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Orange Box In Stores Wednesday

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the crowbars-at-the-ready dept.

Ars Technica is reporting on an announcement from Valve: the Orange Box will be in stores on Wednesday. For those folks who purchased the pack through Steam, all five games will be 'unlocked' just after midnight that day. If you're like me and already owned HL2 and HL2:Episode One, the 'giveaway keys' should be available at that time as well. "In our last bit of Orange Box news, Valve has been running a television commercial for the Orange Box. It had to have been hard to make all those different games look like one cohesive package, but the company did a great job. The Orange Box can't come soon enough."

3 of 162 comments (clear)

  1. WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful
    > The official Orange Box Gifts FAQ also says that purchasers of the Orange Box via physical means will also be able to give away their licenses individually.

    Once upon a time, when I bought a box full of games and had a duplicate, I just gave the CD, and the CD-key printed on the label, to my friend.

    No vendor needed to know my email address, and they sure as fuck didn't need to know my friend's email address.

    In fact, neither of us needed an internet connection and a subscription-based DRM system either.

  2. Random Opportunistic Mod Plugging of the Day! by Ford+Prefect · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Got a copy of Episode One, and want some more single-player Half-Life 2 before going all orangey with the Orange Box on Wednesday?

    I prescribe my own MINERVA, complete with needlessly cryptic website.

    Random games journalist types are quite keen on it. No bribery was involved whatsoever, honest. Other links? Wikipedia! My blog-thing! ... Um ... Valve Developer Community! Even Steam!

    Described by random inhabitants of the internet as having: "extremely bad writing", with "some of the most dreadfully boring environments you'll ever see" - the "puzzles and triggers in the game are horrific", and "combat is done exactly the wrong way" - what are you waiting for?

    --
    Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
  3. not really outraged..? by tehwebguy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I have to say, I really think this is pretty cool.

    Steam is the best gaming platform ever. It is truly awesome. It lets me lose my CDs as long as I have my password. It lets me fix the game files if something happens to them. It lets me keep track of my friends and play with them instantly.

    I know DRM is inherently bad, I know. But it's almost like Valve took all those promises that the MAFIAA made (such as, "DRM will give us new our customers new ways of enjoying our products"), and making them real.

    --
    -- lol pwned