Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Potano: GLaDOS Is Stealing Our Spuds

By Alec Meer on April 18th, 2011 at 7:16 pm.

Okay, what. All this diligent, web-wide meta-potato-harvesting to apparently get Portal 2 unlocked early, and now something’s gone all weird, just when the end was in sight. The GLaDOS@home site is showing the work so far seeming being undone at a rate of knots. We don’t know why, we don’t know the result. But we damned well hope people haven’t spent money on a collection of indie games purely because they thought it would win them early access to Portal 2 that they now may not get.

On the other hand 1) the site now lists ’9 test subjects’ as having been found and 2) the chaps on the ValveARG site are claiming the G-Man can be seen in the background… No. C’mon. We’re being gamed, right? That one’s been removed already, which I take to mean it was trolling by someone. Unsurprising, given its lack of subtlety. Additional: the ’9′ appears to be the ARG’s most successful players being taken to Valve to play the game.

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438 Comments »

  1. 18/04/2011 at 19:19 bruceracey says:

    They’re gonna throw us all for a loop and release a Valve-made Duke Nukem Forever, while Gearbox reveals that its been working on HL2:EP3 all this time.

  2. 18/04/2011 at 19:19 Akura says:

    No, not our potatoes! Anything but that!

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:46 tyrsius says:

      People have said that the “Engaging starch based power cells” line probably refers to potatoes, but nobody has made the second connection: Glados isn’t stealing the potatoes, she is USING them.

    • 19/04/2011 at 00:02 mattjb says:

      These spuds are duds. :(

    • 19/04/2011 at 01:42 MadTinkerer says:

      Actually, it seems the potatoes are disappearing because “overclocking” is currently enabled, according to the wiki. I don’t know if it’s double the rate or what, but the bars are filling up FAST now, and will quickly overtake the potatoes before they all disappear.

      In short, the potatoes disappearing is a good thing, a sign that the release is imminent.

  3. 18/04/2011 at 19:20 Ba5 says:

    The number of potatoes is going to become negative, delaying Portal 2 until next Sunday.

  4. 18/04/2011 at 19:20 bit_crusherrr says:

    http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/gsxi4/i_believe_ive_found_out_what_the_nonhat_based/

    Allegedly people with golden potatoes get the valve complete pack.

    • 18/04/2011 at 23:23 Kdansky says:

      I believe I speak for many, many people: That would give me about two games at the most, both of which I do not want, or else I would have bought them already. It’s not like Valve has a very long catalogue.

      But getting invited to play Portal 2 at their HQ? Hot Damn. Can I spend my time there chatting with the devs instead? I can play Portal 2 next week by myself.

  5. 18/04/2011 at 19:20 TrouserDemon says:

    It is currently believed that the potatoes being consumed are powering the boost in the computation speed. The amount we collected means we have around 12.5 hours of speed boost.

  6. 18/04/2011 at 19:22 UberMonkey says:

    http://cpucount.zapto.org/

    If you look at the graph there you can see the effect of the potatoes on the completion speed. It’s even more obvious if you click on one of the “focus” games (The Ball & Audiosurf).

  7. 18/04/2011 at 19:23 SuperNashwanPower says:

    Hang on. You can make a battery out of a potato, right?

    I reckon there are going to be pota-bots in Portal 2. Aww that would be cool.

    • 18/04/2011 at 19:58 droid says:

      Yes, though technically it’s a battery of power cells.

      10:50 - Engaging starch-based power cells

      Almost certainly this is the case, since potatoes have lots of starch.

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:27 gwathdring says:

      It’s not exactly accurate to say you can make a battery out of a potato. Or a lemon. Or an onion. Individual cells in these objects, while living, to create a potential by pumping ions to both sides of the membrane. But you’d need a living organism and a damn tiny set of wires to make use of the potential. The primary function of the fruit/veggies in lighting a bulb is to serve as an ion containing solution for the electrodes (Zinc/Copper systems are pretty common) that make up the redox-reaction that technically constitutes most of the battery. The potato serves as the porous membrane and external casing for the battery. You still need to bring in your own metal electrodes to front the energy bill.

    • 18/04/2011 at 21:07 CommissarXiii says:

      Are the vines on the glados@home page (and in Portal 2) potato vines?
      http://www.wildacresfarms.com/images/database/potatoe_vine.jpg

  8. 18/04/2011 at 19:25 VelvetFistIronGlove says:

    Pareidolia’s a wonderful thing, isn’t it?

  9. 18/04/2011 at 19:25 vodkarn says:

    I timed the rate at which it’s decending, and it will end at almost exactly Midnight PST (my math isn’t great, but that was what I found.)

    So.. I would say we’re getting the game a few hours early, heh (about 2, actually.)

  12. 18/04/2011 at 19:27 Brother None says:

    But we damned well hope people haven’t spent money on a collection of indie games purely because they thought it would win them early access to Portal 2 that they now may not get.

    Why do you hope that? Wasn’t that the whole purpose of this sales stunt?

  13. 18/04/2011 at 19:29 TheApologist says:

    It seems like Portal 2′s unlocked for a few (9) test subjects and the remaining bars are overclocking progression by double according to the ARG wiki.
    Exciting!
    Unlocked for everybody in about 7 or 8 hours? Maybe that’s not how it works, but damn, that’s late in the UK.
    As for HL3 link – odd time for RPS to post it. This was ‘seen’ a while ago. In on the act?

  14. 18/04/2011 at 19:30 McDan says:

    Aha! I said the potatoes would be used as batteries!

  15. 18/04/2011 at 19:30 ArthurBarnhouse says:

    I can tell you right now, I had better not been playing killing floor all weekend for no goddamn reason. I had fun games I could have been playing.

    • 18/04/2011 at 19:34 JFS says:

      Theeeennn…. why exaaactly did you have to… ? Or is this irony?

    • 18/04/2011 at 19:50 ArthurBarnhouse says:

      IIIIIIIIIIII diiiiiidn’t haaaaaaaave tooooooooooooooo… Buuuuuuuuuut IIIIIIIIII waaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnntttted tooooooooooooooo plaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay Poooooooooooooooooooooooortaaaaaaaaaaaaal Twoooooooooooooooo Earrrrrrrrrrrllllllllllly. Beeeeeeeeeecaaaaaaause thaaaaaats whaaaaaaaaaat theeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey saaaaaaaaid theeeeeeeeeeeey’d dooooooooooooo.

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:29 Urthman says:

      If you spent the weekend playing a game you weren’t actually enjoying, just for the possibility of shaving a tiny amount of time (seconds? a whole minute saved due to your efforts?) off the Portal 2 release date–and at the behest of an insane, murderous AI no less–you have no one to blame but yourself.

      Next you’re going to ask us to pity you because you spent the previous weekend playing games you didn’t enjoy just to earn “achievements”.

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:49 djbriandamage says:

      Ah, but The Potato Sack has been on the Steam top sellers list all weekend, due in no small part I’m sure to the implications quasi-stated regarding this ARG. Selling red herrings isn’t going to do wonders for your credibility.

    • 18/04/2011 at 21:00 ArthurBarnhouse says:

      I am, in many ways, a team player kind of guy. When I saw there was a way to get an early release of Portal I did what I thought I could. I played 20 hours on those potato sack games, always the ones I thought I could do some good in. I spent hours on that stupid aperture level on killing floor cutting through the door so that people could get that potato. I ran through survival mode on the ball, which is the least interesting part of that game. I played grinder challenges on defense grid, which is intensely boring. I did that, not just because I said to myself, “ohh, I’ll play it early,” but because I hoped that my efforts, combined with the whole, would get it early for everyone. That idea was fun. That in some small way I helped everyone out, and by that same token everyone had helped me out. Instead we get a clock that is clearly just counting down the midnight release. I’m glad that the major players on the ARG got something out of it, god bless them, but this turned something fun into something that devalued my time. That’s irritating. Nit end if the world irritating. But irritating.

    • 18/04/2011 at 22:55 TotalBiscuit says:

      There should be a law against slagging off Killing Floor on a British gaming website.

    • 19/04/2011 at 01:05 bglamb says:

      “There should be a law against slagging off Killing Floor on a British gaming website.”

      Said in a thread full of Valve hate?

    • 19/04/2011 at 01:10 TotalBiscuit says:

      Valve has never made a game with gunplay anywhere close to as good as Killing Floor, plus they don’t use the word “dosh” in their scripts so no, we won’t be defending them today.

    • 19/04/2011 at 07:49 Squirrelfanatic says:

      Portrolled.

  16. 18/04/2011 at 19:30 SuperUnheardOf says:


    10:50 - Engaging starch-based power cells
    11:00 - Reboot safety test protocol initiated...
    11:00 - Relaxation chamber locks released...
    11:00 - Involuntary hazard mitigation associates have assumed testing positions...
    11:00 - Pre-release lethality assessment initiated...

    I’d guess that the nine test subjects now have access to the game.

  18. 18/04/2011 at 19:32 Bhazor says:

    So an ARG reveals a count down that becomes an ARG countdown that becomes a countdown?
    INCEPTION

  19. 18/04/2011 at 19:33 NateN says:

    POrTAl TwO. Or, POTATO is Portal Two, minus an RLW.
    RLW seems to stand for many things out there on the web, but Radioactive Liquid Waste did kind of jump out at me:
    http://www.acronymfinder.com/Radioactive-Liquid-Waste-%28RLW%29.html

    (I’m grasping at straws on this one really…)

  20. 18/04/2011 at 19:33 Argus says:

    Ah so those dedicated few are getting in early.
    That explains “11:00 – Pre-release lethality assessment initiated…”

    In the mean time I can’t help but note that the game is looking like it will unlock at almost exactly the time I leave for work tomorrow morning.
    Well played GLaDOS… Well played indeed.

  21. 18/04/2011 at 19:33 Shakermaker says:

    The ARG was basically an elaborate countdown to the US midnight release. Consider yourself trolled.

    • 18/04/2011 at 19:37 shoptroll says:

      I wouldn’t be terribly surprised. People were speculating earlier on whether or not they could break street date without garnering the ire of the retail channels. Who knows.

      A little bummed that it wasn’t released over the weekend since we have a state holiday today, but this has been an entertaining lead up to release so I don’t mind if we’re still getting it Tuesday.

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:00 DrGonzo says:

      In the UK, the Steam release date is before the retail one, we get it on the 19th but the shops get it on the 21st. So I doubt it’s about that.

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:07 Faldrath says:

      Friend of mine who works at Gamestop in the US said basically that, yeah.

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:13 qrter says:

      That’s the retail releasedate for the whole of Europe, isn’t it? Not just for the UK, I mean. So yeah, the 19th would be earlier than European retail anyway.

  23. 18/04/2011 at 19:34 Vandelay says:

    The wiki is saying that the speed has doubled and mentions that the focus should now be on the harder games (Killing Floor being the slowest bar to move, yet with by far the highest number of players consistently through this process, is probably the best one to focus on.) This just seems like the overclock previously mentioned, which should make things a little speedier.

    More interestingly is the test subjects. I thought it could be referring to the missing ARG players, but there are twelve of those. Curious.

    I’m not so certain about the G-Man thing. It looks plausible with the image overlayed like that, but I couldn’t see it myself without it. Sounds like just seeing faces in random patterns to me.

  24. 18/04/2011 at 19:34 Unaco says:

    Seems they got the 9′infected’/'winners’ of the ARG to Valve HQ to let them be the first to play.
    http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150228527438689&set=a.10150228527433689.346684.93235358688

    Edit: And gave them muffins and pastries.

  25. 18/04/2011 at 19:41 Vinraith says:

    But we damned well hope people haven’t spent money on a collection of indie games purely because they thought it would win them early access to Portal 2

    Full stop.

    • 18/04/2011 at 19:47 futage says:

      It is going to get released early. fun was had by all (people who felt obliged to play killing floor notwithstanding :D). Indies sold (presumably) many additional copies of games (and it should be noted that Valve could easily have made all the games you need to play their own stuff, but they didn’t. They understand).

      I really see no room for cynicism in this. I’m a marxist and even I fucking love Valve for this.

    • 18/04/2011 at 19:50 Serenegoose says:

      Vinraith is of course in possession of the requisite appendages required to internet speak for his/herself, but I think the thrust of the message was more that people should be buying these indie games to play some excellent indie games, not to get another title released early.

    • 18/04/2011 at 19:51 Vinraith says:

      I don’t see how your statement has any bearing on mine. You’re talking about people who are having fun playing the indie games, I’m not.

      Edit: Serengoose has the essential right of it. I’d go even less far and say that I’d sincerely hope no one (or at least very few people) have such poor self-regard as to sit around frantically playing games they don’t enjoy to get a game they might enjoy a tiny fraction earlier.

    • 18/04/2011 at 19:56 Psychopomp says:

      Vinraith’s right. There’s tons of bitching on the forums about it.

    • 18/04/2011 at 19:58 futage says:

      Yes, for the people who have been in cryosleep since 1945 and have not yet experienced advertising as it exists in the postmodern world your point is well taken. We should also warn them off buying Lynx.

    • 18/04/2011 at 19:59 bglamb says:

      Yeah but….nobody would actually be stupid enough to do that, would they?

      I mean…..spending £50 on something you didn’t want in order to release a game about a second early?

    • 18/04/2011 at 19:59 Shakermaker says:

      @Serenegoose
      The Potato Sack is being advertised as doing just that:
      http://imgur.com/RfaIW

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:03 Wulf says:

      @futage

      I completely concur.

      @Serenegoose

      You’re looking at this lopsidedly and through a pair of Bizarro World goggles.

      The first thing to consider is that this was a bundle of indie games for a reasonable price. I tend to leap on those anyway since it can introduce me to undiscovered wonders, and I will be forever grateful to Valve for this one introducing me to The Ball and Defence Grid, two games I’ve come to have a great deal of love for.

      I’ve also learned that Jim Ward is an amazing voice actor whom more people should hire.

      The second thing to consider is that there are many BLOPites (that was fun) out there who only buy mainstream games and wouldn’t consider an indie title ever, thinking of them as either cheapo games, games for women/kids, or whatever else, which is terrible because in their arrogance they’re totally missing out. And I’ve met people like this, I know they exist. To do something related to Portal 2, they will have had to have been exposed to indie titles to do so.

      Now, this is important because they might actually find that their conceptions of indie titles are wrong. Since they’re starting X or Y game up anyway, they might decide to give it a play, and in doing so they might then find that the game is actually really bloody good. This opens the eyes of the people in question to indies as a market, this was a thing of enlightenment for some people and of this I’m certain. If even a hundred people had their eyes opened to the indie market by this, then it was an absolute success.

      And generally this is just good exposure for the indie developers in general, as I’ll be looking out for anything new from the people who’ve made games that I’ve since become smitten with. This puts Hidden Path Entertainment and Toetl Studios on my list of studios to watch.

      You need to think of it solely as a good deal on a bunch of great indie titles with a bunch of exposure tied into it. If you take Portal 2 out of the equation, it suddenly starts to make sense.

      (I guess what I’m getting at is that, yes, the Portal 2 aspect was just typical marketing. But if you look at solely the marketing, you miss any good that happened as a by-product of that marketing. Good that was, indeed, quite intentional.)

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:14 blind_boy_grunt says:

      my problem with all of this is this: It’s a badly designed game. Anything you do is meaningless because you can’t win. Or the game let’s you only win as much as it needs you to. It’s like one of those jrpgs where you fight against a boss, you finally bring him down and than comes a cutscene where he stands up and runs away. You could say the journey’s the reward and blablabla… But right now i just feel so used. Imagine how i’d feel if i actually was(were?) interested in when portal2 releases ;).

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:15 Wulf says:

      Oh! Plus a bunch of free DLC for games I like, related to a game I like. I’d actually feel kind of evil if I were to complain about this. Seriously. Hm… I bought a pack of indie games for a fair price, most of them I enjoy, all of them have extra, free content now that’s become available to everyone regardless of whether they bought the pack or not. Hmmm… I don’t know, I just see that as nice.

      (And just this once, sod editing, I’m not losing all of the formatting of my prior post just to add that.)

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:17 Vinraith says:

      Why does anyone think I’m criticizing Valve, the ARG, or the indie games here? “I hope no one has such a messed up sense of priorities as to be playing games they don’t enjoy.” That’s literally all I’m saying, I’d hope it’d be something we could all agree on. And for the record, that’s all Serengoose is saying too, as best I can tell.

      The internet is remarkable sometimes.

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:21 futage says:

      And what I am saying is that if anyone is really playing games they don’t enjoy playing believing that their efforts are going to make a jot of difference in getting Portal 2 released early then they should probably come back out of the fucking wardrobe and leave Narnia forever.

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:22 Vinraith says:

      @futage

      Then as best I can tell we have no disagreement, except that you seem to think such people don’t exist and I can only envy you your lack of exposure to the Steam forums. :)

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:28 futage says:

      Yes, we actually seem to agree but I as all hyped up for an internet argument and I like saying funny things about Narnia.

      It’s more that, while they do indeed exist, they should not in any way be catered to/for.

      You, however, deserve a lovely cup of ceylon.

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:31 Wulf says:

      Honest question, though: Did anyone here (not at the Steam forums) buy the potato sack for any other reason other than it being a collection of potential delights that one might really enjoy?

      That’s the basis for all I’ve said, really. I bought. I was delighted. I got free stuff out of it. Score!

      So yes, okay then, no disagreements. Though anyone who bought this and couldn’t bring themselves to realise that there are good games present in the bundle are… exceedingly silly goose. To use the Penny Arcade vernacular.

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:39 Vinraith says:

      Honest question, though: Did anyone here (not at the Steam forums) buy the potato sack for any other reason other than it being a collection of potential delights that one might really enjoy?

      My original statement was “I hope not” and I’m sticking with that.

      That’s the basis for all I’ve said, really. I bought. I was delighted. I got free stuff out of it. Score!

      I didn’t buy it (already owned most of it, didn’t want the rest tied to Steam) but got some fun free DLC out of it anyway (yay for new Defense Grid levels, especially with GLADOS in them) so you certainly don’t hear me complaining.

      So yes, okay then, no disagreements. Though anyone who bought this and couldn’t bring themselves to realise that there are good games present in the bundle are… exceedingly silly goose. To use the Penny Arcade vernacular.

      Completely agreed.

    • 18/04/2011 at 21:02 Serenegoose says:

      I didn’t buy the potato sack because I’d just pre-ordered portal 2 and didn’t have another £27 handy. I did buy defense grid because it seemed like an interesting game, and it is indeed rather fun, and did have another £3 handy. Fantastic price for the game really.

