Valve - You missed the potato? You missed the boat!

piscian18

piscian18

[H]F Junkie
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Well jokes on us that skipped on the potato sack pack

Players that earned a golden potato from the Portal 2 ARG also earned every game Valve has ever made.

Valve's Portal 2 alternate reality game (ARG) was an amazing structure of hidden messages that led to interesting concept art, indie games hacked with Portal levels, and eventually the power for fans to get the game released early. Completing certain actions related to the ARG, such as specific tasks found in the 13-game Steam Potato Sack bundle, awarded users with potatoes in their Steam profiles. Accumulating enough imaginary potatoes has had a significant real world consequence, as those that earned a "golden potato" have been awarded with the Valve Complete Pack.

The Valve Complete Pack is a Steam bundle that includes every game Valve has ever released. Some of these titles include Half-Life, Portal, Counter-Strike, Left 4 Dead 2, and even Ricochet.

Destructoid confirmed that the Valve Complete Pack was awarded for holding a golden potato, a special spud earned in the ARG by acquiring all 36 possible potatoes. Some of these were much tougher to get than others. For example, in Super Meat Boy, players picked up a potato for dying 11 times on world 4-19. However, in Cogs, players had to figure out a strange puzzle involving glyphs that seemed impossible unless you'd been following the mysteries of the ARG.

To anyone complaining that Valve was trying to drain fans of money with the ARG and the Potato Sack, what do you think now? This is an amazing reward, and just icing on the cake for fans that probably had a ton of fun discovering the secrets of GLaDOS and Portal 2. Not to spoil it, but the whole potato thing is eventually explained in Portal 2, just in case you thought Valve lost its mind.
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http://www.escapistmagazine.com/new...mplete-Collection-to-Portal-2-ARG-Completists

I already had every game except portal 2 and almost every game in the sack :( so I don't feel too burnt. Does that make me more or less a loyal customer? how about you guys?
 
fck ><

I don't want to pay more than $5 for L4D, but I've been wanting to play with friends. DoD:S would've been nice too since I never bought it.


Anyway, as much as I dislike some of the things Valve does now, I really really like their support of Indie devs. I'm sure it's for some monetary reason (maybe they get a higher % from their steam sales?), but whatever the reason, I'm glad because it's going to create a lot more competition for the crappy, high-production value games that are so common now.
 
Anyone that invested in valve games probably has them all anyway, interesting to see the average number of games gained by of those customers who won the pack, I bet it's not much.
 
Still think it was a lame marketing stunt (weee I can play the game at 3am now). This somewhat redeems it but I would not call it huge value. I am going to take a guess that most people that have the golden potato also have the majority of games. Short of Portal/TF2/L4D, Valve already gave me all the games for free when I bought a video card around 6-7 years ago.
 
Good on them. They didn't even have to do this, and it was still a neat event.
 
That's cool. Pretty generous. Though I don't know if anyone has ever owned fewer than all Valve games, except for those that boycotted L4D2.
 
One on hand, cool.

On the other hand, every Valve game has been on sale for $5 numerous time. The complete pack goes on sale a couple times a year for, I don't know how much, but cheap.

On the mutant third hand, I already own every single Valve game. Have owned every Valve game for basically as long as they've been available.
 
Way too much work to get all tohse for something that most people already have. Doesn't really make me wish I even did it since I have most of those games as wella s about everyone else I know.
 
Just remember when you go to the beach, you put the potato in the front of your swim trunks, not the back.
 
Note that people got Portal 2 for free with the valve complete pack after getting the golden potato. Not bad, getting a new, free game.
 
Standpoint said:
Note that people got Portal 2 for free with the valve complete pack after getting the golden potato. Not bad, getting a new, free game.
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Ummm no? Unless they got an extra copy on top. Valve complete pack does not include Portal 2.
 
PrincessFrosty said:
Anyone that invested in valve games probably has them all anyway, interesting to see the average number of games gained by of those customers who won the pack, I bet it's not much.
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I owned every game in the Valve pack and Portal 2.

I got the golden potato. Those of us who owned the games got them as gift passes, so I've been giving my friends Portal 2, Left 4 Dead 2, and a bunch of other Valve games.

