By Alec Meer on September 16th, 2011 at 10:00 am.
Goodness, that happened with absolutely no fanfare. The original Portal, if you somehow don’t already own it, can now be installed and played for free via Steam. I’ve just checked it on a spare Steam account and it works just dandy. This is true of both the PC and the Mac version, by the way. If you’re determined to pay money for it, you can still cough up for The Orange Box or the Portal 1+2 package, but just Portal itself now defiantly costs no-pennies. Grab it from here.
Update: transpires that this is only available until September 20th, as part of a games and learning initiative from Valve. So get your skates on, yes? As long as you install the game before the expiry date, it’s yours to keep forever.
You can see more on Valve’s “Learn With Portals” program, wherein they’re encouraging kids to create Portal levels themselves, in the rather charming video below.
(Big thanks to all who mailed about this)
16/09/2011 at 10:02 sakmidrai says:
What am I supposed to do with the spare copy from Portal2 preorder now? Oh well.
16/09/2011 at 10:08 arienette says:
I concur, I’ve got two spare copies that are to be rendered useless.
16/09/2011 at 10:11 nemryn says:
Trade it for a hat!
16/09/2011 at 10:24 Mozillo says:
… I still don’t HAVE Portal 2 ;)
16/09/2011 at 10:34 HolyLiaison says:
Portal 1 has been free multiple times already in the past few YEARS. Where have you guys been?
16/09/2011 at 10:49 trigger_rant says:
You mean you havnt gifted your spare Portal copies away yet? WOW!
16/09/2011 at 11:04 Matt says:
Everyone else I know already owns the game as well, so… no, I haven’t.
16/09/2011 at 11:07 sakmidrai says:
Same for me. Even my grandmother has this game…
16/09/2011 at 11:13 trigger_rant says:
Wait wait, you cant go to the Portal forums or whatever other forums like Facepunch or for christ sake, THE RPS forums, and offer your spare copy to somebody that doesnt have the game yet, but you can rant on RPS about how your spare copy is useless now? WOW!
16/09/2011 at 11:22 Mozillo says:
I wouldn’t mind having Portal 2 :( But I don’t have it yet D:
16/09/2011 at 11:48 LionsPhil says:
I think I’ve had Portal 1 three times by now. Once from the Mac promo, once from buying the Orange Box at Christmas or thereabouts for pennies (sadly not a giftable duplicate), and once from buying Portal 2. And now it’s free again.
If you don’t have Portal 1 by this point, you clearly don’t want it. That giftable copy is as useless as a Mann Co crate.
16/09/2011 at 11:54 sakmidrai says:
@trigger_rant
No ranting. It’s called discussion.
16/09/2011 at 12:26 Hey What? says:
@trigger_rant
How dare people want to get some thing out of their extra copy of the game when they should just be giving it away. Greedy jerks.
16/09/2011 at 18:08 baaoma says:
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16/09/2011 at 10:03 mrwonko says:
It will be available until the 20th. This is part of a Learn with Portals program, apparently.
17/09/2011 at 02:06 Adam says:
Yes, thank you captain obvious : )
16/09/2011 at 10:08 Valvarexart says:
http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/7574/screenshot20110916at110.png
I just had to.
16/09/2011 at 10:10 Spider Jerusalem says:
Hahah.
Oh you.
16/09/2011 at 10:33 Groove says:
I love that Valve are doing this.
Again.
The original Portal was/is my second favourite game ever, and with how free it is these days (it”s been made free twice this year if I remember right?) it’s moving to become more of a part of shared video game culture than it is a product that valve actually try to sell us.
It’s interesting partially because consoles are moving in the oposite direction, letting you rebuy old games, again and again and again. I’m not against this! If someone wants to sell you a product they made then all power to them, but compared to what Valve are doing it seems more than a little mean spirited. Especially since resold console games are generally much older, often worse, and in a few cases are selling for as much as they did when new.
Essentially, I really like the idea that in ten years time we might be able to point people back to milestones in game design and show them the history of the art, for free.
16/09/2011 at 11:03 Inigo says:
We can do that now. It’s just not technically legal.
16/09/2011 at 11:14 Thants says:
One good thing about pirates, they’ve kept just about every old game ever made available and running on modern hardware.
16/09/2011 at 11:54 Jimbo says:
Valve are giving their game away (again) in order to help spread Steam as far and wide as possible. This has a financial benefit for them. Giving away games on XBL is just a waste of bandwidth.
16/09/2011 at 11:25 Donjo says:
The Evergreen School visit video is indeed charming, I was in a foul mood and now I am not :)
16/09/2011 at 20:22 phuzz says:
Best. Field Trip. EVAR.
Seriously, this is why people like Valve.
16/09/2011 at 11:46 Zogtee says:
Actually brought a tear to my eye, this. Valve are fucking Gods of gaming. We’re so lucky to have them.
We wont talk about the child that Gabe ACCIDENTALLY ate during lunch, though.
16/09/2011 at 15:24 Tams80 says:
No, we should make it clear to everyone that was no accident.
17/09/2011 at 01:12 MuscleHorse says:
Hahaha, these Gabe are fat jokes always crack me up! Please, tell me another – I don’t know why they haven’t spread to other sites. Your wit astounds me.
16/09/2011 at 11:54 tomemozok says:
Thanks for this.This is why i love RPS! :D
*Edit* Typo
16/09/2011 at 12:13 slpk says:
Goddammit, Valve. Why do you keep being so awesome?
16/09/2011 at 13:35 LGM says:
I always love to see Valve do stuff like this, it’s just one of the reasons why they’re the best game company out there today.
IMO, Portal 1 should be free forever and included in the Steam library when people install the program, (optional to download, of course). Just like the good old days when you bought a game system and got a game bundled in with it (mario, sonic, whatever).
16/09/2011 at 13:36 Monchberter says:
“Clever girl…”
*dies*
16/09/2011 at 13:50 DarkeSword says:
“How do you use the toilet?”
“……..press E.”
GENIUS!
16/09/2011 at 14:42 xeon06 says:
“defiantly” *shudders*
16/09/2011 at 15:32 ResonanceCascade says:
What!? A game I paid for is free now? This is bullsh*t I should get a refund!
(people actually said this when TF2 went free to play)
16/09/2011 at 16:47 shoptroll says:
Pretty awesome. I wish I went on a field trip to a developer’s studio in elementary school!
16/09/2011 at 18:56 Moonracer says:
Great video, though I was certainly jealous of those kids’ obviously privileged education. I’m happy some kids get experiences like that.
Also, it would be cool if we could see the maps the kids made. Though as someone who spent about 6 months trying to learn Hammer as a hobby I have a pretty good idea what they looked like. Still, I bet there were some entertaining ideas.
17/09/2011 at 13:47 Laneford says:
Right, that’s it, I’m taking my Year 8 class to Valve on monday morning.
17/09/2011 at 15:21 forevernever says:
Wow, I wish that would happen at my school. But anyway, I’ve finally got Portal now!
(I had Portal 2 before)
18/09/2011 at 20:17 Turbinator says:
I am so mad, a while back I bought the Valve Complete Pack. Then Portal 2 came out. And now I have every Valve game ever made, except Portal 2.