    • 18/04/2011 at 21:22 thegooseking says:

      Did anyone here (not at the Steam forums) buy the potato sack for any other reason other than it being a collection of potential delights that one might really enjoy?

      I bought it because 7 of the 9 games I didn’t already own were games that I had always meant to check out as soon as a suitable sale came along. Marketing stunt or no, this was precisely such a suitable sale. I never wanted Defense Grid but have been pleasantly surprised at how good it is. Killing Floor is way more atmospheric than I expected, but a little too hardcore for my tastes. The other seven were pretty much what I hoped they would be.

      Also, somehow I managed to buy it for £24, not £27. I see the price has gone up to £27 now. What happened there?

      anyone who bought this and couldn’t bring themselves to realise that there are good games present in the bundle are… exceedingly silly goose

      Apparently Serenegoose and myself are not silly, but exceedingly goose.

    • 18/04/2011 at 21:35 Soon says:

      I think some people would have bought it for even less. And bought it simply to be part of the potato crowd.

  26. 18/04/2011 at 19:44 Bilbo says:

    On the other hand, the pirating assholes have the game already. Remembering that sort of put a damper on all the excitement for me, and being the spirit of goodwill that I am I figured I’d share the love.

    • 18/04/2011 at 19:48 futage says:

      Why? You’re free to pirate it too if you like. What a ridiculous position.

    • 18/04/2011 at 19:51 Bilbo says:

      “What a ridiculous position.”

      I’m free to break the law. Wonderful. By that logic, I shouldn’t ever complain about pretty much anything, because i’m free to use force or whatever and do whatever I please.

      What a fucking stupid thing to say.

    • 18/04/2011 at 19:55 futage says:

      Their experience is not in any way impinging upon your experience. Their way of doing things is open to you if you want to pursue it. What the hell is to moan about?

      And what does legality have to do with anything?

      Those goddamn people who sing happy birthday without paying royalties are totally ruining my experience of childrens’ birthday parties D:

    • 18/04/2011 at 19:58 Bilbo says:

      Well in this case it literally is, because I’ve had the ending spoiled for me by some basement-dwelling shit on 4chan. Opting to obey the law is a basic responsibility of citizenship, particularly in the case of laws that the individual consciously agrees with, which I do. The legality is important because purchasing the game governs the right to play the game(hint – pirates do not have that right), so it grates that they’re free to enjoy it before paying customers. You can stoically refuse to see the logic there all you like – pirates and their chums always do – I’m not that interested in talking to a smirking inconsiderate and irresponsible wall. Grow up and pay for your frigging dinner

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:03 DrGonzo says:

      The Pc version hasn’t been cracked yet. And reading spoilers is your fault for reading silly non-RPS sites :P

      And I uhh, regularly disobey the law, as I’m sure you do if you’re honest. Plus Valve’s stance always seems to be, you’re free to pirate the game and play it, but you miss out on some lovely free extras and having the convenience of Steam. Gabe has even said, if you are getting a better deal by pirating then you should do. As a consumer you should find the best deal for you, as a business you should make sure you provide the best deal.

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:05 futage says:

      Well, you read 4chan.

      Pirates have no legal right to play the game, of course. That is a ridiculous tautology (because those who sell it get to say who has that right).

      However, looking beyond the (hint: quite often wrong) law for a second: I really don’t give a fuck. I paid for Portal 2 because, in this instance, I wanted to. If other people either couldn’t afford to or for whatever reason didn’t want to then great, they get to enjoy this lovely thing too. Let’s all enjoy these lovely things in whatever manner we prefer so long as our doing so is not detrimental to anyone else.

      And stop reading 4chan.

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:05 BunnyMaz says:

      Surely the lesson there is not to go on 4chan? I haven’t wanted to be spoiled, so I just haven’t gone to any websites or followed any links to things that might spoil it for me.

      As everyone is saying, the fact that a few pirates are getting it early doesn’t need to have any impact on your enjoyment of the game or of the ARG. What could valve do when it was leaked, cancel the entire ARG?

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:20 Delusibeta says:

      AFAIK it’s only the console versions that are affected. Indeed, it’s seems to be largely only console games they get leaked, with a few high-profile exceptions. For example, I watched a stream for a bunch of people playing the new Mortal Kombat game last night, despite a) it’s not out yet and b) it’s only available for the consoles.

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:25 Wulf says:

      I think the lesson is more don’t go to /b/ or /v/. The interesting thing for me is that one of my favourite new communities is MLP (Equestria Daily/Ponychan), because there are some incredibly, amazingly nice people there who like doing things for other people, and just being awesome. Plus it’s fun to see people trying to live up to the ideals of the show. Why is this relevant? (I love doing that.) It’s relevant because I’ve heard that a lot of the Equestria Daily/Ponychan community originated from /co/, a board on 4chan.

      I’ve lately been learning that the Internet isn’t quite the hate-filled place I’d allowed myself to become convinced it is. Another fun revelation was seeing ED die, and on remembering ED, I wondered if Uncyclopedia was still around, and what that site was doing. So I decided to check it out, since I expected it to be something of an ED clone. Turns out it’s actually really funny and makes well-meant, friendly jabs at everyone without being hateful. I especially loved the page on furries, that was great stuff. It surprised me.

      So yeah, I might have, at one point, been easily convinced that 4chan was a horrid place, but… not so much any more. Not all of it, anyway. I still hear bad things about /b/ and /v/ on a regular basis, but /co/ was apparently awesome. I still haven’t nosed there myself, but I’m kind of tempted to. Still, to get Portal 2 spoiled you were probably hanging around /v/, right?

      But anyway… yeah. I got a bunch of awesome games for a decent price with extra free content to keep me occupied until Portal 2 comes along. I can bring myself to be upset and irritable about some things (such as the depressing state of RPGs, which I can be all Marvin about, I admit), but this isn’t one of them. I honestly can’t feel anything other than joy over this.

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:27 Wulf says:

      Also? Pirated on consoles, first? What nonsense! Every console owner will tell you that us PC owners are just a bunch of no-life neckbearded hackers and that their holy console toys are impregnable fortresses where piracy doesn’t exist. Large publishers would tell you the same thing, too. It’s completely true, that, don’t ever doubt it. :P

      Score 1 for Valve. See, Ubisoft?

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:31 Daniel Rivas says:

      Everyone, let’s have an argument over whether piracy is stealing or not. I’m sure it’ll be really interesting and we’ll all change our established opinions on the subject.

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:32 Ryz says:

      The spoilers aren’t just on 4chan, for the record.

      The Steam forums, major gaming sites, and even the ARG’s IRC/Steam Community Groups have all been targeted and bombarded at some point over the weekend. I sure as hell don’t go to 4chan and I’ve already had it spoiled, too.

      Hell, there’s a few spoiler posts that haven’t been deleted in the comments of this article right now.

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:33 Rii says:

      @futage: we reach

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:34 Bilbo says:

      So hang on, a tautology is stupid because it’s true? I am confuse.
      And while I refuse to let one bad experience tarnish my overall opinion of a site I’d concede that it’s definitely a mark against /v/.

      Not getting pulled into the stupid piracy arguments – they’ve been done better elsewhere, it’s entirely pointless, and I’m not changing my mind based on one grinning degenerate – but I would say that console piracy – just as damaging to my enjoyment of the game as PC piracy. The experience is being had by people who haven’t paid for the right, posting plot details online, and undermining the studio’s efforts. Whether they’re doing it on their sillybox or their PC is pretty immaterial. The reason I brought the point up in the first place was simply because jumping through hoops for the privilege of playing the game mere hours earlier than originally stated is a little sour when, if I was a base cur with no morals, I could have stolen and completed the game already. I’m annoyed with the state of affairs, more than anything.

      *EDIT* Becoming very clear that nobody understands why the fact that pirates are playing the game a) illegitimately and b) first affects my enjoyment of the game, to which I’ll just say that context is everything to me and if you can understand the idea that it annoys me that I pay for something that someone else does not, you can understand that playing a game with said annoyance involuntarily at the back of my mind will tarnish my enjoyment of said game.

      There we are, think that’s pretty clear. I fully expect something about how being annoyed by the pirates is my fault, etc, so come at me bro

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:52 Rii says:

      It’s unfortunate that you were spoiled and understandable that you would be annoyed by it, but the rest of it is on you, yes. I hope you can get past it and enjoy the game.

    • 18/04/2011 at 21:12 futage says:

      No, it’s stupid because it’s redundant. And stupid.

      Of course pirates have no legal right to play the games. It’s like saying bank robbers have no legal right to withdraw money in that manner.

      The far more interesting question is whether there are any moral, ethical, economic or cultural problem with them doing so. In the case of bankrobbers it’s quite easy to make a case that there are. With piracy it’s more complex. And no, none of us want to get into that.

      You’re pissed off that people spoilered the game at you. Which is nothing to do with piracy it’s just about people being assholes.

      You also seem pissed off because you paid money to play a thing and people who did not pay money are playing it before you. Which, honestly, I find utterly juvenile.

      Of course I understand there’s value in being part of a cultural event. In playing a game and feeling like you are the first person to ever see this thing (aside from the scores of devs and playtesters and reviewers of course), and sharing that experience with others. I do see the value in that. But if a few pirates playing this game before you really spoils that for you (and all the playtesters and reviewers etc. don’t) then I think you’re putting too much emphasis on something somewhere.

      Kinda seems like you’re choosing to be angry when it’d make far more sense to choose to be excited instead (so yes, entirely your own fault ^____^ )

    • 18/04/2011 at 21:22 futage says:

      Also I should perhaps say that I have nothing against 4chan. In fact, they are an interesting ‘political’ and cultural entity and seem to generate the vast majority of what filters down to the rest of us and constitutes internet culture.

      I just think that people of certain mentalities probably shouldn’t read certain boards.

    • 18/04/2011 at 22:02 Bilbo says:

      Bear in mind I said it “put a damper” on the excitement, not that it somehow nullified it entirely. You’re putting a lot of very unkind words in my mouth, just because you like piracy and I don’t. Which is deflecting, really. It’s good that you accept the legal basis for my argument though – many times this has not been the case, so I always feel it’s worth restating – the chief moral point for me is in undermining the efforts of creative industry by demonetizing their efforts, I guess. We can be stupid and say that in an ideal society we wouldn’t need to monetize creative industry, but we don’t live in that society, etc, etc, so in the meantime people ought to pay up. By buying a game, I’m effectively subsidising those who choose not to pay, which seems wrong. Also bear in mind I restate *choose* not to pay – a tortured moral argument about those who are too poor to afford games (which I struggle to believe can be the majority of pirates’ defense) isn’t something I want to get into, and naturally I find it a lot easier to sympathise with those who *can’t* pay than with those who *choose not to* pay – hence I make the distinction.
      Rest assured the game’s plot being spoiled by a pirate and the fact of wilful piracy by those who can afford to pay hasn’t ruined my enjoyment of the game, much as the fact of the meat industry doesn’t stop me enjoying a good burger now and then, but I still reserve the right to be rankled, to post a fairly innocent comment attesting to said ranklement, and then defend *to the death* my right to state said rankledness when it’s attacked by guys like you for being “ridiculous”.

    • 18/04/2011 at 22:13 futage says:

      I tend to work from the position that (so long as authors can afford a roof and food) culture does better when it’s shared freely than when it’s not. No, we don’t live in that ideal society but I believe the prevalence of piracy is going more to get us there (along with the activities of companies like valve, who seem to understand how things work with the internet here) than things like restrictive DRM and, more generally, any activity which seeks to return us to a pre-internet model of cultural exchange.

      Anyway, I’m sure we’vew both had this discussion a bajillion times and we’re not going to agree so yes, best to leave that there.

      I apologise for causing you any offence and making you feel you were under attack. That wasn’t my intention.

      Let us be friends and pirate a lovely cup of tea together.

    • 18/04/2011 at 22:17 Bilbo says:

      With the ideas on the table rather than just ridiculing one another, it’s a lot easier to be friends, isn’t it? Maybe that can tie into your idea of post-internet cultural exchange. I’m skeptical of your idea but you’ve given me something to think about, so cheers.

    • 18/04/2011 at 22:21 futage says:

      I do tend to overstate :)

    • 18/04/2011 at 22:37 Wulf says:

      I’m really pleased about the way this turned out.

      Can we have you two show up whenever the next debate about piracy happens? No sarcasm meant there, but the two of you aired ideological differences, shared thoughts, and potentially gave each other things to think about, thus showing the differences between people without demeaning one or another for those differences. Bloody good show.

  27. 18/04/2011 at 19:45 boar_amour says:

    I really can’t wait for this dumb shit to be over.

    Not so I can play the game ever-so-slightly early, but so I don’t have to continue reading Marketing Hype masquerading as news. Until the next time somebody pulls a shitty viral stunt, which is probably next month at the rate this stuff has been happening lately.

    • 18/04/2011 at 19:48 Bilbo says:

      I’ve thought this one to be one of the more interesting shitty viral campaigns, myself. It’s generated some buzz for some indie games and yielded a ton of free content – sort of harder to be cynical about

    • 18/04/2011 at 19:48 thegooseking says:

      Are you in RPS’ Ludovico chair, or something? In what way do you “have” to read this? For that matter, in what way do you “have” to comment and spread negativity to people who are actually having fun?

    • 18/04/2011 at 19:54 funtard says:

      Nobody is forcing you to read anything. Grow up kid.

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:01 Christian O. says:

      But… most game news is marketing hype?

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:02 Zogtee says:

      The challenges were a tad too hard for me, but I absolutely appreciate and respect the depth of this ARG and the massive work that has gone into it. Also, Steam has pointed a big fucking spotlight on indie games here, and I love them for that.

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:14 MuscleHorse says:

      It’s been a of fun – maybe we didn’t get Portal 2 for the weekend but seeing Glados appear in a number of unusual places and adding extra challenges to older games was certainly worth it. No one is forcing you to play/take part in these free extras.

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:21 qrter says:

      I think it’s been a lot of fun. The last part even made me start playing Amnesia, a game I bought ages ago, just never got round to playing it. So when this thing popped up, I thought “why not play it now?”

      Just try and follow the steps people have had to make to figure out the actual ARG – it’s nigh incomprehensible to me. I mean to say it’s been a complicated, intricate operation, not just a quick little marketing campaign. Lots of creativity poured into it. How people figured out any of it is a mystery to me, good for them.

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:39 Wulf says:

      I’ll concur with what people have said. I’ve talked about The Ball before and how delighted I was to see how clever the vignette was, so it was a mash-up between a The Ball level, and a Portal level, all sort of somehow crammed into one gestalt, combining the two in an entirely believable and clever way. And then there’s Defence Grid. The C.H.A.S. map has been one of my more memorable gaming experiences, it’s as hard as nails but thanks to Starky I’m getting damned close to getting a silver on it. I must get a silver on it, at least!!! (Again, thanks Starky! I owe you.)

      (I never realised how amusingly overpowered cannons were, but then I’d only just started playing with cannons before I tried C.H.A.S., so I have that to say in my gridless defence.)

      Plus, C.H.A.S. had some truly great GLaDOS lines.

      “You may wish to note the number of power cores left, it is a very low number, you should draw an arrow pointing to the number of power cores left, and place an exclamation mark by that arrow. Or even better, three exclamation marks.”

      “If this exercise were real, the power core that was just stolen would have been the one providing heat to the local orphanage.”

      I was also fond of the interplay between the Entity AI (whom I’m now terribly fond of) and GLaDOS. It was pretty funny that at first he was very friendly with GLaDOS, treating her as a training simulation, and then later getting a little aerated at her attempts at psychological warfare. Fun stuff. Really, C.H.A.S. has some of the best GLaDOS dialogue I’ve heard. Worth checking out.

    • 19/04/2011 at 02:41 Pointless Puppies says:

      Wait a second, you’re saying press releases from words of some PR guy from Bethesda talking about Skyrim is somehow less of a “marketing hype” than a cross-game ARG?

      I hate to burst your bubble, but 99% of “game news” is exactly “marketing hype” as you call it. And you decide to pick on Valve because their “marketing hype” in particular didn’t involve generic PR statements from the studio’s head honcho like everyone else does, but rather a far more involved alternate reality game that gets the community involved? That’s really absurd and not at all fair to Valve.

      Basically what you’re saying is, you don’t like THIS “marketing hype” because it’s attention grabbing and original, and would much rather have this OTHER “marketing hype” because it’s generic and it’s more “news worthy” somehow. I’ll echo everyone’s sentiments here and say you can kindly GTFO if this kind of thing offends you so. By your logic I can just as well go to any post of any game that doesn’t interest me and say “lulz stupid marketing hype post sum real newz!!!”

  28. 18/04/2011 at 19:51 SuperNashwanPower says:

    For some reason, everyone is leaving the comment “potato” on the nelipot steam group page.

  29. 18/04/2011 at 19:53 funtard says:

    It’s not the G-man in the background… it’s somebody else…

    http://i.imgur.com/Vr2tQ.jpg

  30. 18/04/2011 at 19:58 Teddy Leach says:

    At this rate, it’s being released 6 hours early. Slow clap, anyone?

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:02 Bilbo says:

      Where’d you get that figure? It was already five hours early before the potato-powered-speed-up-whadjamahoosit began.

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:13 Teddy Leach says:

      From looking at the page. Bearing in mind that I’m looking at the approximate difference between the projected and default launch.

    • 19/04/2011 at 01:51 Hidden_7 says:

      It may not seem like much, but for me it’s the difference between it releasing a couple hours after I’ve gone to bed, meaning I’m playing it Tuesday night after work, and it releasing Monday night with enough time for me to get a few hours in.

      That being said, I get that for lots of people it’s a meaningless difference, but it happened to work out for me, so I’m happy.

  31. 18/04/2011 at 19:58 fluffy says:

    So the game is released at midnight 00.01 at April 19. How unexpected! All because people idled in games and not because that was the release date all along.

  32. 18/04/2011 at 20:00 bascule42 says:

    /jumps through the window “Arrrrghhhhhhhh…………..!”

  33. 18/04/2011 at 20:03 TimA says:

    Edit: What I posted is a scam, apparently. Don’t bother with what I just removed…

  34. 18/04/2011 at 20:04 rino900 says:

    (I think someone already pointed this out, but anyway)
    I think this means we did it! Because we collected so much potatoes, we don’t have to complete the other games. as proof look at what the site says:
    11:00 – Reboot safety test protocol initiated…
    11:00 – Relaxation chamber locks released…<—IMPORTANT
    11:00 – Involuntary hazard mitigation associates have assumed testing positions…
    11:00 – Pre-release lethality assessment initiated…

    as far as i can remember, the chamber where the portal girl was locked in was called the relaxation chamber. This would mean that because the doors are unlocked, she can go out. That's exactly where portal 2 is supposed to start right?
    (I apologise for my bad grammar, english isn't my native language.)