Pretty awesome move by Valve.

infect0 said:
Ummm no? Unless they got an extra copy on top. Valve complete pack does not include Portal 2.
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Yes, we got Portal 2 on top.

phide said:
How much effort was involved in that?
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I used guides and walkthroughs as much as possible. It took me about 9 hours.
 
I got all potatoes and it took me a good 6-10 days to do it. I actually enjoyed playing most of the games but I really hated a few of them.

I'm just glad Valve changed their mind and decided to give duplicate games so now I have a copy of Portal 2 for my other PC.
 
Now that you've gave us your money and completed our menial tasks, you win... ABUNCH OF SHIT YOU ALREADY OWN!! CONGRATULATIONS!!
 
Valshistixol said:
Now that you've gave us your money and completed our menial tasks, you win... ABUNCH OF SHIT YOU ALREADY OWN!! CONGRATULATIONS!!
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Huh?

I bought the Potato Sack games because they're fun (beside the Dejoban games). I had fun getting the golden potato. Valve was ridiculously generous with the prize.
 
All the games including Portal 2 are now giftable, right?

Why are people still complaining? The Steam forums are still filled with people wielding pitchforks and torches.This was a much bigger reward than I would have ever expected out of a small contest.
 
So this is no longer possible? To get the free games i mean?
 
ex0du5 said:
Huh?

I bought the Potato Sack games because they're fun (beside the Dejoban games). I had fun getting the golden potato. Valve was ridiculously generous with the prize.
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I wanted to be nice and not say anything but I also did not enjoy the Dejobaan games. End of the World was probably the most fun of their games but it could get frustrating trying to get A+ in the levels, you basically had to work out a good path and the music kinda drove me crazy. Both 123 and Aaa were difficult to enjoy.

I did, however, like Toki Tori and RUSH. Maybe those are higher-dollar indie games.

Now to get myself to proceed in Amnesia.

Inu said:
So this is no longer possible? To get the free games i mean?
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You had to get the potatoes before Portal 2 was released, so it's no longer possible.
 
Orange Pack for $5 was my first steam purchase. There isn't too much else I need to get :p
 
eurin said:
Why are people still complaining? The Steam forums are still filled with people wielding pitchforks and torches.This was a much bigger reward than I would have ever expected out of a small contest.
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Because the Steam forums are filled with a bunch of morons.


phide said:
How much effort was involved in that?
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Honestly not very much. Some potatoes were harder than others, but guides that were posted online made everything very do-able.
 
PrincessFrosty said:
Anyone that invested in valve games probably has them all anyway, interesting to see the average number of games gained by of those customers who won the pack, I bet it's not much.
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And whatever they didn't have will be obscure stuff that they will probably never ever play.
 
PrincessFrosty said:
Anyone that invested in valve games probably has them all anyway, interesting to see the average number of games gained by of those customers who won the pack, I bet it's not much.
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I know on the gaming boards there were actually a lot of people who only owned the orange box and hence were missing out on L4D2, Counterstrike and original Half life. Not to mention they made everything giftable so if nothing else you just earned christmas presents for some people.
 
Cool gift.
Wish I had done it since I don't own anything other than HL1,CS, HL2 and CS:S.

Never bought the episodes/portal/L4D for some reason ... no idea why.
I'll get to it next sale lol
 
Finding all the potatoes was more than work than gaming.

It also took like 2 days of concentrated gaming.

The things you could do otherwise in that time or the amount of money you can earn could easily buy most of Valve's backcatalog which almost everybody owns already or sells for like $5 each during sales.

I'm not interested in grinding for Valve's quasi reality MMO.
 
Spare-Flair said:
Finding all the potatoes was more than work than gaming.

It also took like 2 days of concentrated gaming.

The things you could do otherwise in that time or the amount of money you can earn could easily buy most of Valve's backcatalog which almost everybody owns already or sells for like $5 each during sales.

I'm not interested in grinding for Valve's quasi reality MMO.
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True, but most of those people had fun playing the games. Sure they could have spent the weekend working and just bought valve's catalogue, but I know I would rather play indie games then be at work...and I really like my job. The potatoes were not really any different then any other achievements which games have shown over and over people tend to enjoy.
 
Wait a minute. I played all those games with the only expectation being a slightly quicker release time, and instead I get over a hundred dollars of free games? WHO THE FUCK DOES VALVE THINK THEY ARE? OPRAH? I CAN'T AFFORD THE TAX ON THESE GAMES.
 
