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Long read: The beauty and drama of video games and their clouds

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Half-Life 2 slips

Or does it?

Valve and Vivendi seem to be at odds over when Half-Life 2 is really coming out. Vivendi has spoken to a number of people in the last couple of days apparently confirming that the game has been delayed until the "holiday season" - meaning Christmas time or thereabouts - and yet now Valve's Gabe Newell has reportedly cast doubt on his publisher's estimates with a cryptic posting to an internet forum: "First time I've heard about this", he is reported to have said.

So, September 30th or not? Officially, Valve has been keeping mum, and they seem to have patched up their Steam software so that nobody can extract the next pre-downloaded HL2 movie, too. Clearly they are in control of Half-Life 2. It's just a question of what Vivendi knows that put it in a position to make such comments to journalists...

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