  35. 18/04/2011 at 20:04 bglamb says:

    I saw an advert for Portal 2. It was brightly coloured and moving and my brain interpreted these things as being a possible threat and thus drew my attention towards it. Imagine my disappointment when it turned out to just want to make me interested in their game, instead of actively enriching my life in any way. I wasted whole seconds looking at it.

    I know that companies use these tricks all the time to get me interested in their things, but I fell for it this time, and that makes me angry.

    Valve are therefore massive wankers.

  36. 18/04/2011 at 20:04 Amun says:

    I just love how the promise of this whole thing was Portal 2 released early. The countdown says 12 hours, so (if it’s correct) it will release on the 19th anyway.

    http://i.imgur.com/IV9R8.jpg

  37. 18/04/2011 at 20:10 mollemannen says:

    I wonder how many people died trying to sit trough this whole ordeal.

  38. 18/04/2011 at 20:27 apricotsoup says:

    My steam account is listed as getting a complimentary “Defense Accessed Content”.

    Anyone know what this is and if it’s related?
    Had 5 potatos btw :E

  39. 18/04/2011 at 20:30 dakotarush7 says:

    the potato is a lie.

  40. 18/04/2011 at 20:30 dadioflex says:

    So… anyone else just waiting until it’s on sale?

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:40 gwathdring says:

      Yes. More because I’ve got a full back-catalog than because of anything else. I find it hard to justify paying full price for a digitally distributed game when I’ve got multiple AAA titles I haven’t finished yet, and a fair number of indie games that are continually on my hard-drive to boot. And there’s always Civ III/IV. I find this whole advertising thing quite fascinating the watch though. Valve put a lot of effort in. It seems like fun.

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:41 thegooseking says:

      Installing GTA IV so I can see what it’s like on PC (previously only had it on Xbox 360, but figured the Steam sale was too good to miss). But at the download rate I’m getting, it looks like I won’t get it terribly long before Portal 2 unlocks anyway.

  41. 18/04/2011 at 20:31 pixelpark says:

    Haha! This is the magic of Valve time – an early launch transformed into a delay! ;D

  42. 18/04/2011 at 20:39 d00d3n says:

    If a promotion offers a product as “cheaper” that could mean everything from a significant to a marginal price reduction. That being said, as a consumer it is reasonable to assume that the price reduction in such a promotion is not completely insignificant. If a salesman catches your attention with an offer of a cheaper product and it turns out that the price reduction offered is completely insignificant, most people would refuse to buy the product and would lose faith in the salesman. If a company systematically used this promotional strategy both sales and credibility would be affected negatively.

    If a promotion offers a product to be delivered “earlier” than expected …

    I can’t stand the ridiculous excuses Valve fanboys have been throwing at every criticism of this promotion. This is a clear example of shady business practice, bordering on fraud. The goodwill loss should be enormous! As a big time spender on steam (including most of the Valve catalog) I am rightfully outraged that my precious time has been wasted on entertaining this useless promotion.

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:48 thegooseking says:

      “Oh my God! A game developer is causing people to have fun! I must sue immediately!”

      That’s you. That’s how dumb you sound.

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:51 bglamb says:

      It’s looking like 12 hours earlier to me.

      Considering most fanboys would give a kidney to play it even 1 hours early, I don’t think that’s insignificant.

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:52 d00d3n says:

      Ahhh, the classic “people are having fun” defence to shady business practice. I guess you win.

    • 18/04/2011 at 20:56 thegooseking says:

      Since “the classic x defence” is a classic defence in itself, thereby nullifying your own argument, yes, I do win.

    • 18/04/2011 at 21:20 Sunjumper says:

      Following your flaweless logic d00d3n the only rational way to react to Valve’s evil coporate ways is to decline to play the game earlier.

    • 18/04/2011 at 21:55 gwathdring says:

      …. Typically, you can advertise a product as cheaper even if it’s only by a few cents. People do this all the time and it’s legal. It’s not false advertising to say “We’re having a sale! Don’t miss our exciting price cuts! 5% off all items” simply because that’s a tiny fraction of the actual cost. It can certainly be disingenuous to make it abundantly and specifically clear that all items are on discount only to redact that statement at the check-out counter or after the bill is signed. This is probably a significant part of why most coupons have an abundance of fine print–so they can use big, hyperbolic statements. I guess it comes down to this fundamental ethical question: is exaggeration the same as lying and does it make a difference if others can reasonably be expected to know you are exaggerating?

      Ethics aside, hyperbole is not illegal. Now that doesn’t mean that intentionally misleading large numbers of people is ok purely on the grounds that it isn’t illegal (hence “ethics aside”). But I’m pretty sure nothing illegal just happened. Furthermore, this goes two ways. Simply because you and even a large number of people interpret “earlier” as at least a certain amount of time doesn’t mean that Valve wronged you because their version is different. Likewise, simply because it was clearly an advertising gimmick doesn’t absolve Valve of potentially misleading people who expected something bigger and more concrete.

      But while I recognize that side of things, the promise was veiled in secret codes, and hidden messages, and a complicated meta game that finally opened up into an entirely optional further but more explicit meta game which promised nothing more than a vague countdown and a “Help Release Portal Earlie by Playing These Games” message, which is also exceedingly vague. I’m not invested enough to say flat out that people who are angry at not getting more for their money are out of line, but my intuition is that they were deluded at least as much by themselves as by valve. And I think the question of whether or not this particular instance is ok has to speak to a much broader issue in advertising ethics, rather than something unusually or unprecedentedly pernicious and misleading in this case. This is not unprecedented.

      Finally, I feel that whether or not something “wrong” occurred (and I’m inclined to say it didn’t), at the very least, it’s important to be a little more savy about advertising and the internet and not pay nearly $50 simply to get a game released a little earlier, maybe. My impression was that if enough people didn’t play the games and collect the potatoes, it wouldn’t have worked at all and thus you were basically gambling that you wouldn’t be the only person to throw down cash … I just don’t understand why anyone would spend that much money for even the concrete shot at so little, let alone that kind of a gamble. What if it had been a week early? You spend almost hundred dollars for your game instead of fifty and you get it a week early. That seems incredibly foolish to me, unless you really want the games in the potato sack.

    • 18/04/2011 at 21:57 Noc says:

      Ah, the classic “Classic Defense is a Classic Defense” defense! And followed-up with a ferocious deployment of the “fallacy fallacy,” no less.

      …but oh, yes. Providing a bunch of free content in a number of other games, and mentioning a few days before the scheduled release that playing them may get the game released marginally earlier, only to disappointing people with a release that is marginally more marginal? CLEARLY a shady business practice, bordering on fraud.

      It’s also perhaps worth noting that the early release was stated to be dependent upon people playing the Potato Sack games en-masse, and five out of thirteen games remain uncompleted. It seems probable to me that Valve is indeed playing this honestly, but overestimated the interest the ARG would draw and set the bar a little to high — that with a larger number of players, the release could have been achieved significantly earlier.

      If you say “Hey, we’ll do a thing if enough people show up!” and . . . not enough people show up, sticking to your word will inevitably leave everyone who did show being disappointed. That’s not “shady business practice” or “fraud,” it’s an honest miscalculation.

    • 18/04/2011 at 22:59 bglamb says:

      I think it’s important to note that the completion bar on the webby isn’t the same as the release timer.

      The release timer goes down by somewhat less than an hour for each game completed, so that at 100% complete, the timer will have dropped by around 12 hours.

      This seems to be a hard limit inherent in the system. They never promised to release it as soon as it hits 100%, and it’s clear that’s not going to happen. It looks like it’ll hit 100% at about the time the last hour comes off anyway, so they probably timed it right.

      The could use the potato timer at the bottom to fine tune anyway, which is presumably what they have done.

      At the end of the day, frustrating though it is not to have had it 3 days ago, I think the ARG more than makes up for it.

    • 18/04/2011 at 23:30 rexxar454 says:

      shut the fuck up and be glad that portal 2 is being released any earlier than it was already

    • 19/04/2011 at 00:04 Leelad says:

      What exactly are you complaining about? Valve discounting things? the Potato Sack? You seem to be creating an argument out of nothing.

      No one has lost out here. No one has tricked anyone.

      Valve got some hype for their game. a load of indie devs got a shit load of hype and i’d guess despite the discounts a massive money shot in the arm from this.

      Everyone is a winner…apart from you who got ripped off somehow.

    • 19/04/2011 at 00:25 Noc says:

      What he’s complaining about is Valve saying “Guys! We’ll release Portal 2 early if you buy the Potato Sack games!” and then failing to release it early as promised — or rather, releasing it trivially early in a way that is technically what they promised to do but obviously not what the purchasers of the Potato Sack were expecting.

      Which would be a totally reasonable complaint, if that were what was happening? Especially if your source of information was *this article,* which says, “The GLaDOS@home site is showing the work so far seeming being undone at a rate of knots. We don’t know why, we don’t know the result. But we damned well hope people haven’t spent money on a collection of indie games purely because they thought it would win them early access to Portal 2 that they now may not get.”

      …only, that’s not actually what’s happening? Alec seems to have mistaken the rapidly disappearing potato-count for some last-minute “fuck you!” from GLaDOS, as opposed to the potatoes being used for their intended purpose. After reading the article, accusing Valve of FISHY BUSINESS is a fairly reasonable thing to do…it just becomes significantly less reasonable once you poke around a bit more and discover that Mr. Meer’s worried “wtf?!” was kind of jumping the gun.

    • 19/04/2011 at 00:37 Steven Hutton says:

      @gwathdring I find your ideas interesting and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

    • 19/04/2011 at 01:24 thegooseking says:

      Ah, the classic “Classic Defense is a Classic Defense” defense! And followed-up with a ferocious deployment of the “fallacy fallacy,” no less.

      You appear to be under the mistaken impression that my tongue lay flat in my mouth as I typed that, as opposed to its actual location of being lodged firmly in my cheek. But that’s ok.

      I’d like to point out that the instructions for early release were to play those games, not to buy them. That included people who already owned the games, but they facilitated a way of getting those games easily for those who didn’t, in the form of a huge discount. Anyone who bought the games just so Portal 2 would be released earlier is stupid, and I refuse to believe that thousands fall into that category. I’d suspect that many more were, like me, considering buying them, but needed the right incentive. I’d call 75% off “the right incentive”. And honestly, even taking into account everything I’ve bought at hefty discounts in summer and Christmas sales on Steam, I’d say it’s the best value-for-money I’ve ever got from gaming even disregarding its relationship to Portal 2 (and also taking into account that I already owned four of the games).

      It is not a store’s responsibility to prevent you buying stuff you don’t actually want, though. If you’re stupid enough to do that, it’s on you.

    • 19/04/2011 at 02:50 Pointless Puppies says:

      Your “complaint” there is entirely vacuous. It seems you expected the game to be released days early, but Valve made no such claim. They, in fact, didn’t give absolutely any indication or implication as to how early they could’ve released it. It’s obvious you expected it to be released days in advance, saw that it was not the case, and instead of realizing that you expected something that was never promised you called Valve’s practices fraudulent and anyone who agrees with them a fanboy.

      Your line of thinking, simply put, is entirely illogical. Using your own analogy, it’s as if a store announces that “THERE WILL BE A SALE SOON”, you get excited and expect 75% off on all items in a store, then call them dirty liars and deceptive when you realize the sale was 10% off on select items. Your expectation of when the game MIGHT’VE released is not Valve’s problem and is entirely your own.

    • 19/04/2011 at 04:11 edit says:

      I totally understand that sort of deflated feeling some people have had after the initial excitement of this potato business wore off and it simply became a waiting game again. Calling this marketing approach “illegal” though is an utter joke. It’s not even misleading. I don’t see a single discrepancy between what Valve have offered and what we’re getting. Anyone getting upset about this has simply pwn’d themselves with their own assumptions and expectations.

      But then, I’m emotional too. I’m f-ing EXCITED that we’ll get to gorge ourselves in a new Valve game in a matter of hours!

  43. 18/04/2011 at 20:48 WASD says:

    “But we damned well hope people haven’t spent money on a collection of indie games purely because they thought it would win them early access to Portal 2 that they now may not get.”

    “Win” isn’t the correct word imo.
    From the announcement that Valve put out on Friday:

    “Help release Portal 2 early: From now until release, play any or all of games in The Potato Sack to expedite the launch of Portal 2.” http://store.steampowered.com/news/5308/

    How can buying that pack of games help to expedite the release of Portal 2, when the countdowns have all been scripted?

  44. 18/04/2011 at 21:00 JohnnyMaverik says:

    The potatoes are being harvested and overclocking the rate of progress, overall progress has been pretty much doubled.

  45. 18/04/2011 at 21:12 Teddy Leach says:

    Whoah boy, look at the spud counter!

  46. 18/04/2011 at 21:13 noclip says:

    So basically Valve has invented a way to print money, with the only minor side effect being that half the Steam user base now hates indie developers for “stealing their money”. Nobody looks good in this.

    • 18/04/2011 at 21:24 Wulf says:

      I’m sorry. I really am. I’m trying to have some degree of faith in humanity, so I cannot accept that half of the Steam user base has accused indies of stealing their money, because that would be the most openly unironically foolish thing they could say. I suspect that some are just trolling and a few really are… not… thinking about this very much. But I think it’s a vocal minority. A very loud, very minor minority. Sound and fury signifying nothing but certainly getting a lot of people to look their way and all that, yeah?

      But… half the Steam user base? Millions of people? Nnnno. Just no. I’m calling shenanigans and massive, ridiculous, facetious over-exaggerations. Everest out of an ant hill and all that. I suspect that the people trolling/yellling on the Steam forums likely don’t even number more than 100. I could believe that 100 people hadn’t put any thought into what they were saying, but I think that the vast majority probably tried playing the games and realised the value of indie.

      Let’s not paint a tiny minority as the vast majority.

    • 19/04/2011 at 04:40 skalpadda says:

      Now now Wulf, clearly putting together a great indie bundle at a great price with some added fun content and also discounting each one individually so that people can cherry pick what they want and making a game out of playing those games to release their greatly anticipated new title a bit early is a complete ripoff

      Valve’s evil marketing hypnotism must have misfired on me, since I didn’t buy the whole bundle, but I was still affected by this atrocious crime since I caved in an bought Defense Grid and you know what, I’ve played through all of it over the weekend and I had a lot of fun.

      Why Valve? Why did you make me have fun a whole weekend for 4,49€? How can I ever forgive you?

      I feel robbed. And dirty.

  47. 18/04/2011 at 21:24 SuperUnheardOf says:

    I feel ashamed that this marketing wheeze is working on me.

  48. 18/04/2011 at 21:30 Sassenach says:

    Was an early release ever implicit from Valve’s own material? I heard about it from RPS, so I have only ever seen the idea of an early release as being inferred.

    • 18/04/2011 at 21:41 futage says:

      I think you mean explicit? It was certainly implicit, yes. And it looks like (assuming the big timer is what we all seem to think it is) it is going to be released early. So hoorays all round.

    • 18/04/2011 at 21:45 bglamb says:

      The banner on Steam says “Help release Portal 2 earlier!”

    • 18/04/2011 at 21:58 JohnnyMaverik says:

      It’s already releasing 7 hours early and that number will increase. I’d guesstimate 10 hours early, but it’s hard to say exactly seeing as there no way of knowing how much time the remaining games will knock off and which games we’ll manage to 100%.

    • 18/04/2011 at 22:17 Sassenach says:

      Oh, no. I did mean implicit. I didn’t notice the banner. I thought perhaps people had just seen the clock and made a connection based on what they were expecting rather then what was actually implied (people do rather get carried away after all). Indeed it is not only implicit but explicit. My apologies for not doing the research.

  49. 18/04/2011 at 22:08 Vinraith says:

    I wonder if this potato-draining-to-speed-things-up was an intended thing, or if they added it to speed things up since the user base wasn’t finishing their goals quickly enough. I wonder how many people they expected to participate, for that matter. In general, the people actually playing the potato sack games seem to be about 1% of steam users online at any given time, which actually surprised me a bit.

    I’m curious. Certainly if they hadn’t done something the task wouldn’t have been completed significantly early, which would have looked kind of bad. I’d guess it’s hard to predict just what level of reaction you’re going to get to something like this, I wonder how much improving is going on?

    • 18/04/2011 at 23:16 Veracity says:

      I’m not sure it’s unreasonable to assume they’re just releasing it when they intended to, anyway, with a lot of obfuscated countdowns for hype purposes. Whether the endgame of the promotion was supposed to have more impact if enough people cared is a separate question even if so, I suppose. Take-up did seem a bit unspectacular.

      I know I don’t want Portal 2. If nothing else, I just bought thirteen games, not to mention Nimbus and Chains. And Max Payne, for some reason. But they were at a decent price, I wanted most of them, and most have had extra content of some sort bolted on. That seems like a win for me, and I assume Valve and the sack’s various developers are reasonably pleased to have my cash, if not as much of it as had I got around to buying any of this stuff at full price.

      I don’t like Valve games and Steam’s a crappy application I tolerate for want of substantially less crappy alternatives, but I can’t find the evil here. Portal 2 was obviously going to have a promotion budget. This seems like a pretty constructive way to have spent it compared to billboards and TV ads. Anyone who honestly bought potato games they didn’t want is too hopeless a sillyhead to worry about.

    • 18/04/2011 at 23:42 gwathdring says:

      I wouldn’t be surprised if the overestimated participation. It’s a fair bit of cash, even if it’s an amazing deal. But I would expect them to have a contingency plan if they made this complicated a meta game as part of the promotion, so I think it’s reasonable to suggest that the potato support was a planned auxiliary to give the community some extra help if things didn’t go as swimmingly as expected.

  50. 18/04/2011 at 22:22 camdenbuzard says:

    So lets see: portal 2 was slated to be released on the 19th. A Tuesday, normal US release day, etc. Over the weekend, there was a huge marketing to-do, involving purchasing and playing a sack of games, in order to release Portal 2 ‘early’. Now, some people claim that it will be released ‘early’ either by counting potatoes? By my math the potatoes will be exhausted at the same time as the timer. The timer will count down to zero at midnight, April 19th Pacific Time.

    Sooooo…. buy our shit, then buy our shit again at the appointed time. If I was one of the doubtless thousands that purchased the potato sack to help get portal 2 our early I would be very pissed off.

    I also wondered how they would get away with breaking street date with this marketing gimmick, and clearly, they wouldn’t dare. They never had any intention of releasing the game early.