Was there anything worth getting in that pack? Most people who want half life will already have it, if you wanted left4dead youd probably already have it. All valve games are $5 or something in the sales, so if you haven't got the few years old collection by now, you probably didn't want it anyway.
 
If anyone has an extra copy of half life source i'd love to try it out :D
 
PrincessFrosty said:
Anyone that invested in valve games probably has them all anyway, interesting to see the average number of games gained by of those customers who won the pack, I bet it's not much.
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This. I avoided this whole fiasco, and have lost nothing by doing so. I already own that entire package...and I don't care to be gifting it all off. I would have gained nothing, and still lost hours of my life better spent doing fun things...

But I lost interest in valve BEFORE this whole thing happened (I lost faith around the time that Newell announced stuff with PS3; I know Sony isn't above throwing gobs of cash around, but I [erroneously] thought Valve was above being "bought."
 
rampantandroid said:
But I lost interest in valve BEFORE this whole thing happened (I lost faith around the time that Newell announced stuff with PS3; I know Sony isn't above throwing gobs of cash around, but I [erroneously] thought Valve was above being "bought."
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This might be the dumbest thing I've read all day. Congratulations.
 
darksonic said:
This might be the dumbest thing I've read all day. Congratulations.
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Why? Does no one remember Valve refusing to port OB over to the PS3? Next thing you know, he's standing on stage announcing that the PS3 version of Portal 2 is going to be the primary focus. Given Sony's shady practices, I have no doubt they took money under the table to do this.
 
In one of those Portal 2 threads I almost posted that even if Valve gave all their games away for free, some people would still find something to bitch about.

Oh hey.
 
AceCR42 said:
In one of those Portal 2 threads I almost posted that even if Valve gave all their games away for free, some people would still find something to bitch about.

Oh hey.
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...maybe because people already have the games? Now, if valve had given CREDITS to games....that'd be different. But instead they just gave the games. Kinda like how OB came with HL2 and Ep1. Great if you just were getting into HL2...useless if you already had HL2/EP1.
 
So you're angry that Valve is giving away free games (even though they had absolutely no obligation doing so), but not the free games you wanted. So if they had given you, say, Assassin's Creed or whatever the fuck it is you play, would you have been perfectly okay then?

I suggest you take a step back and re-evaluate your reaction to this. Because it's seriously laughable.

Here, let me give you an example of a reasonable human being:

ex0du5 said:
I owned every game in the Valve pack and Portal 2.

I got the golden potato. Those of us who owned the games got them as gift passes, so I've been giving my friends Portal 2, Left 4 Dead 2, and a bunch of other Valve games.

Pretty awesome move by Valve.
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AceCR42 said:
So you're angry that Valve is giving away free games (even though they had absolutely no obligation doing so), but not the free games you wanted. So if they had given you, say, Assassin's Creed or whatever the fuck it is you play, would you have been perfectly okay then?
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No, I suggest YOU take a step back there bud. Look, Valve made some shitty claims about Portal 2 coming out early, if you spent more money on the shit sack. Now, I don't care how good or bad the sack was...valve used their position to cause people to spend more. Great ploy and all, I'll hand it to valve. The indie devs are probably the only people who won here.

But now, Portal 2 didn't come out early - not any amount to speak of. So basically, Valve's claims were bogus (I mean, I might as well call this a pyramid scheme...) and people got mighty annoyed, given the clock didn't move much at all. Understandably so; they bought something hoping to get something Valve said was possible.

People got pissed, and Valve saw that they needed to remedy the situation - great. But how do they fix it? They don't give out a credit, a refund, money, or anything like that. They gave you something you might already have - and you can't use two other than to give the second away (by the Steam EULA, you can't sell it.) So to some people, Valve's "apology" is a great thing. To some people, it means they gained some games they did not before have. To most people buying Portal 2 though, I bet they already HAD most of those games. So to those people, unless they want to gift it to someone (which I think they CAN do) they have gained...nothing, other than the knowledge that Valve knows they messed up.

Now, tell me - how are the people who gained nothing, and trusted Valve, not justified in their complaints? Hmm?

How about I give you a free XBox 360 game worth $150 to repay you for work/a favor/something you did for me....and mark it down that by accepting the game, you agree that you will never sell it. But you don't own a 360. How the hell would you feel?
 
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