On November 29, 2004, Judge Thomas S. Zilly of U.S. Federal District Court in Seattle, Washington ruled in favor of Valve Corporation. Specifically, the ruling stated that Vivendi Universal and its affiliates (including Sierra) were not authorized to distribute Valve games, either directly or indirectly, through cyber cafés to end users for pay-to-play activities pursuant to the parties' current publishing agreement. In addition, Judge Zilly ruled that Valve could recover copyright damages for infringements without regard to the publishing agreement's limitation of liability clause.
[13] Valve posted on the Steam website that the two companies had come to a settlement in court on April 29, 2005.
[14] Electronic Arts announced on July 18, 2005 they would be teaming up with Valve in a multi-year deal to distribute their games, replacing Vivendi Universal from then onwards.
[15] As a result of the trial, the arbitrator also awarded Valve $2,391,932.