    • 18/04/2011 at 22:39 jsbenjamin says:

      I cannot claim to have been following this at all carefully. But this analysis seems about right to me – given that the game is coming out when it was scheduled to come out (on a normal Tuesday-release schedule, at that).

      Why Tuesdays anyway? Just as there are no oceans on the internet, so too there are no shelves to stock….

    • 18/04/2011 at 22:48 JohnnyMaverik says:

      It’s already releasing 7 hours early and that number will increase.

    • 18/04/2011 at 22:51 Joof says:

      The timer counts down to Midnight pacific now, after 8/13 games are complete. It used to point to 7AM, and as the last 5 are completed, will count down to an earlier number.

    • 19/04/2011 at 02:35 viverravid says:

      It’s already releasing 7 hours early and that number will increase.

      It’s releasing 7 hours earlier than the original Steam unlock.

      It’s releasing at the _same time_ as the always planned midnight console release (in Valve’s timezone).

      Pretty clear from the way the timers worked that 9PM PST (10 hours early) was about the best that could be achieved. Which is midnight US east coast if I have my math right – i.e exactly the same as what is probably the earliest possible console release.

      So plenty of people feel ripped off. I’m happy I discovered some games I otherwise would have ignored, but I understand the forum rage… the implication of the bathysphere puzzle was pretty clear.

    • 19/04/2011 at 03:20 Joof says:

      Ohh, right, the East Coast is a thing. What a quaint place.

    • 19/04/2011 at 06:21 zimbabwe says:

      I totally get the rage at having bought a pack of dirt-cheap, half-excellent games that I wouldn’t have otherwise seen (I’d call it at 50% excellent the rest junk). Being essentially strong-armed into some game experiences that I now love and wouldn’t have seen is (honestly) bad to me on principle, but by god I’ll get through it. This is actually a little tough to say but I wish them all the money in the world for their crazy and manipulative “share the fun” plan.

  51. 18/04/2011 at 22:29 grechzoo says:

    Look the fact is, valve lied to get more people to buy portal 2 and potato sack. Whether people had fun with it or not is besides the point.

    They deceived people with the 19/04/11 = 15/04/11 code (100% proven lie), the quotes from the developers and the other hints, into thinking they could get portal 2 on friday. When in fact they never planned the release being anything but late Monday.

    I love the games i own from the potato pack and i have enjoyed playing them. But valve openly misled their customers in order to drum up more interest. (again i point to the TOTALLY incorrect and decieving 19/04/11 = 15/04/11 code, in no way can it be denied they are trying to make us believe the 19th release day will become the 15th release day)

    thats bad business practice for valve. (for most companies its normal, but for valve it doesn’t meet the expectation they usually set)

    People can defend them all they want, but i have backed my claim up with clear evidence, and quite frankly i see it as a fact that they deliberately misled us, and its left me feeling very disappointed.

    • 18/04/2011 at 22:45 Basilicus says:

      Or, using all the facts that you just did, Valve tried a unique new marketing strategy and, like many things that are being tried the first time, estimated a few moving parts more optimistically than they should’ve.

      But I like your reasoning better. It requires so many more paragraphs of explanation to get to its conclusion, it must be right.

    • 18/04/2011 at 22:46 Wulf says:

      The only person who has been lying here is, and to yourself.

      “They deceived people with the 19/04/11 = 15/04/11 code [...]”

      There was no such code. I’ve been following the ARG obsessively since the start and I can tell you factually that there was no such code. There was an instance of the date 15/04/11 that showed up a number of times, yes, this is fact, but anything that linked the 15th and the 19th was player speculation. Now if you can show me otherwise, fine, but this is how my memory recalls it, and my memory isn’t all that bad for this sort of thing.

      So essentially Valve said that something was going to happen on the 15th, and Gaijin said that we might have a chance to play Portal 2 early. Something did happen on the 15th – the chance to get Portal 2 released earlier than the 19th, so no lies there. The only failing is ours because not enough gamers were apparently interested in either the ARG or indie games, so we only have ourselves to blame for that. On Valve’s part it was an honest miscalculation – they expected far, far more people to take part.

      My point is that the only one that’s been misleading you is you and your own desires. You’ve internally linked the 15th to the 19th, but I can’t ever recall an instance of Valve doing that. They’ve been doing this by the book, but I think people have bought too much into speculation and trolling.

    • 18/04/2011 at 22:56 grechzoo says:

      thanks twilight.

      valve rule no matter what though right guys? :p

    • 18/04/2011 at 22:58 Wulf says:

      @TwilightX

      The ARG has had the hell trolled out of it, though, and reading that article I’m not sure whether I actually trust it. It might be trustworthy, or it might not.

      @grechzoo

      “[...] surely SURELY you cant assert that having it release at 1am instead of 9am is a GREAT reward for loyal fans.”

      I actually think that we’re getting it eight hours (or more) earlier is pretty awesome considering that Valve are walking a fine line with retail outlets to do this for us. I think it’s pretty nifty, to be honest, it’s 8 hours (or more) earlier than we could have been playing it.

    • 18/04/2011 at 22:59 Twilightx says:

      don’t apologize, this really came straight from the ARG, not trolls :)

      edit: Wulf… so mails from Gabe Newell’s email account are not proof enough for you? O_o

    • 18/04/2011 at 23:05 Wulf says:

      @TwilightX

      After all the edit wars… well, you have to think about it, really. I don’t actually recall that coming up. So I don’t know what to believe in this instance. I’ll let it slide but even the ‘=’ could’ve been a hopeful speculation where it was just meant to be two separate dates.

      And something as important as that you think they’d mention in the news, but there’s no trace of it. Guh, these trolls have made me far too suspicious.

    • 18/04/2011 at 23:15 camdenbuzard says:

      I fucking love it:
      Wulf: Argument based on memory
      Twilight: Facts! Here’s a reference!
      Wulf: I pooh pooh your facts. *I* certainly don’t remember that happening.
      Edit: After re-reading Wulf’s second reply on this, his answer is a much more reasonable “I don’t know what to think” so I offer my apologies.

      Wulf did say one thing that is so true, it’s sickening:
      So essentially Valve said that something was going to happen on the 15th, and Gaijin said that we might have a chance to play Portal 2 early. Something did happen on the 15th – the chance to get Portal 2 released earlier than the 19th, so no lies there. The only failing is ours because not enough gamers were apparently interested in either the ARG or indie games, so we only have ourselves to blame for that. On Valve’s part it was an honest miscalculation – they expected far, far more people to take part. You’re right. Valve did make an honest miscalculation. They honestly expected to con a whole lot more people.

    • 18/04/2011 at 23:20 Basilicus says:

      Motive, you idiots. Why would Valve betray consumer confidence that earns it millions upon millions every year in exchange for a one-time cash-in on games that don’t appeal to the majority of their consumers?

      Especially when you consider the dough that was spent on developing new material across 13 games.

      If this was a con, it was the least investment-for-return in con history.

    • 18/04/2011 at 23:49 gwathdring says:

      You probably shouldn’t start anything with the phrase “The fact is.” It’s typically a bad PR move, and most often comes before things that are not exactly facts, or in debates where the interpretation of facts is at question not the facts themselves. And statements like “Person X lied for reason X” tend not to be facts when spoken by those other than Professor Xavier who can reach inside our minds with ease.

    • 19/04/2011 at 03:18 viverravid says:

      Wulf: I’ve been following the ARG pretty closely and I don’t recall the email from _Gabe Newell_ to _multiple_ gaming sites containing the message “04/19/11_7AM = 04/15/11_9AM”.

      WTF? r u serious?

      Edit: You don’t know what to think? Look for “bathysphere” puzzle on the ARG wiki if you want to find it.

    • 19/04/2011 at 05:49 gwathdring says:

      Oh. Wow. That’s fairly explicit.

  52. 18/04/2011 at 22:43 Big Murray says:

    Sorry, but this annoys me.

    A lot of people, including me, put a lot of our time, effort and attention into this ARG. We all put our effort into it with the understanding that we would all get a collective bonus, as a community.

    Instead, it turns out we’ve done all of this crap so that these nine guys can play the game early, while we pretty much literally get squat for our time and effort. Something which we were promised would happen to all of us.

    That understandably makes quite a lot of people feel cheated.

    • 18/04/2011 at 22:45 futage says:

      Surely you’re not fucking serious?

    • 18/04/2011 at 22:50 Wulf says:

      There wasn’t enough people there to get the game released as early as Valve intended, they miscalculated how many people would actually want to put effort into it, and I don’t blame them for that. Blaming them for unaccountable variables would be ridiculous on my part. And I can see that they’ve already sped up the countdown in order to make up for this.

      And even still, the game is still being released early. They didn’t give a time, so even an hour early would still be being completely honest. And really, I always saw that Valve’s intent from the start was to try to get people to have fun with indie games, a truly noble endeavour that’s been lost on some. More’s the pity, in my opinion. I personally bought the potato sack just for the fun games within. That’s a good enough deal for me!

      And I say again, the game is still being released early, just perhaps not as early as Valve had intended.

    • 18/04/2011 at 22:51 Basilicus says:

      Is it more likely that Valve, a developer known for updating its games years after release for free and that single-handedly dominates the digital distribution marketplace decided to throw away that trust for a diabolical $38.72 per potato sack bought?

      Or…

      Is it more likely that Valve, a publisher known for taking marketing risks that often pay off, got overly ambitious and tried something new and unprecedented, but bungled the endgame by being too optimistic in their math?

    • 18/04/2011 at 22:51 1stGear says:

      And thus reveals quite a lot of people are whiny babies.

      Would it have been nice to get Portal 2 on Friday or Saturday? Sure. Did Valve overestimate the amount of effort required to progress this phase? Almost certainly. But to act like this is some grand betrayal, particularly considering Valve did a hell of a thing for those indie developers, is childish and stupid.

      Portal 2 comes out tonight, hell, in a few hours. Be happy with that and stop acting like Valve has seriously wronged you.

    • 18/04/2011 at 22:53 Tei says:

      well.. I don’t know what to say. But we are we have learned a thing or two from this, so is not wasted time :D

    • 18/04/2011 at 22:57 Wulf says:

      I see you’ve changed your avatar from a prinny, Tei!

    • 18/04/2011 at 23:02 rivalin says:

      Surely he is, and reasonably so.

      I’ve followed along on this whole thing, not particularly invested, but interested, and I’ve seen how much work a lot of people have put in; the references to the 15th, and the Borealis/Half-Life clues were misleading and clearly designed to get peoples’ hopes up.

      I feel bad for the people who’ve spent hours and hours playing these games, or bought the potato sack specifically for Portal 2, just to end up with absolutely nothing.

      And for those who say “Valve doesn’t owe you anything” “they never said they would release early” “you have entitlement issues” etc; they’re not stupid, they follow the media, and they know that early release was what everyone was expecting (see RPS’ with hindsight embarrassingly credulous coverage over the last few days). It’s not beneath the standards of conduct I’d expect from the likes of EA or Activision, but frankly I had thought Valve held themselves to a higher one.

      No, in the grand scheme of things Valve’s behaviour isn’t particularly awful, but it is disappointing.

    • 18/04/2011 at 23:02 BunnyMaz says:

      I think the biggest miscalculation Valve made was the Friday countdown to another countdown thing. I wouldn’t be surprised if the GlaDOS@home numbers have been lower than they would otherwise have been because of the number of people who saw a huge countdown roll off to zero… and were then faced with another countdown starting at 90-odd hours. I can imagine a lot of people seeing how slow the second counter was moving and deciding it wasn’t worth the effort.

      That and the fact that the ARG itself – all the exciting mystery, the discoveries – was largely abandoned by the community in favour of spud-grinding and Indie-game playing. I mean, looking at the ARG wiki, a lot of questions remain unanswered. There’s probably lots of clues been missed. Why did everyone ask GlaDOS questions on formspring, but no one asked Rattman any, even after he asked GlaDOS a question himself, thereby bringing his existence to our attention? The whole ARG lost a lot of the excitement for me when I wasn’t excitedly reading updates on the wiki from people way smarter than myself.

      Not fraud, just a miscalculation. A shame really, but it’s still been a hell of a lot of fun anyway.

    • 18/04/2011 at 23:03 Tei says:

      But you are still awesome, Wulf :D

    • 18/04/2011 at 23:07 VelvetFistIronGlove says:

      “Instead, it turns out we’ve done all of this crap so that these nine guys can play the game early, while we pretty much literally get squat for our time and effort. Something which we were promised would happen to all of us.”

      No, no, no, no, no. I’m as disappointed as anyone here that the big countdown on Friday did not culminate in the early release. But those nine people were rewarded for what they did in the ARG in the days/weeks before the “Help the game be released early” thing began this past weekend. And they deserve it.

    • 18/04/2011 at 23:08 Big Murray says:

      1stGear, stop acting like a child. Someone can post criticism of how the ARG has failed lots of people without being a “whiney baby”.

      In a few hours, the game will be released. In the middle of the night, even for American users. We shall then have to get up in the morning, as it will be Tuesday, and go to work. By the time we get back, the game would have been released anyway. If you’re the kind who can spend Tuesday morning at home playing Portal 2, I either envy or pity you.

      To everyone else … plans can be changed mid-game when it’s evident it isn’t working. It wouldn’t have been hard to change the dials to make it slightly easier when it was apparant that their system wasn’t working. Instead, the whole exercise has benefited exactly nine people, despite all the time everyone has a whole has put into it.

      If anyone wants to deride me for being a little bit miffed with the way that’s turned out … feck off, seriously. Everyone who’s annoyed has every right to be.

    • 18/04/2011 at 23:11 Wulf says:

      *head desks*

      The Borealis stuff was confirmed by one of the Hidden Path Entertainment devs as trolling, I was watching the wiki when this happened, and something in his post lead them to the breakthrough that allowed them to discover that potato/dinosaur Steam group and GLaDOS@Home, so that was genuine.

      This is why I hate… hate hate hate hate trolls. There’s so much trolling that’s going to be blamed on Valve. Valve… you’re too naive. Don’t do another ARG. The human race just isn’t ready for it. Too many bloody douches who’ll screw things up for everyone.

      I’m really despairing at this.

    • 18/04/2011 at 23:17 Basilicus says:

      Good crackalacking God, if you care that much, CALL IN SICK ON TUESDAY.

      I know, I’m a genius. I’ll await my check in the mail for solving all your problems.

    • 19/04/2011 at 00:07 Kadayi says:

      @Wulf
      I think the plain truth of the matter is that they actually made many of the potato winning challenges way way too hard for your average gamer. The Audiosurf one was absurdly difficult (I dread to imagine how much time I wasted getting that), and TWEOTW ones were obscene as well. Sure it would of been stupid if they were cake walks, but they should of aimed for mildly challenging Vs Ninja Gaidenesque. Anyway, what’s done is done. I’m sure Valve will be frank about the success/failure of things coupled with some sort of community appeasement gesture. No doubt there is much that they will have learnt as a result of the process. This the first time anyone’s tried something like this, on this sort of scale and complexity surely.

    • 19/04/2011 at 02:55 Pointless Puppies says:

      Yeah, sure, you don’t get “squat”. You certainly don’t get to play the game 8 hours earlier than was originally projected.

      Oh wait…

    • 19/04/2011 at 03:25 viverravid says:

      Problem with the “Valve were too optimistic with their math” excuse is that despite all the various prediction sites’ methods, ONLY finishing games has ever affected the counter. If you add up the possible time reduction amounts from all the games, you get about 9PM PST – ie 10 hours early.

      The game was probably never going to release earlier than that. This has been (semi) confirmed by one of the ‘abducted’ ARG people – Valve told him 9PM PST was the release time.

      EDIT: looks like the potato multiplier went up in the last bit. Also early unlocks for people with potatoes. Went out, came back, and it’s decrypting.

    • 19/04/2011 at 04:10 dangermouse76 says:

      Then be annoyed…. see nothing changes just your annoyed still.

  53. 18/04/2011 at 22:51 JohnnyMaverik says:

    FOR F***S SAKE WE GET THE GAME 7 HOURS EARLY ALREADY EVERYBODY STOP POSTING B/S CONSPIRACY THEORIES AND KILL YOURSELVES THANK YOU GOOD BYE.

  54. 18/04/2011 at 22:54 StumpyZero says:

    This Portal 2 “early” release thing is Gabe Newell getting even for all those fat jokes.

  55. 18/04/2011 at 22:56 PanzerVaughn says:

    Valve announced they were going to make their own commercials instead of going to a marketing firm.
    FACT: Valve makes games
    MOARFACT: The commercial they made was a large, elaborate game that spanned 17 other games
    ZOMGFACT: Everyone gets all offended when they find out their game is really a commercial
    THEONLYFACTTHATMATTERS: This was hours of content: music, extra gameplay, puzzles, maps, writing, achievements. I would have paid $30 for Amnesias bonus, or just all of the Glados Audio quips alone. It made every person feel engaged, from people running QR Cyphers through the Aztec calendar inverted over something something something, to people getting swarmed by Specimens so their teammates could ABANDON THEM AND GET THE POTATO FOR THEMSELVES YOU JERKS

    It could have just been a 30 second TV spot.
    Shut up and smile.

    • 18/04/2011 at 23:04 7rigger says:

      I agree that the Amnesia content is really good, I would have paid for it too (Perhaps not 30 dollars but I’m a cheapskate)

      I also agree with your other points. Valve tried to allow customers to engage with their advertising, rather than firing it at their faces and that makes this important. I hope this isn’t the last time that something like this happens. They even managed to make achievements matter by tying in potatoes to the countdown, almost turning your steam library into one large metagame of collecting.

      More of this Valve!

      *edit* I’m going to stop playing with italics and bold, as it’s clear I can’t make it work right

    • 18/04/2011 at 23:21 Wulf says:

      Okay, before I step out, I have to say thank you for this.

      Really… I just don’t get the hate behind all this. Talk about classical conditioning via hype. The thing is is that there are important lessons here on how to manipulate people, and how hype can be used to really mess even decent, sane people up if you throw some trolling and/or honest mistakes into the mix.

      I personally think it’s been great. Really great. And this reaction just kind of makes me sad.

    • 18/04/2011 at 23:39 futage says:

      @PanzerVaughn

      Well and succinctly put.

    • 19/04/2011 at 00:37 Mario Figueiredo says:

      Amazing the length some go to excuse Valve of any wrongdoing, even in the face of a clear fuckup by the company.

      I applaud the partisanship and ask you all to not forget to show the same mercy and unwillingness to see abhorrent behavior, when talking about other companies.

      And now excuse me, I feel like singing Kumbaya.

