Steam’s ARG Backfires On Valve

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Not happy with the outcome of the most recent Steam ARG? Do what this guy did and send a bunch of fish to Valve through the mail.

Cod blimey! Disappointed by the outcome of the Steam ARG that ran over the holidays, one meddling prankster has taken it upon themselves to post Valve herring in the mail - a cheeky reference to the Red Herring Steam badge that popped up during the trail. There's even a video of Valve unboxing the surprise.
 
The big problem with the 'arg' was that some clues were discovered early and led to the award badge (by brute force) before the comic released the clues that was supposed to lead to the badge and the end of the arg. So we finished it about 2 weeks early.
 
Thank god I think badges are stupid or else there is a chance I'd care.
 
I still have no idea what this is about and I guess I really do not care. Not sure I missed anything though. Bueller?
 
Not sure who originally said it but:

Valve doesn't make games anymore, they make money

I think that place has just become one big mad science lab for game programmers...they can just work on and abandoned projects without recourse as long as the money keeps coming in.
 
jwcalla said:
Basically, Valve spends all of its time nowadays on all kinds of useless and irrelevant things like trading cards and comics and badges,
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Well at least I can sell those things for like 5 cents. Was great when they first came out, cause there were a lot of idiots out there. I was selling them for near $1 a piece.
 
Quix said:
Thank god I think badges are stupid or else there is a chance I'd care.
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After the Potato Sack, I make sure to keep tabs on ARGs. The Potato Sack 36 Potatoes prize was every Valve game ever released for free and giftable if you already had them.

Otherwise you'd just think the golden potato badge was stupid and not know any better.
 
Dan_D said:
It's irrelevant garbage that Valve engages in instead of developing actual games.
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They are still actively releasing new contents or updates for CSGO, TF2, and DOTA 2.

We may not play these games, but that doesn't make them any lesser of a game.
 
Hornet said:
They are still actively releasing new contents or updates for CSGO, TF2, and DOTA 2.

We may not play these games, but that doesn't make them any lesser of a game.
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Counterstrike Global Offensive is a rehash of a MOD for a game developed in 1998/1999. Work on that is akin to putting lipstick on a pig. It's the functional equivalent to porting pong to a new engine and running it at 4k resolution. It's popular, sure but the work they do on that has to be relatively easy. Valve hasn't done anything innovative or pushed the boundaries of visual quality or technology in an actual game since Half-Life 2. Everything Valve has released since was basically dated when it released, both graphically and gameplay wise. Half-Life 2: Episode Two was good, but it was looking dated when it released.

Valve is a publisher and content distributor that's expanding into hardware sales with the Steam Box. Game development has taken a backseat to these other interests and has for years.
 
Viper87227 said:
You didn't. There was a way to bring up a hidden search box on any page on the steam store. Typing the right thing, on the right page, brought you to... other pages. There were clues hidden in the comics to download some audio files or something Basically, a whole lot of pointless sleuthing that only led to a pointless "Red Herring" badge. Just another example of people foolishly expecting something big out of Valve.
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You know, maybe we should be happy they don't make games any more?
 
Hornet said:
They are still actively releasing new contents or updates for CSGO, TF2, and DOTA 2.

We may not play these games, but that doesn't make them any lesser of a game.
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Maybe correct. My 13 year old daughter plays pretty much nothing but CSGO.
 
Dan_D said:
It's irrelevant garbage that Valve engages in instead of developing actual games.
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is it really "irrelevant garbage"?

OK so you sell it for 5 cents. Great.
That means the buyer has put 5 cents into Steam. Valve takes 2-3 cents right off the top, and give you (the seller) the remaining 2-3 cents to purchase other things on Steam (since I'm pretty sure there's still no way to cash out funds in your Steam wallet).

multiply this by hundreds of thousands (maybe a million or 2?) and its probably a pretty good return on Steam's time/man power investment
 
I call shenanigans.

How did they know to video tape the opening of this one package? Do they video tape the opening of every box they get?

And once they discovered what was inside, why would they post that video?

This has to be some sort of publicity stunt, done intentionally by Valve.
 
ml_paladin888 said:
is it really "irrelevant garbage"?

