There is no "problem," I just despise how people worship them without looking at the broader picture. Valve do a lot of things other companies would get crucified for, but Valve don't because hey... it's Valve!

It's about half and half, last numbers I heard for the PC. Console games are almost all boxed sales, so I don't really see your point. The vast majority of Portal 2 players have to wait until midday Tuesday to play.

Well that's your opinion. My opinion is that everyone who paid their $45-60 should get to play at the same time.

I wonder if it's something to do with total time played. Given how short Wonderful End of the World is, it's not surprising it unlocked quickly if that's the case. Each game may have a completely different total play time attached to it, and I suppose it's possible that collecting those potatoes reduces that time for whichever game by some factor.

But I'm not following it all that closely as I'm still on fence with pre-ordering Portal 2 anyhow. (While I want the game, I'm pretty pissed off with Valve) and the only bonus ARG related content that so far interests me is the song they added to Audiosurf and the DLC for The Ball (which I may just have to buy).

I'm sure most people here pre-ordered on Steam long ago, but just for general info amazon.com has Portal 2 right now for $34.99 with 99cent release day shipping.

So... save $9 and get the game on Tuesday around lunch, if you want.

Give me one similar thing EA or Ubisoft has ever done. I'd gladly worship them as well, I mean I have nothing against EA and hate Ubisoft just slightly.

Do you just hate fun? The release date will get moved a few hours tops... And it's Steam-locked anyhow, if you bought it boxed, activate it and you'll get it at the same time as everyone else - if not, blame your post office.

Her de derp!

Why are you bringing the Swedish Chef into this fight?

He just likes to flatter me. Though I prefer Thai food.

We did it! At least partly. Portal 2 on PC now got a new release date:

09:01 - Currently saving: 25.872 Hours
18. april 2011 14:07:41 (Your timezone) - Portal 2 released

So far, so good.


Edit:
I messed up, the above information is not correct. My bad. *facepalm*

That's still the same date it's always been. In fact, so far people estimate that only 50 minutes has been knocked off the release time.

The date displays for me as:

Available: 19 April 2011 (local time, i.e., 18th for US)
This game will unlock in approximately 2 days and 21 hours

Which is the same date for the US, UK, Australia and France. I suppose it's possible the EU used to have a different release date, but if it changed significantly by a day or so, it most likely wasn't due to the ARG.

I'm talking about the Muppet Swedish Chef. I hate CAD.

I am trying to earn the first potato in AaAaAA!!! , but the second level is too foggy for me to see the bins so I always miss them and lose. Any tips please?

Sorry, my bad. I got confused by the information that was added by a firefox addon. I feel stupid now. Never mind.

Ah, that makes sense.

For the record, it appears that TWEOW knocked off 50 mins and 1...2...3... knocked off 40 mins. I expect that the games that require more "power" as it were, will knock off more, but try telling that to the masses who are trying to complete 1 at a time and are picking the faster ones to do (which looking at things will knock small amounts of time that simply aren't worth it).

A Valve employee suggested that each completed game will reduce the amount of time required to fill the other bars, which is why the emphasis is currently on beating the easier games first.

But would you trust a Valve employee? ;)

A quick glance of the Portal 2 forum also shows that some people think it's those potatoes that make filling bars faster.

But as I say, I'm only going by what's posted in the Portal 2 forum. That's as far as my interest goes as I don't see the game unlocking at a significantly earlier time anyhow.

Still I hope they at least release firm details of how this countdown worked once the game is released. If nothing else, to see how these lot possibly wasted the potential =).