  56. 18/04/2011 at 23:00 khotchkiss13 says:

    Im gonna laugh when the countdown stops at 0:00:01 and Portal isn’t released early

  57. 18/04/2011 at 23:05 clever hans says:

    Personally, I doubt I’ll ever be able to forgive Valve for hinting that I might get to play Portal 2 this weekend. It’s their fault that I cancelled my weekend plans, broke up with my girlfriend, put the kids up for adoption, euthanized the family pets, etc.. WHY VALVE WHY

  58. 18/04/2011 at 23:14 Surgeon says:

    Everyone is really going to freak when they complete Portal 2, and the level crumbles away to reveal the starting zone for Episode III, and you were really Mr. Freeman in a tiny robot costume all along.
    Maybe.

  59. 18/04/2011 at 23:17 Wulf says:

    I think I have to stop following this. There are just too many people buying into the rampant trolling that happened at the wiki and because of it there’s so much misinformation flying around that it’s hard to stay on top of it. It’s just like those -testsubject[number] consoles. I didn’t trust them. The first time I saw that I thought to myself that that has to be the most epic instance of trolling ever… and yet the people at the bloody ARG wiki bought it – hook, line, and sinker.

    Just like everyone is buying into trolling occurrences that have been confirmed by various official people as trolling. And I don’t know… I mean, Valve had good intentions here, but this all seems to have backfired on them. What’s worse is if it wasn’t for the trolls having distracted the ARG for two days straight, forcing someone to step in and set them on the right track, they would’ve found GLaDOS@Home two days earlier. This whole thing is a bloody mess, and that’s the reason why I’m hoping that Valve won’t run another ARG – or at least if they do keep ALL of the ARG content on Valve controlled sites, all of it. The problem is is that we humans aren’t all trustworthy enough for this, where people think they can get their jollies by being corrupt, they will.

    Buying into the whole Borealis thing though, which was the biggest pile of nonsense ever, was just the straw that broke the camel’s back for me. I actually feel really sorry for Valve at this point.

    • 18/04/2011 at 23:27 Basilicus says:

      I haven’t even been following the ARG too closely, but what I don’t get among the haters is:

      1. Why would Valve sell out its consumer trust for 13 games that won’t appeal to or be bought by the majority of its customers? Calling this a con just overlooks the fact that cons seek to maximize return. The conspiracy explanation wholly lacks a motive.

      2. You paid $38.72 for 13 games that all got loads of new levels and updates…for free. Had those updates been DLC, you’d have paid $5 apiece for them, which would’ve cost you $65.

      3. It’s a new, multi-tiered marketing strategy based on a platform and way of selling material that has only existed for a few years. It’s not going to go off without a hitch or miscalculation. Welcome to trying new things. Doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be attempted.

    • 18/04/2011 at 23:47 camdenbuzard says:

      1) because they know that no matter what they do, no matter how many times they kick the fans, there will be legions of fans who will not only buy the bundle and preorder every game they will vociferously defend the company for everything they do.

      2) I’m sure that for many people that $38 is just a ‘get portal 2 early’ tax. Containing no intrinsic value except inasmuch as it *might* get portal 2 out earlier

      3) Fine, if that’s true, but then lets call a spade a spade. It’s a marketing failure if the objective was to get Portal 2 out early. It’s a success if, and only if, the intent was to generate money and hype from their fans excitement.

    • 18/04/2011 at 23:56 Basilicus says:

      1) Given Valve’s long history of kicking the fans, what with free TF2, L4D, and L4D2 (who I swear was a Star Wars character) updates that could’ve easily been bundled into separate pay-for DLCs that customers would gladly have paid to get. TF2 was bundled with two other games, for gods’ sakes. They could’ve easily sold that as a $50 standalone and people would’ve paid. Seriously, haven’t Valve racked up at least a few trust points over the years? What is this long history of “kicking fans” that you refer to? I seem to have missed it, but then again I was distracted by all the free and discounted stuff they’ve given me over the years.

      2) If you paid $40 solely to get a game three days early, you either have way too much money or you really probably shouldn’t be trusted with complex electronic machines in the first place.

      3) I didn’t say it was a marketing success. It’s obviously had middling results as a marketing campaign. Don’t argue with me about things I didn’t say. I won’t bother arguing back. I’ll just look around, confused, for a third person in the conversation and begin to think you’re not all there because you’re addressing points no one brought up and are therefore arguing with an imaginary person, which is worrisome. You should get that looked at.

    • 19/04/2011 at 00:06 camdenbuzard says:

      1) I hate valve so I see everything they do as evil.

      2) I didn’t, but I assume many did. Also see point 1

      3) Ok you’ve got me there. But, pertaining to point 1, I saw your words through the lense of my hate and so imagined a scenario where I could continue to hate valve.

      Man I’m really irrational about these guys.

    • 19/04/2011 at 00:29 calavera says:

      Any particular reason you have such a profound hatred for Valve? (not trolling here… I have serious hatred for microsoft, with some history history behind it, so I’m wondering what your issue is with Valve :P)

    • 19/04/2011 at 00:41 Uthred says:

      Yeah I feel sorry for Valve too, I often feel sorry for corporations who only have their customers money to console themselves with. Poor, poor corporations. When will we selfish consumers ever learn that the corporation was just trying something new and that weve made them depressed by not being happy with them simply for trying?

    • 19/04/2011 at 00:44 The Colonel says:

      Yes please do.

    • 19/04/2011 at 00:46 Meneth says:

      “weve made them depressed by not being happy with them simply for trying?”
      People have done a lot worse than “not being happy with them”. I’m guessing it’s a lot worse on the Steam forums than here, and it’s bad enough here IMO.

    • 19/04/2011 at 01:04 camdenbuzard says:

      Oh, it’s a sordid tale of Valve banning my steam account, refusing to address me like a civilized person, insisting I was a villain, etc.

      I was almost over that when they announced Left 4 Dead 2. I was one of the unlucky ones who followed L4D, and actually believed them when they said:

      And like Team Fortress 2, Valve plans to feed Left 4 Dead players with regular updates. New scenarios are definitely in the works as future downloadable content through Steam, but new monster types and new weapons sound like a distinct possibility. Left 4 Dead To Follow Portal, TF2’s Example That’s what they said, and that’s what we believed. The bugs and balance issues were ever present, but we pressed on. We knew a patch was upcoming. The days turned into weeks. A few paltry updates came, eventually the major bugs were fixed. The unlocked the other two maps for versus. We got a lighthouse level. Still, we waited. I knew my purchase of 4 maps would be vindicated.

      Then, they announced Left 4 Dead 2. I told my friends: This is the death of L4D1. They may release a few more little updates here and there, but guaranteed, l4d2 will be the definitive version.

      And lo: it was true.

      I’ve heard all the arguments. I know this is ancient history in internet time. But it still stings, for me, as the moment I would lose anything like love or loyalty for Valve. They don’t love you. They don’t care about you. They’re a company. This isn’t news to people, but it became suddenly real for me.

      Many, perhaps most will find this story whiny, full of entitlement, or worse. That is your right. I had expectations from a company I trusted, and those expectations were not fulfilled. This happened at a time I was already questioning my fandom.

      Anyway that’s my story. Fuck Valve!

    • 19/04/2011 at 01:17 Longrat says:

      @camden
      I hear you. I felt the same sinking feeling when that happened. Valve isn’t much more than a good games company and a pioneer in marketing and online sales, to me. It was the proverbial shark jumping moment. And then TF2 mannconomy update was released. Too much, too soon.

    • 19/04/2011 at 01:27 camdenbuzard says:

      This.

      It’s funny because I actually missed out on the whole mannconomy thing because I was already so disengaged from the valve product family at the time. They lured me back w/ the l4d2 $5 sale, and I’ve slowly built back my library, but I’m still entirely too torqued to buy anything from them at full price.

      Word to the wise: That 20 year old game cheating program “o’matic” is detected by VAC. So, yknow, don’t use it to modify your starting conditions in dwarf fortress, then forget about it being open, and play TF2.

      They’ll ban you.

      Then if you call them, they’ll be assholes to you.

  60. 18/04/2011 at 23:30 Koozer says:

    I hope when it reaches zero there’s ANOTHER countdown. Portal 2 will be bundled with Episode 3 in roughly 4 years time.

  61. 18/04/2011 at 23:44 Joof says:

    And with The Ball’s Completion, It’s projected to be released at 11:15 PM PDT

  62. 18/04/2011 at 23:51 Quine says:

    Much as I’d quite like to play Portal 2, the significant news for me is that all this tedious ARG rubbish may be ending ~7 hours early. Huzzah!

    It has to be a slow year when flipping release dates get turned into a grindy metagame…

  63. 19/04/2011 at 00:03 gwathdring says:

    -Redacted on account of ignorance and unintentional meanness.-
    It’s fair to be upset, I can’t ask you not to be. Your expectations were sorely let down. I guess I’m torn between understanding the source of the collective frustration and being somewhat confused as to why people spent hours and hours on the ARG and perhaps $40+ dollars on the grindy endgame all only enjoying it because of the prospect of a reward as opposed to the ARG and the indie games themselves… that doesn’t seem like time well spent to me, even if the early release date had come through.

    Addendum: If you did enjoy the games in their own right as well, I understand a lot better. Either way, Valve seems to have made a mistake, but that’s a lot of money to spend for a few days of early release.

  64. 19/04/2011 at 00:07 Foowahchu says:

    I missed the whole background behind this event. Is the potato collecting a jab at Farmville?

    This spud’s for you!

    • 19/04/2011 at 00:17 Rinox says:

      I think ‘potato’ is a play at a vague homophone for ‘portal 2′. The collecting is just part of the build-up. ;-)

  65. 19/04/2011 at 00:07 Eddy9000 says:

    All the opinionI can give is how this marketing scheme has affected me as a single consumer.
    I think the guys at valve should be aware if how passionate their consumers are about their products and they must know the expectations people have of them. I felt disappointed by the product of their last build up, as I was expecting something on HL ep3, and by this one because I was expecting something on HL ep3 or to play my portal pre order early. I will still enjoy portal 2 and pre ordered before I even thought I’d play early anyway, but in future simply won’t have any expectations at all from marketing schemes like this and so their attempts to build excitement and intrest in this particular consumer will be wasted. I think I’d be pretty pissed off if I’d bought the potato pack just to join in with this but didn’t, cos I was pretty sure it’d be a let down, so they’ve already lost a sale in my case and as I am only describing my own experience, I can only say that in my case their marketing has been misguided.
    I think my advice would be, that if you are disappointed by this build up demonstrate it by not engaging with future ones. Dont post on boards about them, just ignore them. Expect to play games at their stated release date and forget about HL until it is officially announced. Go and read a good book or something. Like Anansi’s tar-baby, we are attached to things we attack.

    • 19/04/2011 at 00:12 camdenbuzard says:

      Thank you for expressing this so eloquently, I share many of these sentiments but everytime I open my mouth pure rancor and bitterness come out instead of well reasoned posts.

    • 19/04/2011 at 00:29 El_MUERkO says:

      Valve could have responded to the websites that were saying the game might unlock on the 15th, a single line of GladOS waffle saying “It wont be that easy”, Instead on the 15th you had a load of bitterly disappointed fans.

      I’m not bothered much, I like Super Meat Boy :)

    • 19/04/2011 at 00:44 Longrat says:

      Agreed. I was really hoping for something more than that. I just don’t get why valve treat their fanbase so TEASINGLY. Why can’t they just give us what we want? Why the constant bush beating? I mean, just let me know what’s going on with my favorite series! Is it dead? Is it on hold for a certain amount of time? I get it, stretching the announcement is good for business, but it’s passed the point of good will, and now I’m genuinely starting to believe that valve are doing this stuff to troll us fans.

    • 19/04/2011 at 01:09 Eddy9000 says:

      It isn’t trolling longrat, it’s business unfortunately, although I see where you’re coming from. Valve use their consumers brand expectations to pulicise and sell products same as any other company. Someone in their marketing division screwed up and underestimated how much this unreciprocal use of their consumers loyalty and expectation would damage their image as ‘friendly game makers’, and reveal that they are interested primarily in profit, like most other businesses.

    • 19/04/2011 at 02:32 Urthman says:

      You expected to be treated kindly? By GLaDOS?! Do you know anything about what happened in the first Portal game?

  66. 19/04/2011 at 00:21 Picklesworth says:

    This is pretty logical: the auxiliary power is decreasing because the starch-based power cells have been engaged!

    I, for one, am happy they did this. I guess I have the good fortune of not being a maniac who takes everything seriously; I don’t think I should play potato sack games 24/7 to appease Valve. Because, err, that isn’t how it works. I just took this as a nice, fun little exercise in silly websites that I love Valve for making. Oh, and a sale on some really good games.

    It also reminded me to play Amnesia, and now I am going to have nightmares for the rest of my life.

    By the way, if we can have a video featuring TF2′s Administrator telling us we failed, I will be eternally grateful. Again.

  67. 19/04/2011 at 00:27 noobnob says:

    11k players on Killing Floor right now.

    Has any other MP indie game ever reach this amount of players on Steam before? Even during free weekends? If not, this should be considered a milestone for Tripwire.

  68. 19/04/2011 at 00:31 Isheh says:

    Bottom line Valve is actively trying to give something back to their fans, no matter if it worked or not. I don’t see any other big dev doing anything like this. I felt like part of something big trying to solve the ARG and play the games and get the taters. I’ve enjoyed it besides I preordered portal 2 a month ago, from my point of view this is all added stuff is for free.

  69. 19/04/2011 at 00:32 MonkeyTwat says:

    I think that the noise being made about valve cheating people shows exactly where the noisy people’s hearts lie. With their money.

    This isn’t about money. This is giving a lot of us something out of the ordinary to experience. This is enriching our lives with a touch of mystery. This is providing excitement tinged with disappointment tinged with expectation of something awesome.

    I can’t help but feel that those thinking this is about money have lost sight of the buzz that’s been shown all over the net. They are focused so tightly on their disappointment that they have failed to enjoy the ride. That’s not the spirit of a gamer if you ask me.

    • 19/04/2011 at 00:46 Mario Figueiredo says:

      I agree! We should ignore disappointment and always see the joyous part of things. For instance, DRM is a disappointment, but there is a real joy in gaming. Let’s all ignore DRM! Yes? No?

      Right.

    • 19/04/2011 at 00:50 Longrat says:

      No, people are mad because they were expecting an actual payoff for this collective cooperation between tens of thousands of people. I’m sorry, but a marketing campaign for a midnight release is extremely anticlimactic.

      I, for one, was disappointed by that, and not by the fact that I had to pay money for the games (even though I had most of the games from the potato sack from earlier sales), and play them. Oh, and the lack of, once again, Episode 3. If there’s no Ep3 news in this year’s E3 I’m giving up about it.

    • 19/04/2011 at 00:54 Eddy9000 says:

      Monkeytwat, this *is* about the money for Valve, they are a big corporation. The whole point of the ARG was to drum up publicity for their games and their brand. It’s nice you enjoyed the ride, but the ride was designed to get money from you.
      Most consumers are aware that the intrest and effort they invest in a marketing scheme is elicited through the scheme, by the corporation to make them money. The main thing that makes consumers feel okay with this is the reciprocity of it, have they gained as much from the marketing as the company? I don’t feel that the intrest I have shown in Valves brand through this scheme has been rewarded fairly. I think that someone else has got more from me than I have from them, and feel unfairly treated. If you feel you’ve got as much out of this as Valve has then good for you, I don’t.

    • 19/04/2011 at 01:52 thegooseking says:

      No, people are mad because they were expecting an actual payoff for this collective cooperation between tens of thousands of people.

      Really? Because the only ‘mad’ comments I’ve seen are from people who didn’t even buy the damn pack in the first place. I don’t particularly like being told I’m not supposed to enjoy something I’m enjoying because “it’s a con”. I’m enjoying it, and, as I said in another comment, the Potato Sack is the best value-for-money I’ve ever got from gaming. That, by definition, is not a con. It’s as if the loudmouth whiners can’t stomach the fact that people might be having fun with money well-spent. It’s totally ridiculous.

    • 19/04/2011 at 04:55 drewski says:

      I got a laugh out of the Audiosurf DLC, which I never would have got, and I didn’t pay a cent for it, as I already owned it, and I got to play Audiosurf again, which is a great game, which I wouldn’t have probably done otherwise this weekend.

      And now people are complaining because Portal 2 will release early.

      What a world we live in, where cheap games, free fun and bonus early game releases are a cause for nerdrage.

  70. 19/04/2011 at 00:41 Longrat says:

    Well, this ARG is at long last finished.
    The good: Some of the new levels were great (the ball had some nice puzzles)
    The bad: Way too much expectations on my part for this ARG, turned out to be nothing more than
    The ugly: a blatant, miserable hype up to a midnight release in the US.

    I’ll give it a 6/10. But only because the end result was RIDICULOUSLY underwhelming.

    • 19/04/2011 at 01:30 Shortwave says:

      So far I have to agree with you sir.
      But it’s not done just yet..

      My long loving relationship with Valve is holding on to hope.
      The hope for something epic yet.. Let me dream..

  71. 19/04/2011 at 01:00 oc34 says:

    Why are so many people defending the early release?
    It occurs to me that the initial 7am release might have been artificial for the sake of making people think a midnight release was some sort of privilege to work for.

    Technically it’s getting released early if it drops at midnight, but why claim that the community can help to achieve something when all your giving them is what console gamers are getting by default.

    I have bought and enjoyed some games because of this and my only real problem is that plastered on the steam store is the message that we can help to release the game early. Look if their goal was to help the sales of the indie games they could of done this in a way that didn’t patronize the portal 2 pc buyers. They could have done something like given us a special in game bonus or something for supporting and playing the indie games.

    Instead to me it feels like they held an invisible reward in front of us to reach the goal. I do feel mislead. I do feel used. I feel like they as a company could have thought of a more creative and more genuine way to lead people into supporting the indie games. Instead they created a bunch of early release hype for a big name game when it appears like there really won’t be any early release. And look you can say midnight is early all you want but unless we get portal significantly before console gamers, i mean a couple hours or so, then all your doing is saying that it’s okay for valve to manipulate us by holding back our release and making us feel like we have to work to get what console gamers are getting.

    But i could still be wrong, we could still get it before midnight.

  72. 19/04/2011 at 01:05 Teddy Leach says:

    I’m too tired to carry on.

  73. 19/04/2011 at 01:10 Angel Dust says:

    Lucky for me, being a New Zealander means that Portal 2 is going to be unlocked by the time I get home from work . I mean, I’m not gloating or anything but it’s not often that things like this line up for us Kiwis.

    • 19/04/2011 at 01:16 Eddy9000 says:

      I can’t begrudge you that, you guys have a hell of a time of it when it comes to release dates!