OK so you sell it for 5 cents. Great.
That means the buyer has put 5 cents into Steam. Valve takes 2-3 cents right off the top, and give you (the seller) the remaining 2-3 cents to purchase other things on Steam (since I'm pretty sure there's still no way to cash out funds in your Steam wallet).

multiply this by hundreds of thousands (maybe a million or 2?) and its probably a pretty good return on Steam's time/man power investment
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It is free money. The low sale prices are about 7 cents, you would collect 5, or 15 cents per day, or $1.50 for the duration. The card thingies used to sell for about 30 cents each on new releases, but the gem economy killed that. Anyway you can consider it a silly minigame.
 
ml_paladin888 said:
is it really "irrelevant garbage"?

OK so you sell it for 5 cents. Great.
That means the buyer has put 5 cents into Steam. Valve takes 2-3 cents right off the top, and give you (the seller) the remaining 2-3 cents to purchase other things on Steam (since I'm pretty sure there's still no way to cash out funds in your Steam wallet).

multiply this by hundreds of thousands (maybe a million or 2?) and its probably a pretty good return on Steam's time/man power investment
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Point taken. However, that helps prove my point that Valve isn't really a game developer anymore.
 
Zarathustra[H];1042083623 said:
I call shenanigans.

How did they know to video tape the opening of this one package? Do they video tape the opening of every box they get?

And once they discovered what was inside, why would they post that video?

This has to be some sort of publicity stunt, done intentionally by Valve.
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If I got a mysterious package filled with gifts wrapped in custom made red fish wrapping paper... I might be inclined to film it also. Also, we only see them opening one "present"... not the shipping box. For all we know, they got the boxed, opened a fish, and then said "hey, we should film this"
 
Dan_D said:
Point taken. However, that helps prove my point that Valve isn't really a game developer anymore.
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Yeah, they haven't been for some time.

They haven't released many titles in the last several years, and the ones they have released have been developed in their entirety through contracts with external vendors.

I still think this was a publicity stunt though.

If someone really pranked them, they would have had no way of knowing to video record the opening of the box (they can't possibly video record every box they receive) and they probably wouldn't have posted the video online... Who wants it publicly acknowledge that people hated your promotion enough to punk you with rotten fish?

I haven't quite figured out the motivation behind the publicity stunt (maybe to drive up the value of the red herring badges, by making dumb kids buy them because "haha, remember that time Valve got punked witb fish?", so they make more money?) but this is definitely a publicity stunt...
 
ml_paladin888 said:
is it really "irrelevant garbage"?

OK so you sell it for 5 cents. Great.
That means the buyer has put 5 cents into Steam. Valve takes 2-3 cents right off the top, and give you (the seller) the remaining 2-3 cents to purchase other things on Steam (since I'm pretty sure there's still no way to cash out funds in your Steam wallet).

multiply this by hundreds of thousands (maybe a million or 2?) and its probably a pretty good return on Steam's time/man power investment
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I'm sure the people making "magnetic power bracelets" or whatever are making plenty of money doing it. Doesn't mean those bracelets aren't complete garbage and the claims surrounding them aren't complete nonsense.

Just because Valve is doing something that makes them money doesn't mean it's somehow relevant to the gaming industry or people who like video-games.
 
I don't know of any organization outside a stripper bar that would consider that girl's open back shirt as work-appropriate!
 
Lol her dress. I've never heard of that being appropriate for workplace attire. She does have a nice figure though!
I was expecting a box full of rotten fish, not tasty smoked fish.
 
You know there's money when they hire eye-candy receptionists like that.

And there's probably a Smoked-Fish melee weapon inbound for TF2 now.
 
Hornet said:
They are still actively releasing new contents or updates for CSGO, TF2, and DOTA 2.

We may not play these games, but that doesn't make them any lesser of a game.
Click to expand...

that's content, not a game. something like a TF3 would be development on a new game.
 
Ach! Too many damned acronyms. Glad I'm not the only one who has no idea what ARG stands for.
 
Sgraffite said:
What is ARG? The article never explains the acronym.
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Augmented or Alternate Reality Game.

Basically a game that takes place both online and in real world locations. The potato sack ARG involved clues that people could find if they went to the areas where the developer studios (one of the devs of the 13 sack games) ... Someone did end up going to the Two Tribes studio and found ARG related clues posted via a flyer on a pole. It ended up being one of the big breaks in the whole contest.

So while this Red Herring one was indeed stupid and a waste of time, the Potato Sack ARG itself was pretty fun. Almost as much fun as the game it led up to: Portal 2.
 
jwcalla said:
Basically, Valve spends all of its time nowadays on all kinds of useless and irrelevant things like trading cards and comics and badges,
Click to expand...

Ahh!
Ya, I messed with those cards for a couple days....then realized I had games to play
 
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