According to an article over on the Inquirer, it cost ATI roughly 8 million dollars in total for the Half Life 2 deal with Valve. The deal saw them promote their line of 9600 and 9800 XT cards, along with their X800 line. It also saw ATI's logo on the game itself.
ATI never sold so many cards than when they bundled the Half Life 2 voucher with them. Of course, people buying the cards were (myself included) in no way aware of the fact that Valve completely botched the release date and planning of the follow-up to 1998's classic shooter Half Life.
ATI gave Valve $2.4 million for the deal, along with investing $1.2 million in marketing the game. Finally, $4.4 million was spent by ATI and its partners on bundling the game with their cards.
ATI actually benefited from HL2 being late. People were just buying and buying ATI cards because of the voucher and just to get the free game. So it was a win-win rather than a whinge-whinge deal for ATI, which recouped the money back from end users.
As for Nvidia, we can surely bet that Nvidia spends even more on its highly successful TWIMTBP marketing program, but Nvidia invests in many games and not in a single game only. A chapter in the history of vouchers has just ended.
How much ATI really paid for its Half Life 2 deal
cs_assault launched with new terrorist models
Lombardi: Folks will be quite pleased with DoD: Source
New DoD: Source Gameplay Trailers
Valve Unveil Developer Community Site (29 June)
Doug Lombardi talks Steam (29 June)
Valve: Getting Closer To HL2: Lost Coast Release (27 June)
Doug Lombardi Interview, DoD Source development still unclear
DoD: Source News Update & HL1: Deathmatch Source Revamp
DoD: Source Screenshots Collection
Half Life 2: Lost Coast HDR overview
Eurogamer: Half-Life 2: The Lost Coast preview
Discussion >>