    • 19/04/2011 at 04:40 Shadram says:

      Same here. An hour til release, and I’ve got an hour left at work… Yay! Shame I don’t have time to play much though. On the upside, the reason I don’t have much time is that I’m going to see Paul (the movie, not a person), which is also very exciting.

  74. 19/04/2011 at 01:14 trjp says:

    I’m just happy that games I paid pennies for (Audiosurf and Defense Grid) were gifted some free extras – I love the portal track in Audiosurf in particular!!

    • 19/04/2011 at 01:25 Shortwave says:

      Yea’ I thought that one was really cool. Haha.
      I was going to go play some punk song then I heard the voice!
      B**CH YOU AIN’T PLAYIN’ DAT’ SONG Y0, DO THIS.
      I laughed.. I laughed good.. I did.. HA HA HA HA.

  75. 19/04/2011 at 01:16 Shortwave says:

    Here is my two worthless cents.
    I long had the game pre-ordered long before the ARG began.
    I did however have a few of the games already, it was fun to have some new content to enjoy.
    I did believe that the original countdown was going to be the release.
    When I learned it was not I laughed and was mildly annoyed and sad for a lot a people.
    A lot of people who were now raging because of “insert reason here”.
    Yea’ okay, it might be justified, it might not be.. Depends how you look at it.
    However something very clear can be picked out of this giant ball of mysterious madness.
    A TON of people feel really deceived and annoyed. Sure we’ve not seen the end of this yet..
    But soon we will.. But either way is that going to be enough to make everyone happy?
    Doubtfully, but I can hope.. A few days before this started I was complimenting Valve on not taking part of this new-age trend of viral marketing, leaking information and adverts everywhere I look.. (Providing on steam they clearly have the right.. Ha.) But this whole mess sort of blurs that opinion of mine.. I’m not a totally anti-corporation screw the man kinda’ guy. I have a basic understand of the requirements and models of marketing these days, be it annoying and intrusive.. I understand it’s required once a standard is set.. But, when they put up a countdown and a huge banner that reads “release portal 2 early” they dawn well do that one way or another.. I don’t care about legal obligations either..
    I will firmly stand on my opinion that releasing a game a few hours early is WORTHLESS.
    People have lifes and some probably feel as if they’ve already spend enough time wasting it on this.
    Which is what 90% of the people are going to feel like they’ve done at the end of this more than likely.
    A few hours early for a majority of people is useless.. A day early, two days early. THAT’S AN EARLIER RELEASE DATE.. Hours.. Seriously? Oh, and to remind you I don’t mind..
    I’m just being a skeptic and trying to understand all sides of the story here.
    When it comes down to it… I think it was a dick move so far.. I hope that changes.
    Not too sure what to expect.
    With that being said I shall contunue to humbly wait..
    The game is currently said to release on the 19th for me still..
    PS, I love Indy games and I appreciate at the very least the increase in PC market that Valve will surely pull in with all of this in one way or another.

    • 19/04/2011 at 01:48 Mario Figueiredo says:

      I’m a big critic of this campaign since the very beginning. Not just the promise of an early release, but mostly the fact it in the end translated to “buy a sack of games so you can buy another game… soon”. Overall — not here because it would have been useless, but with my friends — I denounced this whole campaign as sleazy and worthy of the worst companies one can think of. It felt like a conscious social experiment in the form of clear exploitation of the fans feelings and emotions for this company.

      People were had not because the game failed to release earlier. They were had the moment they fell for such a campaign they would not tolerate from anyone else. In their irrational love for the company and its products, they didn’t objectively judged what was going on. And those that may have done so, tolerated it, exempting the company from any wrongdoing by the simple force of their devotion.

      The arguments of “but it was fun” are an example of how it’s easy for a company like Valve to cross over the line of what may be morally (from a deontological aspect) acceptable and get away with it. And this is what scares me most about the whole thing. This type of experimentation into viral marketing done by companies who are known to gather a large, vocal, and dedicated fan base, scratches into new areas that we may one day come to regret. Not necessarily from what these companies may end doing with it in the future, but with “others” that are watching and taking notes.

      In any case, I feel your post warrants a possible correction. I think Valve did indeed planned to release the game earlier. For the company to announce the possible early of the game it’s simply because they are already done with it and just waiting for the announced released date. No one was working at Valve over time to release the game early if people managed to move that clocik faster. That would have been insanely stupid of any company to do. So the “dick move”, as you put it is not to do with this important aspect (to me it has to do with the campaign as a whole and how it was put). What happened is that the whole thing flopped. Valve didn’t get anywhere near the level of participation it was expecting and it definitely at some point felt like the game was going to release later, not earlier. From there they seemed to take matters on their hands and possibly set on something of a Plan B that included changing the rules of the game in the middle of it and get that damn clock to go faster.

    • 19/04/2011 at 02:23 Mario Figueiredo says:

      Meanwhile — and sorry for double posting — the thought occurred to me (perhaps because of the Thor game article where comics are talked about) that we are presently, in the gaming industry history, pretty much in the DC comics pre 60s era and before the Marvel “revolution”.

      That is, our heroes are flawless. Paragons of virtue and incapable of faltering, lying, misguiding, erring or simply be more human. Our hero companies (from big studios to indies) are role models larger than life.

      The day will no doubt come, as the PC and console video gaming matures, new generations join old ones and the collectively experience of plenty of decades of video gaming toughens mindsets, that gaming studios and gamers will eventually share a more tense and healthy relationship. This will be the time when this business is judged on a case by case basis, on an event by event basis, and gamers will be more assertive when things go wrong. When these companies become Marvel comics heroes; flawed, capable of error, sometimes even schizophrenic. Heroes the same, but human.

      Hopefully by then, when a company screws up, people will not fear pointing that out to them in larger numbers. Unclouded by devotion and giving more importance to the commercial relationship. Because what makes a great company can also be a large dose of criticism.

      Or maybe not. But I don’t want to believe that the entertainment industry (particularly the video gaming industry) will forever be a slave to a sort of Dunning–Kruger effect.

    • 19/04/2011 at 02:41 Urthman says:

      Mario, that rant is so insulting and condescending to all the people who saw clearly what Valve was doing, bought the games that they wanted, enjoyed the ARG, and generally were delighted by this whole thing.

      Really, we’re not sheep who just buy whatever Valve tells us to buy. We are responsible for our own decisions. If they offer me a game at a reduced price and I buy it, it’s because I wanted that game. If I don’t want it, I don’t buy it. I hope that you are able to do the same.

      If you have some sort of personal issues where you can’t help but compulsively buy something that is waved in front of your face, you need to turn off the computer and see a doctor about that. But don’t talk like the rest of us are somehow incapable of managing our time and money the way we want.

    • 19/04/2011 at 02:51 gwathdring says:

      I think that’s a fair assessment. I wasn’t part of the whole ordeal, so despite my rather long posts I have to cede at least the pure facts of the situation to people who were.

      Valve is remarkable for the skill with which they have fostered public good will and the sense of humor and detail that goes into their games. They like messing with people. That’s kind of fun. But it seems like they went too far here, whether or not participating players should have been more careful. Companies that don’t have any of that good will, humor, or love for their products and fans pull far more pernicious marketing stunts and scams, but I can understand how the extra trust people have for “a company like Valve” can make customers especially vulnerable when Valve does something even well within the realms of established marketing tactics.

      I really want to (and have already done so, unfortunately) say that people should know better, and realize that even if the people at a company are fantastic, trustworthy individuals who care about customers in a personal way … the company is still going to make decisions as a unit that negatively and impassively use customers as a way to get at money. That’s sort of the point of customers, and that aspect of our market is budging any time soon. I would like to say people should know better than to buy a whole bunch of games purely to get a game they’ve already bought released a little sooner. I stand by that; people should know better. But social psychology isn’t that simple. I’m sure a good number of people who participated in this whole campaign and ended up feeling shorted would typically exercise more caution and foresight when purchasing games.

      But the game conditioned people to want to see the end outcome. People got excited over the intrigue over the ARG, and once they started probably didn’t want to stop. That makes them especially vulnerable to the Potato Sack campaign And even if every one of them should have known better, Valve was expecting even more people to participate. That means they thought they could get even more people to buy the Potato Sack games (which are not valve products, I will add, though plenty of revenue got to Valve through steam to be sure) by enticing them with either the mystery game, or the early release game.

      After thinking about it, I’m going to have to change my stance and propose that Valve does need to find some way to apologize. Not necessarily by giving away free things. Preferably by much simpler means. And I’m going to agree with the first reply to the OP in that the main problem isn’t related to the early release. It’s more the way the potato sack was presented as part of this big mystery and that Valve put a $40 price tag on what they felt was a fun way to keep excitement running right up to the game releasing. It probably worked financially. It might have even worked publicly. I don’t think it’s at all reasonably to say 90% of the potato sack clients are upset. I’m sure a fair number of people picked it up as an amazing buy loaded with great games and are perfectly happy with it. I also don’t think it’s fair to be upset about false advertising. The issue is a little broader than that, and one could argue the advertising wasn’t false. It was just really good at hooking people on very little concrete information.

      But now I hit a dead end. Because the same problematic marketing methods used in the Potato Sack are used every holiday on Steam. Steam moves games at really low prices and gets people to spend more money on games then they otherwise would. Steam has at least two sales a week, and sales are proven to subvert people’s budgeting and buying strategies with enormous efficiency. Steam’s primary business model at the moment is filled with Potato Sacks, and I don’t think this manipulation is all that much worse because the people it worked on are more vocal about it all at once. And so many department stores do it all the time.

      I know I’ve bought games on steam I never played and never will play. It’s a problem. It’s my problem, too. I’m not going to blame Steam for my inability to resist. But I’m damn sure the marketing department is aware of the power of the discount. Most stores are. And it’s extremely easy to abuse, and I’m not comfortable with how easily it works on me even when I ultimately leave off buying a game because of the systems I’ve set in place for myself for budgeting and helping me control spending. It’s really important to be aware of your own gullibility and it’s causes and to defend yourself.

      I’m willing to believe that at least the inspiration for all of this was quite simply the typical fun-loving Valve idea of an interesting pre-game show for Portal 2. I’m sure even the inclusion of the potato sack and the early release thing were miscalculations as much as outright poor decisions. How many people will participate? What will the expect to get out of it? How much do we owe them for the windup? I’m fairly sure that people at Valve asked these questions, and it seems they came up with some bad answers along the way. I do not believe there was intent to extort unwilling participants, though some people seem to genuinely feel extorted.

      I also agree and reassert that the bigger issue is the future of this type of marketing as a whole, not the specific use of it here, or Valve’s future in marketing games. But that “future” is now. People are watching. People are taking notice. People have been watching and tweaking and testing and manipulating since before Portal 2 was in development.

      I hope Valve does something to soothe the discontent and learned something from this. I hope purchasers also learned something about the persuasive power of clever, fun marketing and begin thinking of ways to shore up their defenses so that they can be more like the customers who only participated insofar as they were interested in actually purchasing and playing certain games in the Potato Sack and the Portal 2 content that got added to those games (or to the extent they were genuinely interested in the process of the ARG and the reveal rather than a reward following the reveal). I don’t mean this to sound preachy, and I don’t think I’m better than anyone who went in for the campaign. Advertising has a lot of research and subtle power behind it, and until more high schools have prominent/mandatory advertising or psychology classes, most people don’t have the know how to rationalize and counteract the manipulations which can take event he most aware and intelligent people by surprise.

      I am genuinely curious what proportion of participants feel wronged, though. I suspect far fewer than an implicit or explicit poll of the internet or this thread would suggest. Satisfied people tend to be less vocal about such things. That doesn’t mean detractors like myself (or not exactly anymore) are(/were) right, but I think it’s something that anyone posting completely bullshit statistics should keep in mind.

    • 19/04/2011 at 02:56 Mario Figueiredo says:

      Urthman,

      Yes, I am fully aware what that — rant, as you put it — represents to some. I don’t write on a whim and I live with the consequences with what I say and think. But you don’t need to feel offended if it doesn’t apply to you. Neither you should feel like you need to answer for everyone else. Disappointment will be the least of your troubles.

    • 19/04/2011 at 03:02 gwathdring says:

      @Urthman

      You’ve no need to be condescending, either. There is significant evidence around that marketing works perfectly fine on people who don’t need to see a doctor to have their heads fixed. In fact, it works best on people who don’t need to have their heads fixed as it’s typically designed with typical audience members in mind. There’s a lot of psychological research that goes into developing marketing strategy.

      That said, I personally believe that most people involved here are perfectly content with their bundles and that this kind of marketing is more of a general problem than a specific one–again, Valve hasn’t done anything unprecedented in marketing. But there’s still a little more at work here.

    • 19/04/2011 at 03:13 Pointless Puppies says:

      @Mario Figueiredo

      Looks to me like you’re enjoying being offended FOR other people. Oh noes, the poor people foolishly buying the pack in innocent hopes that the game will be released much earlier! Oh, the humanity!

      I’m noticing a pretty big pattern here. Basically, the vast majority of people who keep claiming this is a “con” and “greedy” are people who actually aren’t affected negatively at all by the marketing stunt, yet you still see the need to feel “offended” because you’re assuming other people fell into the purported “trap” that you were so sly to avoid.

      I’m sorry but I don’t buy it. You’re painting a completely fictional picture of a legion of consumers duped by the evil megacorporation who promised candy and riches if they would buy some product they had on sale. Such allegations, as much as you don’t want them to be, are entirely fabricated. Had I seen people who literally bought the pack for this or otherwise felt affected firsthand by it, I would incline to agree with you. But the fact that I haven’t seen virtually anyone do so makes me think this is just all in y’alls heads.

      Do people a favor and don’t feel “offended” for anyone. Not when it doesn’t look in the least bit like anyone is actually being offended in the first place, because it just looks like you have an axe to grind with Valve specifically and are seeking out excuses to carry it out. And don’t, for the love of god, call people who oppose your viewpoint inherent “fanboys”, because that does nothing but highlight your inability to acknowledge the multiple legitimate counterpoints to your claims.

    • 19/04/2011 at 03:32 Mario Figueiredo says:

      Oh, my mistake for sure. You have to be right. But I need your help. You see, can you please point me where I said Valve is an evil corporation so I can correct that?

      Also, I must have some kind of personal agenda with Valve, a company that no doubt has somehow negatively affected my personal life despite — the horror! — of having faithfully bought their whole games and planning to keep doing so. So can you help me with a good counselor?

      I need someone capable of stopping me from being critical. Thanks.

    • 19/04/2011 at 04:25 Shortwave says:

      I found Mario Figueiredo’s and Urthman’s comments really insightful.
      Both very valid and intelligent opinions in their owns ways!
      I was expecting to return with a bunch of belittling replies directed at me.
      So thanks Mario for easing that stress for me and taking the punches.. Ha.

      I do agree at the very least Valve should try to fully explain what happened and if required, an apology.
      As you said maybe not free shit but like a “F**k, our bad guys.. Our bad.. Sorry.” is fine.
      Like really, I don’t believe they attended to do this, but life happens.. Were all human… Right? Heh.

      This didn’t really directly effect me at all but that doesn’t mean I should concern myself with it by the way. Theres children an eight hour plane flight away from me being violently murdered and starving.. But you know that doesn’t effect me so I should just STFU and GTFO right? Wrong.
      Joker.

      Stand the nonconstructive crap in my little comment world here please.
      You look like a fool, have some respect for yourself.
      Mario didn’t sound offensive at all to me, some people are just passionate about their opinions or simply express themselves more aggressively/different than others.
      The very reason I was expecting insults as replies is because I struggle to explain myself properly through text and often come off as a ranting angry maniac.. BUT YEaaa..

      Thanks for the replies guys, I enjoyed the read.
      Will be interesting to see how this plays out, ha.

      Watch everyone get in game and forget the past week existed. :P

    • 19/04/2011 at 04:27 Shortwave says:

      Pointless Puppies do you get tired when you poop¿

    • 19/04/2011 at 05:00 Pointless Puppies says:

      I never said you said it explicitly. I’m saying that’s what you sound like from the way you’re talking.

      Your childish sarcasm does nothing to change the fact that you’re pissed off at something that doesn’t affect you, assuming that other people who are more “affected” by this will be pissed of as well, for no particular reason whatsoever. If you want to continue that gig then go ahead, no skin off my bones. I just wanted to point out the absurdity of your attitude, but this is neither the first time you post absurd bullshit nor the first time you completely fail to make any sort of rational debate surrounding it, so I’m not particularly surprised at your behavior now.

    • 19/04/2011 at 05:12 Rii says:

      Some good posts here.

    • 19/04/2011 at 21:08 Shortwave says:

      I think you’re just an ass.
      We can’t be friends, I get it.
      Move on now please. Hahaha.

      And wth? I’m pretty sure I’ve made like, 2 posts before today. Ha.

  76. 19/04/2011 at 01:17 nuh uh no way says:

    I can’t believe we lost this basketball game we just spent so much time and effort playing in! We lost because we didn’t score enough points?! That’s ridiculous!!!

  77. 19/04/2011 at 01:45 Shadrach says:

    I really enjoyed the extra content in The Ball in particular, a whole Portal-themed series of puzzles for free just because of this is awesome. Also the science lab level in Killing Floor is excellent fun.

    I made an effort to get the potatoes in the games I already owned like SMB, Amnesia and Audiosurf but couldn’t be arsed to purchase and play games I have no interest in just to shave off a workday worth of hours from a release that will happen anyway. So, I have 11 potatoes, yay – they’ll probably disappear tomorrow too, basically it was just a challenge for myself if I could get those I was able to get, to feel I was a small part of this whole thing. But I can imagine others are pissed off, sure, but its never been said this is anything but clever marketing, Valve are not being “nice” or “cool”.

  78. 19/04/2011 at 01:49 Wulf says:

    Okay, after having a little think, I had to come back and have my say.

    This is all borderline delusional, isn’t it? Psychosis. Insanity. Entitlement to such an amazingly elitist degree that people have wrapped fantasies around their desires which can never be fulfilled, which is then the duty of another to fulfil, not ever to be fulfilled by themselves. It’s crazy. It’s padded cell stuff.

    I mean, let me pull up Mario’s post.

    Mario said: Amazing the length some go to excuse Valve of any wrongdoing, even in the face of a clear fuckup by the company.

    I applaud the partisanship and ask you all to not forget to show the same mercy and unwillingness to see abhorrent behavior, when talking about other companies.

    And now excuse me, I feel like singing Kumbaya.

