vivendi, then that by Activision, which merged with Blizzard and then the company inherited the 2,3 million dollar suit. They paid 1,9 million but refused to pay 0,4 mil left which is why Valve is threatening to re-sue.

This practically has nothing to do with Blizzard - it's just old unsettled bills which Blizzard inherited.

Yeah it said that in the article :3 Still blizzard who should deal with it

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a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a pig

so does seirra itsself still exist then? cos they were the guys behind Caeser III, which was pretty awesome back in the day.

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ュ~ちゃんgamer.jp Pinky: true genius
ュ~ちゃんgamer.jp Pinky: doesn't make sense
ュ~ちゃんgamer.jp Pinky: till you're senseless

Yes, that's all in the article.

It's still newsworthy, because this confirms that there won't be any Blizzard games on Steam for quite some time.
The reason is this: Blizzard was owned by Vivendi, which also owned Sierra. This legal battle was between Sierra/Vivendi and Valve (HL1 was published by Sierra, HL2 by Vivendi). This continuing fight was the reason why no Sierra/Vivendi/Blizzard games where published on Steam. On the other hand, Activision had loads of games on Steam and was one of the first publishers to embrace it.

So when Activision and Vivendi Games (including Blizzard and Sierra) merged, I had hoped that all those stupid Sierra/Vivendi* execs would be fired and replaced by the ones of Activision and that this would also settle the fight with Valve and therefore allow Blizzard games on Steam. But it seems that this didn't happen.


*You know those guys have to be extremely stupid when you look at what they did to Sierra, one of the most influential developers and publishers in the 'early days' of computer gaming. They seem to have made no single good decision since 1998.

It's all just business. Once they solve this suit, everything will be back to normal. There's no hidden hate behind all this that would prevent Blizzard from publishing on Steam. The guys there aren't idiots; It's obvious that Steam can make even ancient games sell like strawberry cake. Just pop in a 50% off on something that barely sales anymore as you put it on steam and bam, there's a million dollars profit. For both. Getting on Steam means that you suddenly get a huge userbase and an already established system of game distribution. It's win-win if they get on steam, and lose-lose if they don't. It's just a matter of time.


For the sake of example, let me remind everyone of Abe's oddysee. An old classic, got on steam, few percent off, bang, best selling game for the next 5 days.

As far as I know Blizzard doesn't have much to do with this since Activision and Blizzard are still separate entities unlike Sierra(the cause of the lawsuit) which didn't manage to remain a separate studio.

See? That's where you contradict yourself, because it such an obvious win-win situation, that they have to be REALLY stupid to not already have done this 3 years ago. Or, there are other reasons that prevent them from doing it! Every major publisher/developer is on Steam, only Vivendi isn't.
It has everything to do with that! Blizzard itself is a separate entity as a game developer, but they still require Vivendi to publish their games. Vivendi has all rights regarding distributing the Blizzard games. So if Vivendi doesn't want to put it on Steam, then it won't happen.

Yeah, steam is ftw, if your not on it you lose out on a lot of sales.

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a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a pig