Electronic Arts to distribute Half Life 2 for Xbox

Electronic Arts to distribute titles for Valve

Valve has collaborated with videogame developers and the makers of the popular Need for Speed series of games Electronic Arts to distribute titles for them. This deal includes the highly awaited Xbox version of Half-Life 2 to be released later this year in October. It is also said that valve would be using EA’s support to also distribute their back catalogue of PC titles.

The company would however continue to offer their games over their Steam platform. Electronic Arts would be on their part distribute a boxed “Game of the Year” edition. This package would contain some of the most popular videogames around in the form of Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike Source, Half-Life: Source and HL2 Deathmatch.

Valve was facing problems with their distributing network ever since their deal with Vivendi Universal Games ended earlier this year. That put the future of the games like the Xbox edition of Half-Life 2 and other gaming titles from the company in air. With this latest deal with the giants Electronic Arts, Valve would be breathing easily now.

Vivendi had problems with Valve selling their games directly to their customers over the Internet through their stream platform. This resulted in declining revenues for them resulting in conflicts between the two companies. The latest deal is just hands over the distribution aspects to EA, as Valve would now be taking over as the publication agent for their own games.