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Half-Life 2 Orange/Black Delayed to End of 2007

Wowzer writes "EA and Valve today announced the product configurations of Half-Life 2's The Black Box and The Orange Box, while at the same time confirming another worldwide release date delay from summer 2007 to winter 2007. If you thought the delay was the only bad news, then artwork fans haven't seen the ugly new boxart yet."

3 of 74 comments (clear)

  1. Box art? by Yuioup · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Who cares about the box art when you can buy it through Steam. :-P

    Y

    1. Re:Box art? by Bob+of+Dole · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Valve can't TURN OFF my physical copy, either.
      Because they think I was cheating, because they went out of business, or because they've written Half-Life 3 and all those damn copies of HL2 still out there are really eating into their business...

      I will never buy a product* where the author gets to decide if I can use it. This is DRM times infinity, it's the most retarded idea the software industry has ever come up with.

      *Within reason. Some products actually do require remote servers, and access to those remote servers is part of the fee you are paying. As opposed to HL2, which requires remote servers cause you're all a bunch of lousy pirates who can't be trusted to pay for a damn game. I bought four different products based on Half Life 1 (The original game, HL:Opposing Force, HL:Blue Shift, and Gunman Chronicles), but there's no way they'll get any money from me for HL2.

      No, if I ever get HL2 it will be off BitTorrent. Hey, if you're going to treat me like a pirate... Plus I'll be getting a better product! No internet connection required, no stupid remote deactivation.

      (I do expect to be downmodded into oblivion for this, but for fucks sake... It's a great game, but the DRM on it is the strongest of any product I know of.)

  2. Ah, brings back memories. by PIPBoy3000 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I remember when Gabe stated that HL2 would be coming out, right around the time the ATI deal was going on. I went out and bought a shiny new 9800 Pro, only to find out a few weeks later that HL2 was delayed a year. I wasn't too bitter, as my new card made a bunch of new games play quite nicely, and it lasted for quite awhile.

    I do find that Valve's release estimates have been pretty consistently horrible. New game companies often make mistakes when estimating release dates. Valve's been around for awhile, though, so you'd think they'd be doing better. Personally I think it's a result of trying to release on multiple platforms and bundle lots of components into one package.

    I'm not sure episodic content is really episodic if there's over a year delay between releases. It's starting to feel more like an expansion pack or something.