GLaDOS Hacks Steam Games With Portal Levels

[itsausernamewhatofit]

Okay so answer me this, if they release Portal 2 early, will the stores release it early as well?

that would be my worry. I preordered from amazon who guarantees day of release shipping but if the release date is suddenly changed there might be problems. Though if it did ship the 15th that would be awesome cause its my birthday and what's a better present than an early release of Portal 2.

 

[CyberCELZ]

I don't know if this is real or just someone jumping on the portal 2 bandwagon, but I just found this: http://pastebin.com/wwfQ2371

It's probably some one having a joke, but here is a quote from the text.

MEMORANDUMS: Filed under CJohnson: 1085839-G



This one's important, folks, so no skimmin'. Cave Johnson here, your boss and

founder of Aperture Science?the best damn applied sciences company on Earth.

How good is the science here? Get a load a? this: as of this morning, I am

dead!



Now, yer probably askin? yourself, "Cave, come on now, how is this possible?

Are you some manner of Dracula? Or Frankenstein? Or dependin? on yer cultural

heritage, a Blackula or Latin Frankenstein?"gh632jj3



ksjdo sir! It's science. Thanks to our diligent Aperture engineers, I am

writin' memos to you today, literally, from beyond the grave! Furthermore I'd

l#ke t5o inf))))m 34verybody wePPPPPing a blue shi%%$rt today th32232t y*u

@##re f)*# TF FFs0&^t ##f gd fghDFRt 665 ^ $%& 4%^^$. ZSFGS D FGsd5 E$

5^57&w$% &6&778*$ 4^77 r6ty u$65####################3

 

[Sad Face]

Oh GlaDOS, I love you.

GlaDOS loves you too, and to prove it, she would like to provide you with cake.

To get this cake, please follow the highlighted arrows to the cake consumption room, and wait there as your baked good is brought to you. Please remember not to panic if the doors of the room close behind you, and please ignore any sounds of gas you may hear that clearly is nothing more than a figment of your imagination.

Well I've never been one to turn down cake, especially form GLaDOS!

 

[Frozenfeet2]

All this ARG stuff is interesting to read about but tbh I would prefer Valve to spend more time making their games. They could have just done the portal 2 trailers.

Yeah, Valve. Get those marketing folks writing code or designing levels right away! How hard can it be?

surely adding potatoes and portal mini references to games is writing codes? Or am I missing something?

 

[Jacob Iott]

Woah! April 15th is my birthday!

 

[Blind0bserver]

All this ARG stuff is interesting to read about but tbh I would prefer Valve to spend more time making their games. They could have just done the portal 2 trailers.

Yeah, Valve. Get those marketing folks writing code or designing levels right away! How hard can it be?

surely adding potatoes and portal mini references to games is writing codes? Or am I missing something?

Well, if I had to guess the Portal references being added to each game are being added by the games' respective developers, not Valve. The only thing the Valve development staff has actually made for the ARG is probably the Potato Hat in TF2.

So yeah, that may count as "missing something".

 

[McShizzle]

Has no one yet marveled at the delicious irony of The Ball? That's Portal recreated in the UNREAL engine. They've got some pretty clever marketers over at Valve, and they're pretty good sports too.

 

[Calderon0311]

What a dumb arguement.

It's ready, it should be released for those whw are intending on buying it regardless of their willingness to just through hoops for it.

So now money isn't good enough.. it's gonna cost you cash and a lot of pissing around?

You shouldn't be so quick to accept this kind of thing, it's yet more precidents being made. How much more bullshit is the industry going to throw at us? Drm, Dlc, now jumping through hoops... what other conditions are going to be tied to game releases in the future.

And... if I don't co operate, even though my money is as good as anyone else's I'll get it later because I'm not willing to be their lapdog.... Does no-one else see how fucking dumb this is?

Protip: The best kind of marketing is the kind where your audiance wants MORE of it. Portal 2 is ready without question, but the free marketing isn't done yet. And Free Marketing is the best kind there is. Much like TF2, the buildup to Portal 2 will make sure it becomes part of geek lexicon instead of another 'meh" in history.

 

[awmperry]

Two questions: Will those extra bits and bobs remain playable even after release (my gaming rigs are in Scotland, I'm in Sweden, but I want to play them)? And have they appeared in those games even if they haven't been bought as part of the potato sack?

 

[Calderon0311]

I didn't realize though that I was giving permission to Valve to update the games with promotional content at a whim because of this deal.

It should be noted that a ARG game is usually setup and planned out by a third-party company. The Valve teams (L4D, TF2, Half Life, Portal have separate teams with lots of floating players) did not add the Portal 2 related content on their own, but worked with the Indie devs who participate with the ARG to add the content, and create the ARG world that is going on currently.

In whole, Dejobaan Games (for example) made their secret levels based on the requirements of the ARG (uncolored crate level, colored crate level, Companion Cube Level, Potato Launchers) and implemented them as each phase proceeded. Concidering how small some of these teams are, having access to Valve resources to be part of this ARG has allowed the quick turnaound times between "concept" and production for this ARG.

TL;DR: It's not like TV ads that display between the program, The Indie devs in question worked on the program to include Portal 2 material as part of their ARG requirements.

 

[mjc0961]

So I was playing Super Meat Boy just now. I last left off in world 4, so I was playing that. And as expected I was dying a lot. And then this pops up out of nowhere:
http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/596934214609251548/05BFD85137CDD2F3A008ABF84E063FDB21E98A32/

Very strange. So I do some Googling and get the password, and it downloads something. And now I have a potato on my profile:
http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/596934214609418426/F9DF36CB41482A0F0C9A94F7C91781BFB1650C82/

Interesting. I wonder if the potato does anything aside from showing I found one of the potato/ARG thingies.

 

[Alphakirby]

LACK OF EFFORT MY ASS!!!!
(I got silver on the Audiosurf song,GLaDOS said that the devices couldn't measure such a lack of effort.)

 

[Kataskopo]

daamn, now I really want to buy the potato sack, why do i have to be poor this week? That's just 34 euro-bucks!

 

[A Weary Exile]

Great marketing strategy or greatest marketing strategy? Genius idea from Valve.

 

[Jacking]

And I love that one of the cores is the trader in Killing Floor.
Anyone know what the Potato in Killing Floor does?

It gives you an achievement and unlocks the aperture science login screens for the ARG thing.
- oh and puts a potato on your steam page.

I like this portal crossover stuff, helps ease the repetition a little.

The amount of thought put into this has began tempting me to get portal 2, this has to be one of the better advertising/hyping campaigns in a good while.

 

[shiajun]

Darn it!!! I have Steam and I have Amnesia, but I don't have Amnesia on Steam! I won't buy it again for some expansion. Anyone know if there's something to be done about this?

EDIT: went to Frictional Game's development blog. Apparently Justine is temporarily Steam exclusive, but they hinted that it'll be available outside of steam later on.

 

[Dioxide20]

I. LOVE. VALVE!

 

[guidance]

What did the Amnesia dlc have to do with portal?

 

[Peryite17]

I just opened TF2 and played an offline game and GLaDOS is one of the bots.