At your Leisure - 08 November 2004

Half Life 2

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• Produced by Valve, a US games software business
  • Published by Vivendi, a French multi-national company
  • Valve receive advance payments to develop games
  • Royalties depend on sales
  • Sales revenues can dwarf costs
  • 'Steam' new content delivery system promises to reverse revenue split between Valve and Vivendi
• Sales of a new game can exceed movie takings
  • Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas sales of 4.5m units in week 1
  • At $50 per unit = $225m in one week
• Commercial theft
  • Hackers stole code from founder's laptop
  • Playable versions appeared on Web
  • Valve used gamers to track down thieves
  • FBI made arrests June 2004
• Released Nov 16 2004
  • Develops characters from original HL game
  • 1st person shooting game
  • Use vehicles and weapons to progress through game
  • Human facial movements modelled on scientific research
• Global games software industry worth £11 bn
  • Console games market growing at 15% per year
  • PC games growing more slowly
  • HL 2 expected to boost market growth
• Product lifecycle extension
  • 'Mods' take source code and develop new versions
  • Counter Strike
  • Opposing Force
  • Blue Shift