    Wow. I mean… really. Wow. Just do yourself a favour here and read that aloud. Just stop, for a moment, don’t hit reply, don’t get angry… just read it aloud. Not quietly, just in a normal voice. Read it aloud and listen to yourself as you say it. How does this not sound insane?

    Valve promised that the release would be early, and it is, it’s going to arrive earlier than expected. But because it isn’t fulfilling some self-created fantasy of arriving extra early, we have people accusing Valve of being the next anti-christ? What did Valve do wrong? What is there to defend? There’s honesty versus delusion as I see it. People are being entitled to the point of absolute madness. It’s delirium.

    This bothers me because it’s real padded cell stuff. If someone from outside the gaming community was to read half of this stuff, they’d laugh, cry, or shake their head in shame, they might even do all at once and have their faith in humanity permanently damaged.

    The evil Valve anti-christ gave us free content. Oh, they’re so evil for giving us free content! And for not releasing the game on the day I thought it should be instead of whatever they had planned. What’s this, you say? The ARG had less of a turn out than expected? Well they should’ve immediately tweaked reality to fit my fantasies!!!

    I mean… goooood grief. I think some people just need to get up from their computer chair, go outside and take a walk in the real world for a little bit and realise that the fate of reality and their very own life does not rely on the difference between days/hours in the release of a game.

    I’m just shocked and appalled, really. This is… well, it’s bloody Sparta, isn’t it?

    (And just to add a kicker, I can’t help but notice that some of the people who’re angry at Valve for this are the same people that were in the pro-misogyny crowd, and amongst those who paid $0.01 for the Frozenbyte bundle. This speaks for itself, I think.)

    • 19/04/2011 at 02:13 The Colonel says:

      Possibly you should read this aloud… With particular attention to: “Delusional.” and “Psychosis. Insanity.” That is some crazy melodrama.
      People are just pissed off because a large investment of time and man-power wasn’t rewarded in a way that many people thought meaningful.
      It’d be a pretty shit treasure hunt that ended up with no treasure at the end. Whether you want to think of it as marketing for profit or helping indie developers there were definitely expectations raised that haven’t (yet) been met.

    • 19/04/2011 at 02:20 Eddy9000 says:

      Wulf, read a few of my posts criticising this marketing scheme and tell me what symptoms of psychosis and delusion I’m showing. If you want to be taken seriously (and you come across as simply begging to be) then write in an appropriate manner.

    • 19/04/2011 at 02:37 thegooseking says:

      I don’t know how I can ever forgive Valve for somehow conning me into having fun and enjoying the best value-for-money I’ve ever had from gaming. You can tell I’ve been conned because people are obviously too stupid to just, you know, not buy something they don’t want.

      Except of course, the people who were too smart to buy the games. I marvel at how smart one must have to be to complain about something when they haven’t even lost anything. I wish I were smart like that.

    • 19/04/2011 at 02:44 Mario Figueiredo says:

      Just do yourself a favour here and read that aloud. Just stop, for a moment, don’t hit reply, don’t get angry… just read it aloud. Not quietly, just in a normal voice. Read it aloud and listen to yourself as you say it. How does this not sound insane?

      Nice try. But poisoning the well is not going to cut it. You may want to try harder. I suggest perhaps — since you said you thought about it — to think harder. Or, if you are tired, to not think anymore.

      I also found rather entertaining that a short distance down the post you included another italicized quote (I presume) but that in fact is not mine, still somehow linking it to me. I want to believe if was unintentional. I take you for a passionate person, even if sometimes pedantic, paternalistic, and graced with an unusual level of self-importance that makes me stop reading your posts halfway. But I never took you for dishonest. I’m sure you will correct that mistake.

    • 19/04/2011 at 05:36 Skyfall says:

      @Mario Figueiredo

      Mario, I think you’re mistaking overexuberance for dishonesty in Wulf’s post. The writing styles of the italicized sections are rather different; speaking personally, I could easily distinguish between the quote of your earlier post (which I will admit set my teeth on edge a bit) and his overwrought “anti-christ” hyperbole. I suspect any similarity in formatting was due to Wulf not considering the effect of his post in entirety before hitting Send.

      @Wulf

      I agree with you here, but I think you (and most other people on both sides who are hurling recriminations) need to step away from the keyboard for a while. This is getting kinda ridiculous.

      Besides, Portal 2 just unlocked, so maybe people should go play it instead of carrying on this internet death-spiral?

  79. 19/04/2011 at 02:09 kitchendon says:

    I feel like many of the people who are upset just sort of missed the point – or maybe jumped on a bandwagon full of misconceptions. :)

    Seems to me that the GlaDOS countdown thing was a sort of sideshow to the main ARG. A way for everyone to participate in the story – not just those crazy/clever enough to uncover and solve all those puzzles. But then the delirium brought on by mentions of an early release overshadowed the puzzling and story aspects of the ARG.

    So many cool puzzles, tricks, and things left around the Web. II’m still having fun just following some of the trails and seeing what all has been done. Timeline on the wiki: http://valvearg.com/wiki/Investigation_History

  80. 19/04/2011 at 02:17 seattlepete says:

    This all reminds me too much of when the TV show Lost ended and there were a bunch of people whining about how they never answered any questions. Then there was another bunch of people saying “quitcher bitchin’ – you enjoyed the show right?”

    The people who are angry about the ARG are correct. The crap reveal ruins the experience and salts the wound. Not enough people played to make a difference? I wonder how thats going to work out for them next time?

  81. 19/04/2011 at 02:21 Eddy9000 says:

    Colonel, what would you accept as payment for a night of lewdness with a lonely overweight trucker?

  82. 19/04/2011 at 02:29 ColdSpiral says:

    And here in Australia, the game has changed for the worse – EB Games and GAME have broken street date. Unless there’s some kind of release-date lock on the console versions, PC gamers are going to be “rewarded” for their work on the ARG by having to wait for Steam to unlock whilst others are playing on their TV funtoys…

  83. 19/04/2011 at 02:36 Rii says:

    I suspect that in a fortnight or two we might see some interesting writings emerge from all of this.

  84. 19/04/2011 at 02:38 Dave L. says:

    Um.. Steam started downloading a 469.1 MB update to Portal 2 about 15 minutes ago. If this is the unlock, it’s WELL in advance of the Projected Launch on Glados@home.

  85. 19/04/2011 at 02:41 McAfreak says:

    I can’t believe this article was written in the first place. This is how it was planned since April 15. If the author had actually done his research and gone to http://valvearg.com/wiki/GLaDOS@Home, he would have realized that he was being stupid. It was known all along that the potatoes would do nothing until Valve started using them for “overclocking.” I am very disappointed in the author here because of the lack of any thought or research put into this.

    He obviously visited the site, but chose to blatantly ignore any facts, or he chose not to look for them.

    Sounds to me like someone just wants to find /something/ to throw at Valve, no matter how stupid it makes that person sound.

    • 19/04/2011 at 03:38 yutt says:

      @McAfreak
      Yeah, the full-screen Portal 2 advertisements, and RPS’ history of fanboy-like obsession with any Valve related news surely shows they are out to get Valve! Please.
      Unfortunately this toothless non-criticism is the closest we’ll get to fair coverage of Valve in the gaming “press”. They are all bought and paid for. Even RPS who I respect to give an honest assessment of any other developer has let themselves become far, far too close to Valve.
      Valve blatantly lied to customers for sales. I don’t even understand how this is legal. Yet trolls and press will come out of the woodwork to defend them. Just watch.

    • 19/04/2011 at 04:01 Mario Figueiredo says:

      No. Sorry. This is where I disagree vehemently. Valve didn’t lie or intentionally sought to otherwise hurt their customers. They ran a questionable campaign of which I am very critic. And on my personal case that’s the only thing I’m a critic of. Making a publicity viral stunt in which the “prize” is spending even more money scratches the immoral, and I hope any negative reaction will lead them to rethink this type of strategy in the future. I wasn’t happy to see Valve adopt this type of marketing policies that I never expected of them. They have been known for very well thought out campaigns. Certainly this wasn’t needed in order to promote indie developers. Imagination abounds on that company. It seems to have been misguided this time. They could still marry an indie bundle with the release of Portal 2, through others means. Or not do it at all and initiate a campaign solely for the benefit of indie developers (and theirs indirectly through sales at their portal, of course).

      But no company with the track record of Valve could ever announce the early release of a game, without that game being ready. They can’t have lied to you. You may want to believe otherwise, but I’ll tell you it’s on you the burden of the proof. It’s just not something anyone can accept so easily. My personal opinion is that they misjudged public participation and the whole thing just didn’t go as planned. But even assuming all along they planned to release the game just a few hours earlier (so less than a day), you may accuse them of perhaps — and at most — unwillingly raising false expectations through a badly planned campaign. Just don’t get into the slippery slope of accusing them of lying or doing something illegal. You would need to come up with clear evidence of such. Otherwise you are just weakening your argumentation by making it look derisory.

    • 19/04/2011 at 04:14 yutt says:

      @Mario Figueiredo
      What are you babbling on for paragraphs about? They have a huge ad campaign telling people to buy the Potato Pack to get Portal 2 released early. It wasn’t released early. Simple as that. I don’t have to “prove” anything. They deliberately deceived customers for profit.

      Edit: Since you’ve apparently not visited the Steam site in a week, here you go: http://cdn.steampowered.com/v/gfx/clusters/sale_P2_Status/6fd47753/page_bg_english.png

    • 19/04/2011 at 04:19 Mario Figueiredo says:

      Paraphrasing Pascal, sorry if you found it a long post, but I lacked the time to make it shorter.

      Try to read it again when you take your head off your ass.

    • 19/04/2011 at 04:30 wu wei says:

      Please, lay off with the links to fallacies and the attempt to deconstruct other people’s arguments: argument from authority is as much a fallacy as any of the accusations you’re making. That you linked to the Dunning-Kruger effect without any apparent irony whatsoever just astounds me. “Paraphrasing Pascal”? Nothing is more tedious than an undergraduate with a philosophy major.

      So much anger and noise over other people’s enjoyment…

    • 19/04/2011 at 04:30 dangermouse76 says:

      @ Mario.
      Mario I am genuinely not being rude here but could I ask your age please ( I am 34 ). You may think it irrelevant but I am trying to get some sense of the man here. A man so passionate about this particular subject. You have written many words on this.
      You must believe that your anger is equal to the ” crime ” I assume. I just cant help but wonder if this anger is a little soon as the ARG may not have played it’s full course. You may only be fighting with the current facts…compelling as they are.
      Edit you are 42 and Portuguese am I right ?
      That is some fiery passion you have there….I pity the fool as the great philosopher BA Baracus once said.

  86. 19/04/2011 at 02:43 NasonXian says:

    I bet that the potato countdown is counting down to when Portal 2 is released

  87. 19/04/2011 at 02:43 Consumatopia says:

    There’s something of a contradiction in the defenses here. On the one hand, it’s surely Valve wouldn’t intentionally screw people, they must have just overestimated how quickly the points would rack up. On the other hand, it’s hey, seven hours early, that’s pretty good! The two rationalizations–that this is so bad that it must be by accident, or that it’s not actually so bad even if intentional, are in tension.

    Not that I have any personal stake in this, not planning to buy Portal 2 until it’s on sale or something, but while it’s implausible to me that Valve would snicker evilly to themselves to disappoint their fans just for the sake of a few nickles and dimes for some indies, it’s very plausible indeed that someone in Valve marketing would rationalize to themselves that getting the game 7 hours early is better than not getting it early at all. It’s an idea that makes a lot more sense on the whiteboard than it does once you get in the heads of someone who’s gotten their hopes up only to be disappointed–not just disappointed that the game isn’t released sooner, but also vaguely suspicious that their actions didn’t really have the significance they were led to believe they would. It’s not entirely rational, but honestly if people were being rational they probably wouldn’t be playing video games, let alone meta-game ARGs.

    • 19/04/2011 at 03:21 Pointless Puppies says:

      Not that I have any personal stake in this,

      Funny. That’s what I’m hearing of everyone who’s complaining about this. The people who appear to be offended the most out of all this, incidentally, are the ones who aren’t even affected by it at all. Yet they assume people actively participating in this are offended just like they are.

    • 19/04/2011 at 03:24 trjp says:

      err – games usually release on Steam either at 6pm or 10pm UK – this should be out at (or earlier than) 7am – that’s 11 hours early at least…

      Killing Floor is going to cut a BIG chunk off too – it’s taking EONS to fill-up and it’s a very popular game (in the top 10 online games on Steam) so I’m assuming it will have the biggest effect of all the Potato Sack titles???

      Although I own KF I don’t get on with it so to keep the effort up I bought Amnesia – turned off the lights – am scaring myself rigid!! :)

      Maybe a little Defense Grid now tho – less terrifying :)

    • 19/04/2011 at 03:35 Consumatopia says:

      That’s what I’m hearing of everyone who’s complaining about this

      I guess you just skipped down to my post without reading this thread.

    • 19/04/2011 at 05:02 Pointless Puppies says:

      I guess you just skipped down to my post without reading this thread.

      You guessed wrong.

    • 19/04/2011 at 05:42 Consumatopia says:

      You guessed wrong.

      Well, okay, read it again to find numerous complainers who claimed to have bought the game. Read even more numerous meta-complainers complaining about the complainers. None of which should exist according to you. It’s almost like you didn’t read the thread there, buddy!

  88. 19/04/2011 at 02:48 Big Murray says:

    I’ve had sex for longer than the time that was cut off this game’s release date.

  89. 19/04/2011 at 02:51 trjp says:

    It’s worth sparing a thought for our console cousins who’s had none of this fun AND have to wait until Friday for their Portal2 goodness tho…

    Actually – err – nah, screw em :)

    • 19/04/2011 at 03:33 y3k-bug says:

      Actually in many territories it’s already out for console. I think it’s been out in Australia for a few hours now.

    • 19/04/2011 at 05:03 drewski says:

      Don’t think so? The announced release date for Australia is the 21st, unless they brought it forward.

      PC/Mac players will get it a little after lunch on Tuesday; everyone else will have to wait until Thursday morning.

      ZOMG VALVE ARE EATING MY CHILDREN

  90. 19/04/2011 at 03:17 dangermouse76 says:

    I don’t feel angry or ripped off. Just saying. This has been fun for me. Played games I would never play and enjoyed them, then get to play Portal 2 a game I really want to play.
    whoop whoop!!!

    I could afford all the games I bought so no issue. Didn’t get caught up too much in the early release chat and didn’t raise my expectations of the result, so all in I had a fun ride.

    • 19/04/2011 at 06:04 arccos says:

      Same here. I don’t feel cheated, I don’t feel ripped off. It encouraged me to try a few more games for cheap than I normally would have, and I enjoyed all of them. Especially excellent that the games were indie.

      The ARG was really cool. I didn’t really participate in it, but I did follow it occasionally. Its unfortunate Valve is getting flak for trying to do something interesting.The “release our more popular game early” promotion was a bit heavy handed, but ARGs are still rather new, so they get a bit of slack from me on it.

      If I had invested a ton of time “playing” games I didn’t enjoy, maybe I would feel different, but nobody was forced to do such a thing. Its kind of sad some people would burn their free time like that just for an opportunity to play a different game a few days early, at most.

  91. 19/04/2011 at 03:52 shinygerbil says:

    NEVER SEEN so many words about some potato or something.

    I’m glad I was disinterested in the whole thing from the start. Helps that I’m really skint and my graphics card is fried.

  92. 19/04/2011 at 04:40 lokimotive says:

    I think I’m a bit late to the party, but I have to say that the entitlement displayed by a great many people is absolutely astounding.

    To those people accusing Valve of some kind of betrayal, first of all, step back and take a look at the situation. Remember that, though it was never promised, on Friday the assumption was that Portal 2 would be released four days early. When that was revealed to be an incorrect assumption, people became upset. Disregarding the idea that they would have to spend more money to get their product early (which they were not required to do), please remember, again, that at best they would get the product four days early. FOUR DAYS.

    But alas, for a game that people had waited months for, that had already been subject to delays (which were endured), people had to wait those interminable four days. They tried to beat them by staying up playing video games, or more likely leaving video games on while they did the laundry, took a pee, or slept (or perhaps all three). Unfortunately collectively we only shaved off a few hours… Perhaps Valve knew all along! Those treacherous tricksters!

    Guys. What did you want? An announcement about Half Life (episode)3? Did you seriously believe Valve was going to market a new product just before their triple A title launched? Were you hoping to get a game four days early? Oops, oh well. Guess you’ll have to wait until after work. Did you want Valve to come to your home and service you sexually? That probably wasn’t going to happen (though the mystical nine haven’t told their whole story).

    And what about all the wasted hours decrypting the crypted? Did those people not enjoy doing that? You don’t funnel that much effort into something that you’re not getting a paycheck for if you hate it. This is all fun. A mystery. It’s a game. Also, it’s for a game. We’re not being denied food and water.

  93. 19/04/2011 at 04:49 Swanky says:

    I propose an experiment for all those people who’ve written lengthy passages on Valve’s ‘betrayal’ of their fans and the gaming public at large.

    Find someone whose opinion you respect and in front of whom you would hate to appear foolish or childish. Crucially, this person must also be a non-gamer who has never heard of Valve or Portal 2, except perhaps in passing. A fiancé might be a good choice here, or perhaps a stern father figure.

    Explain to this person (henceforth known as the ‘test subject’) as efficiently as possible and without nerd-inflected hyperbole, the events surrounding the Portal 2 promotion. Tell them about the ARG, the Potato Sack and the Glados@Home countdown and how they all tie-in together.

    Next comes the crucial part.

    Unleash your nerd rage on the test subject. Give them all you’ve got. Betrayal, broken promises, baleful capitalistic practises – the lot. Tell them just how disappointed you are in Valve. Talk about Episode 3/HL3 plenty. If you feel yourself waning, try spicing things up with cutting edge gamer jargon and biting internet sourced ‘hu-moar’.

    Finally, you must make a record of the test subject’s reaction. To do this, simply mark down your score on a scale of 1 to 10 Disappointments.

    Science thanks you in advance.

    • 19/04/2011 at 05:22 Consumatopia says:

      Explain to this person (henceforth known as the ‘test subject’) as efficiently as possible and without nerd-inflected hyperbole, the events surrounding the Portal 2 promotion. Tell them about the ARG, the Potato Sack and the Glados@Home countdown and how they all tie-in together.

      Once you explain all that, you already look foolish. And note that this experiment goes both ways–the nerd rage here is more pro-Valve than anti, which is weird and hilarious.

      The root of it is pretty simple. Valve said “Help release Portal 2 early! Play the 13 Indie games…”. But it doesn’t really seem like playing those games made much difference.

