Valve Sues Activision, Activision Threatens to Sue Valve

It looks as though Valve has filed suit against Activision in U.S. District Court in Seattle. Valve claims that Activision is not honoring an agreement made earlier this month to pay the game designer almost $2.4M. Activision claims it had overpaid Valve in the past and has simply subracted that amount from the $2.4M agreement. Thanks to Ray Wilson for the link.

The arbitrator in that case awarded Valve $2,391,932, an amount that Valve says is less than it sought, but which it will accept because both parties agreed to be bound by the arbitration process. Activision, however, challenged the award, claiming that Valve had been overpaid by $424,136 in years past. For its part Valve alleges that Activision failed to properly raise this issue before the abitrator whom, the suit claims, refused to consider it for procedural reasons.

i wonder how long till lawyer and court costs > $424,136?

Originally Posted by matrix563

i wonder how long till lawyer and court costs > $424,136?

Give it a week.

They probably have attorney's on staff.

Can't we settle claims between video games companies with a good old fashioned death match?

Hey im 6f t 5 270 pounds ( former all natural body builder) Mr Newell need meh to kick some booty i can do it for an exchange of hl3 MUhahahahah Valve is Teh King

Originally Posted by darkpaw

Can't we settle claims between video games companies with a good old fashioned death match?

Best idea ever. That way, everyone wins. Except the dead guy. But who cares, he's dead.

Valve, quit screwing around, we want Half Life 2 Ep 3!!!

Wonderful, this whole lawsuit is basically a guarantee that no Blizzard or Call of Duty games will ever end up on Steam.

^ in the future

Two companies publically stating they failed at both balancing books and reconciling losses?

Sounds like a good time to recall investments.

Originally Posted by velusip

Two companies publically stating they failed at both balancing books and reconciling losses?

Sounds like a good time to recall investments.

Valve is a private corporation.

Get'em Valve!

Go kick those bastards asses Valve and while you're at it bring home the next Half Life game pretty please

Originally Posted by byusinger84

Valve, quit screwing around, we want Half Life 2 Ep 3!!!

Stupid judge should have made that an obligation for Valve to get the monies.

2mil? EPISODE FIRST!

well, there's arbitration and then there's binding arbitration

Originally Posted by jstnomega

well, there's arbitration and then there's binding arbitration

either one basically means your fucked lol

Um. Odd that they would bring up the overpay issue now. And it's even more odd that they would make such an oversight and overpay in the first place. I mean, for them to be in this situation this is what would've had to happen:

Activision: Ok, Valve, here's your money.
Valve: Thanks ..... uh, are you sure it's the right amount?
Activision: Oh, let me see. Errrr... looks like we overpaid over $400k more than we were supposed to.
Valve: No worries, bro. You guys are chill. Just deduct it out of what you'll pay us next time you owe us some money. It's cool, and we know you're good for that.
Activision: You got it, my friend. See ya around.


And we should just assume that no one would've made any record of that? There's no way in heck unless you've got an idiot accountant running the books that they wouldn't write something like that down, or that they wouldn't bring it to each party's attention at the time, especially to the tune of over $400k. And if Activision is just now figuring out that they overpaid last time, they're late, and they screwed the pooch. I'm sure if they had a binding contract saying that Valve would have to deduct the overpayment now, we wouldn't be having this problem, but I'm guessing that because Valve is suing, no such document exists, and it makes it a lot more likely that no true overpayment was made in the first place, or that Activision is somehow misrepresenting things. Not that I want to seem biased toward Valve's side in this, but Activision clearly screwed el poocho somehwere....

Translation: Activision is broke is floating their books as long as they can.

Everyone will be on Valve's side, but that's besides the point.

It's too late now to bring up that you over-paid someone something. Fix it right away or you might not get another chance.

Originally Posted by AVT

Wonderful, this whole lawsuit is basically a guarantee that no Blizzard or Call of Duty games will ever end up on Steam.

I'm pretty sure COD4 and possibly 2 and 1 are on STEAM. No Blizzard games though because they make billions a year so they just don't have to give a shit about selling a few extra copies of Starcraft while giving other companies money. :P