      No, nobody who doesn’t care about games is going to care about this, but people who don’t care about games don’t care about games, period. The developer of your favorite MMO is handing out free weapons to one favored side? Who cares? They’re betting on the outcome? So what? The game deletes your hard drive? Neither your fiancé nor your “father figure” will understand why you wasted time with those things in the first place.

    • 19/04/2011 at 05:43 drewski says:

      @ Consumatopia – Valve don’t get to control people’s expectations. They offered people the chance to play games and possibly release Portal 2 early. People played games. Portal 2 has been released early.

      They did exactly what they said they were doing. If that’s not enough for people, how can that possibly be Valve’s fault?

    • 19/04/2011 at 05:55 Consumatopia says:

      I think it was predictable that people would be disappointed, especially given the countdown-leading-to-a-countdown and that the “early” release was so close to the scheduled release.

      I’d call this more “bad PR move” than “rip off”, but anyone denying the former is being really obtuse, and hopefully doesn’t actually work in PR.

    • 19/04/2011 at 06:55 drewski says:

      Well, I don’t think it’s worked as Valve has hoped. Perhaps they should have made the more limited possible achievements of the ARG more clear earlier, but then perhaps they wouldn’t have sold as many potato sacks.

    • 19/04/2011 at 15:05 Consumatopia says:

      Perhaps they should have made the more limited possible achievements of the ARG more clear earlier, but then perhaps they wouldn’t have sold as many potato sacks.

      That seems to me like a more negative way to look at Valve than anything I said about them.

  94. 19/04/2011 at 04:55 Shadram says:

    I’m really confused. As far as I can tell, the “Computations needed” bar has gone up constantly as people play the games. And as each game fills its bar, the countdown timer ’til release has jumped closer to 0.
    The potato count has started to drop, sure, but as far as I’m aware the number of potatoes collected was never the goal, it was just a speed boost to the comp cycles needed. It kinda makes sense that as the number of games that still needed playing decreased, they scale back the “boost” given by the potatoes to stop the bars filling too quickly.

    I may be totally missing the point here, but I don’t think so. We HAVE acheived an early Portal 2 release, so why’s everyone bitching? Surely it’s part of the game (the ARG, that is) that it gets harder as you get closer to the end?

    And how do we know that something cool won’t happen when the potatoes reaches zero?

    • 19/04/2011 at 05:01 yutt says:

      Look at any dataset of progression. It was linear regardless the number of participants. Releasing the same day is not “early”.

      When someone gives you something early, that doesn’t mean giving it to you at the same time they already said they were.

      Why are people so desperate to defend Valve on this. I don’t get it. It is plain as day that they deceived people to increase sales. This isn’t even debatable by sane humans.

    • 19/04/2011 at 05:06 drewski says:

      If it was linear, why have games responded to “focus” campaigns, and why are Amnesia and possibly Defense Grid not going to be completed at all?

      Doesn’t make any sense.

    • 19/04/2011 at 05:33 Consumatopia says:

      why are Amnesia and possibly Defense Grid not going to be completed at all

      They were both completed about a minute and a half before the clock finished ticking.

      And potatoes are counting up again, whatever that means.

    • 19/04/2011 at 05:33 viverravid says:

      It was linear regardless the number of participants.

      I guess not everyone learns to read graphs at school.

      protip: cpucount.zapto.org

    • 19/04/2011 at 05:39 drewski says:

      I think Valve just kicked them both into “complete” state so the game was finished.

      But hopefully everyone is now playing Portal 2. 2,500 people are having fun and not caring about internet trolls.

    • 19/04/2011 at 05:45 Consumatopia says:

      I think Valve just kicked them both into “complete” state so the game was finished.

      So they just decided in advance when it was to be released and released it then?

    • 19/04/2011 at 06:52 drewski says:

      No. The timer has been continually adjusted as other games in the potato sack have reached “complete”. When the countdown was about to finish, there was no point waiting for the final two, uncompleted games to be made “complete” so Valve flicked the switch and fudged the last two.

      If they’d reached complete yesterday, I suspect another hour, hour and a half or so would have been knocked off the release time. But they didn’t.

  95. 19/04/2011 at 04:58 yutt says:

    What is with all the people going out of their way to attack people who were disappointed by this? People are typing up dissertations about how offended they are that other people didn’t enjoy the finale of this event. You guys seriously are that detached from being able to empathize with fellow humans? No one, other than you exaggerating trolls, are claiming this is the end of the world, or that Valve “held a gun to their head”.

    It was just a blatantly deceptive marketing stunt.

    • 19/04/2011 at 05:11 Swanky says:

      Now who’s being a troll? I can empathise plenty with fellow human beings, just not those ineffably whiny ones who are crying over a marketing experiment of which they didn’t personally approve.

    • 19/04/2011 at 05:13 drewski says:

      People find you lot hilarious because you’re calling a discounted bundle of excellent indie titles, free DLC for 13 games with fun content and some good jokes, and an early release time for one of the most hyped titles this year a “blatantly deceptive marketing stunt”.

      I mean, you’re entitled to your opinion at all, but a lot of people are going to find it ridiculous, which is why you’re going to get reactions.

  96. 19/04/2011 at 05:02 bglamb says:

    So the people who got all the potatoes not only got to play the game before the rest of us, but also got given the Valve Complete Pack for free.

    How’s that for all y’all haters? Enough bang for your buck?

    • 19/04/2011 at 05:06 yutt says:

      Yes, a few dozen people got ungiftable copies of games they already own. That completely makes up for misleading tens of thousands into buying the Potato Pack under false pretenses.

      It is certainly *bizarre* but not any better.

    • 19/04/2011 at 05:12 negativedge says:

      How was anyone in the world “deceived into buying the Potato Sack?” Was anyone really stupid enough to spend money simply to be able to participate in the raising of bars? I mean, you realize you can buy and play Portal 2 without owning the potato games, right? Or are you telling me people thought that the play time the contributed would be–no. they aren’t that stupid? ….right?

      gamers.

    • 19/04/2011 at 05:13 bglamb says:

      You can tell who the stupid ones are by how loudly they are moaning! =)

    • 19/04/2011 at 05:34 yutt says:

      Thanks, I guess I am “stupid” for disagreeing with you? That’s cool I guess. I didn’t buy the Potato Pack, if that is what you are trying to imply.

    • 19/04/2011 at 05:38 bglamb says:

      You’re stupid for saying that tens of thousands of people bought the sack to play portal 2 early. I assumed you were just extrapolating out from a sample of one, but it appears you just pulled the number out of your arse.

  97. 19/04/2011 at 05:02 DOLBYdigital says:

    Hmmm people seem to be missing the point….. PORTAL 2 IS RELEASING IN LESS THAN 30 mins!! sweet :)

    Could care less about everything else, I had fun playing some Indie games that I already owned with larger player bases than normal. What is there to get sour about? Who knows…. play games and be happy people… life is too short to complain about trivial things like this, imo

  98. 19/04/2011 at 05:04 DJ Phantoon says:

    Honestly, I think some of you just plain hate Valve.

  99. 19/04/2011 at 05:07 DRoseDARs says:

    Well the countdown is down to ~30mins so… shut up, all of you. :P No more whining, no more bitching, no more name-calling and ha-rumphing. Just shut up, play whatever game non-Portal, non-Potato Sack game you’re going to play, and wait until we see what’s at the end of this rainbow. I’m hoping for a potato-themed ticklish penguin video…

  100. 19/04/2011 at 05:16 mogofogo says:

    I’m sorry I have to ask this, but why is Kotaku so angry about this?

    • 19/04/2011 at 05:20 bglamb says:

      The same reason the rest of the {edited} are. Because someone there bought the potato sack in order to play Portal 2 a week early?
      D’oh!

    • 19/04/2011 at 05:25 MasterBoo says:

      Couldn’t figure it myself :S

      And it’s exactly like the XKCD comic (http://xkcd.com/359/) people have been posting. Just look at the comments of that article (http://kotaku.com/#!5793317/did-valve-just-take-everyone-for-a-ride) – everyone are saying exactly the opposite of what Kotaku is saying and criticizing them for criticizing valve.

    • 19/04/2011 at 05:39 Skyfall says:

      @bglamb: “The same reason the rest of the ‘tards are. Because someone there bought the potato sack in order to play Portal 2 a week early?”

      Since when was “tards” acceptable language on this blog? It doesn’t actually lend any credence or weight to your opinion; rather the opposite, really.

    • 19/04/2011 at 05:43 bglamb says:

      I apologise completely if my language offended anyone. It wasn’t my intention.

      Someone else told me the other day that they considered that word pretty offensive, but it’ was honestly the first time I’d ever heard someone express that view.

      If it’s really out of line, I’m sorry. Where I come from it’s just another word for someone who is slow. (hence ‘retarded’, or ‘tard’)

    • 19/04/2011 at 07:05 mogofogo says:

      Well I suppose I see some reason why there should be some anger,
      but that Kotaku article came across as ButtHurt more then anything else.
      Either Huzzah for Portal 2!
      And the great weekend of game buying its been, thanks to RPS and Steam:
      Max Payne 1 & 2,
      Just Cause 2,
      Magicka
      Bad Company 2
      Gonna have my hands full for a while.

      PS: TotalBiscuit if you’re reading this, your Magicka Co-Op videos are just bloody awesome.
      Long Live The Dark Wizard!

  101. 19/04/2011 at 05:27 Grape Flavor says:

    I don’t have the patience for ARGs, and this thread seems highly contentious, so if someone would just explain to me when Episode 3 is going to be released that’d be great.

    Best regards,
    D.G. Flavor

  102. 19/04/2011 at 05:28 DRoseDARs says:

    Not that anyone here cares, but it’s 9:27pm pacific and Steam is “Decrypting Portal 2 files” on my laptop now… probably doesn’t mean anything.

  103. 19/04/2011 at 05:28 MasterBoo says:

    All games completed! One minute remains.

    EDIT: WOOHOO DECRYPTING PORTAL 2

  104. 19/04/2011 at 05:30 bglamb says:

    Well, time for me to head to bed.

    Night night everyone!

  105. 19/04/2011 at 05:32 DOLBYdigital says:

    Sweet and I’m in!
    Definitely going to work from home tomorrow, haven’t played a game into night like this in a long time :)

  106. 19/04/2011 at 05:33 Muzman says:

    I’m not sure I understand all this but it seems: Someone said (kinda) if you buy some other games and play them a lot (playing some meta game) they’ll release the game you really want to play early?
    And you thought this would turn out to be true and influence reality in some way?

    ..the fuck is wrong with you people?

    • 19/04/2011 at 05:35 kibayasu says:

      Well, besides the fact that is has turned out to be true, its mostly just that the people raging at Valve wanted to be playing Portal on Saturday.

    • 19/04/2011 at 05:37 yutt says:

      http://i.imgur.com/Hmn4i.png

      @kibayasu since when does “releasing early” mean “releasing at the same time as in stores, and on consoles, on the same day it was scheduled to release”?

      Why are people being so obtuse about it? It is like you feel some sort of sexual gratification over being willfully obstinate. Is some meager feeling of self-superiority really that addictive to everyone?

    • 19/04/2011 at 06:14 Shadram says:

      It is early, though. The scheduled release is 21st April, if the banners all over this site and half the web are accurate and, according to my watch at least, today is the 19th April (and I’m at the front end of the date line, being in New Zealand). I don’t really need to employ much of what I was taught in Maths lectures to figure out that this means the game is released 2 days ahead of when it was advertised to be…

    • 19/04/2011 at 06:33 JohnnyMaverik says:

      It released early, the game is beautiful, Valve are gods, end of.

  107. 19/04/2011 at 05:38 Rii says:

    I cbf finding the comment in question, it’s probably not even in this particular thread, but someone commented on the the lack of professionalism shown by RPS in covering this as they have, and I would have to agree with that criticism. It’s a little unseemly.

    • 19/04/2011 at 08:00 TheApologist says:

      If a bit of over-excitement and getting led up a few blind alleys in the fun of it all is ‘unprofessional’ then I’ll take unprofessional.

      I expect RPS to produce critiques once the thing is done and dusted, but I wouldn’t want them to lose their sense of optimism and joy just to cater for internet cynicism.

  108. 19/04/2011 at 05:39 Item! says:

    Decrypting now – though oddly, the counter on the GlaDOS site just jumped back up to an hour to go…

  109. 19/04/2011 at 05:39 MortTheInsane says:

    Decrypting. So. Slowly.

  110. 19/04/2011 at 05:42 viverravid says:

    Decrypts. Hit Play.

    “Incomplete installation of Portal 2 (10)” error message comes up.

    Haha. Trolled by Valve. The error message means their servers can’t cope. Mightn’t they have predicted extreme load at this point?

    • 19/04/2011 at 05:50 drewski says:

      Maybe they thought everyone would nerdrage off to bed.

    • 19/04/2011 at 05:56 lokimotive says:

      I got that too. Here’s what happened to me, decrypting stopped at 33% and closed, Steam downloaded an update, “Incomplete Installation (10).” Oh. So I deleted the local content and am now redownloading it the 11 gig package which will apparently be done in about two hours.
      C’est la valve.

      Edit: Apparently, DON’T DO THIS I’M DUMB.

  111. 19/04/2011 at 05:42 MasterBoo says:

    “Incomplete Installation (10)”.

    Seems others are getting this as well.
    Bah.

    • 19/04/2011 at 05:59 Skyfall says:

      @MasterBoo

      The servers are thrashed, is all. Keep hitting the “Play” button and it will work eventually.

    • 19/04/2011 at 06:05 Muzman says:

      They should have a little bar that increases the more you hit the button (possibly with little spud shaped achievements along the way).

  112. 19/04/2011 at 05:49 DRoseDARs says:

    Still stuck at 12%

    I guess I’ll go take that shit I’ve been putting off for 2 hours now since the decryption is taking a dump… GLaDOS, you are a cruel one.*sigh*

  113. 19/04/2011 at 05:56 pinkled5 says:

    By the time decryption is complete I will be able to play Portal 2 a day after its official release date…

  114. 19/04/2011 at 06:03 blind_boy_grunt says:

    so just out of curiosity. What date has it been released in the usa? Same as retail or not?

    • 19/04/2011 at 06:05 pinkled5 says:

      Well, if you’re in Hawaii it’s several hours early. If you’re on the East Coast it’s well into the wee early hours of the street date…

    • 19/04/2011 at 06:24 Chesterton says:

      For those of us on the West Coast, it came out about 2 hours before midnight. So, I suppose that’s early….right?

  115. 19/04/2011 at 06:15 pinkled5 says:

    Ha ha!!! I received the “Incomplete installation of Portal 2 error”! Joke is on us!!

  116. 19/04/2011 at 06:26 Item! says:

    Works fine for me. HTH

  117. 19/04/2011 at 06:28 Wedge says:

    Ahahaha. This DLC. GG Valve.

  118. 19/04/2011 at 06:41 arghstupid says:

    Blimey, anyone who got all the potatoes should check their game list.
    Edit – as in I now own everything by valve.

  119. 19/04/2011 at 06:47 DRoseDARs says:

    Evidently, 12% 13% 14% and 32% are the percentages people are seeing and seemingly getting stuck on. Turns out the load bar is just screwy. Goes from 32% to 100% after *varies by computer* minutes have passed.

    This Steam thread helped make me feel a little better about this stupid slow decryption:
    http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1847475

  120. 19/04/2011 at 06:54 pinkled5 says:

    Ok, so I’ve played through the first few levels. The writing is pretty bad when it comes to the voice in the test chambers. Nothing snappy, witty and funny as in the first Portal. Just some ‘trying too hard’, ‘over the top’, ‘groaners’ of dialog. Hope it improves…

    • 19/04/2011 at 06:56 yutt says:

      What… I’ve been playing and the writing is brilliant. Do you watch Monty Python and complain it isn’t serious enough?

    • 19/04/2011 at 07:54 pinkled5 says:

      I love Monty Python, but it seems rather out of place here. Is this a test chamber or an evening at the Improv? The charm of GLaDOS in Portal 1 was that she was ironic and sarcastic without necessarily intending to be so. She had ventured outside of her intended programming and the result was unexpected and humerous. She wasn’t barraging you with one-liners like a bad 80′s movie…

      I will say, however, that the little orb character is quite charming and funny.

  121. 19/04/2011 at 07:24 DRoseDARs says:

    I keep expecting headcrabs to jump out at me… :D

    …

    D:

    • 19/04/2011 at 08:18 DRoseDARs says:

      Minor Dialog Spoiler:

      Something better than headcrabs: GLaDOS keeps making fat jokes at my expense. Oh how I missed you, you bitch. <3

  122. 19/04/2011 at 08:48 Stupoider says:

    With each watch of this video, this whole debacle becomes more and more depressing.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldPSITyKlaw&feature=channel_video_title

  123. 19/04/2011 at 08:56 zal says:

    I like this ARG thing now that I just read about it. For me it went something like
    1)don’t do anything
    2)don’t buy some games I don’t want
    3)portal 2 early??

    • 19/04/2011 at 09:07 pinkled5 says:

      Anyone care to venture a guess as to when Portal 2 would have launched if no one had purchased the Potato Sack games? The official word was 9am Tuesday, but I wonder…

    • 19/04/2011 at 09:47 Joof says:

      If I remember the default countdown correctly, 9AM Tuesday seems about right.

    • 19/04/2011 at 11:03 arghstupid says:

      given they were tweaking the completion rates of the games even before the potato thing and that they booked flights for the nine ‘disappeared’ to get them to valve on Monday, I’m guessing it was always planned to release within a fairly small window, if not at a specific time.

  124. 19/04/2011 at 11:44 Delusibeta says:

    There’s also one more question: WTF is the Potato Pack still available?

    • 19/04/2011 at 14:04 bwion says:

      Contrary to popular belief, all other games didn’t cease to exist upon the release of Portal 2.

    • 19/04/2011 at 18:53 PanzerVaughn says:

      They’re keeping all the Portal-content too, right?
      I never got around to Amensia:Justine, Or Defense grid.
      …mostly because i was playing Bit Trip Beat’s far after i got both potatos for it.. <3 that.

    • 19/04/2011 at 18:56 bwion says:

      I really hope so. I only ever played potato-Audiosurf, and I’ve got a few of the other games that I definitely want to see the Portal-themed content in.

      Just. You know. Not right now.

    • 19/04/2011 at 19:29 Veracity says:

      Because it’s a good offer irrespective of what it has to do with System Shock For Laughs 2. It’s presumably been selling decently and they might as well wring a bit more cash out of it.

      I hope they leave at least most of the promotional content intact, too. It’d be a crazy waste not to. I haven’t even launched The Ball yet, and that seemed one of the better received ones.

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