Valve's viral plot thickens with Portal blue screen of death

Even though Portal 2 has been officially announced, it seems the clever Alternate Reality Game which gave it impetus hasn't yet come to a complete stop. Shortly after accepting a Pioneer Award at the Game Developers Choice Awards in San Francisco on Thursday evening, Valve boss Gabe Newell launched into a slideshow detailing the company's expectations of future trends, only to have it "crash" to a blue error screen.

The final slide was meant to answer several infamous Valve mysteries -- Who is the G-Man? Why doesn't Valve support the PlayStation 3? -- and perhaps it did in some obfuscated way. According to seasoned ARG sleuths (posting on the Penny Arcade forums), the error code above can be read as: "S U S : P E N D ... U N T ( I ) L ... E E E." Suspend until E3?

It wouldn't be surprising to see Portal 2 at this year's E3 expo, which will run in Los Angeles from June 15 to 17, but if the above decryption is accurate Valve may have additional plans to unfurl (possibly including the long-awaited Half-Life 2: Episode 3).

[Thanks, Wince]

Reader Comments (64)

This style is marketing is genius.

lol wut?

I love you, Valve.

i love GLaDOS

I love the companion cube.

I love lamp.

I love cake

What is love?

Baby, don't hurt me

THE CAKE IS A LIE
THE CAKE IS A LIE
THE CAKE IS A LIE
THE CAKE IS A LIE

I love you like a fat kid loves cake!

I hate Valve

I love Cocaine

I hate tunnels.

Krackatoa gets +1 for the obscure anchorman reference! :P

I love love.

*Universe implodes*

I love the Portal Gun.

Boom bayada boom bayada
Boom bayada boom bayada

Leave it to the master trolls at Valve to hint at a highly anticipated announcement of an announcement at E3 at GDC.

Left 4 Dead 3.
3 E's, and 3rd in the franchise. It's a no-brainer!

Half-Life 2 Episode 2.5!

God, please don't let it be another L4D, unless it's an add-on (reasonably priced, that is).

Orange Box 2 confirmed to contain Left 4 Dead 3, Portal 2 and Team Fortress 2 GOTY?

I'd say my vote for Orange Box 2 would be:

• Half-Life 1 Remastered (ie Perfect Dark)
• Half-Life 3 / Episode 3 (whatever you want to call it)
• Portal 2

Of course, something in the neighborhood of $40-50.

Kojima's "creative" and "mysterious" countdowns doesn't have anything on this.

Valve just won all of the internets.

Which it already owned.

So it now has twice the internets.

It has won the internet and the upcoming Internet 2! : )

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_2

I looked at my Steam account yesterday, I've spent some money.

@Smoke_Me_a_Kipper: I didn't. It looks like I did but I haven't bought a game off steam that wasn't on sale in forever. A good half of my games I got for 50-75% off. L4D for $7.50 FTW!

@ Myself: Cool story bro.

We were fairly stoked that one of the members of the PA community figured it out first. I told the guy he's now part of Valve lore. Nothing like Valve's unorthodox marketing to bring fans together.

Also, glad to contribute to Joystiq!

Hi! I'd just like to point out that I was the first person to post the picture because, well, my friend took the picture at the GDC Choice Awards show and I uploaded it for him. If this image is going to be used, please credit us. Justin Kaminski took the photo and I (Chris Roberts) uploaded it.

My fault, not Joystiq's. I submitted the photo with the tip without saying where I got it, which was from the PA forums.

Why? And I'm sure that you are the only one, out of all the major game news sites, that took a picture.

THIS is pretty sad. It's a picture you uploaded to the internet. Quit trying to fameball.

Austin: To be fair it's easy enough to compare an image to one you took and say "Oh hey this is my image but cropped". Perspective and size and lighting and all that.

I love EBCDIC. (Not really.)

So this is what 15 seconds of Internet fame feels like. :-)

Actually if you wanted to, you could change the attribution to read "According to a Computer Science grad student from Iowa, posting on the Penny Arcade Forums . . ." :-) What you already posted meets all reasonable attribution requirements I could expect, so it's completely optional. Feel free to follow the link and PM me to confirm this is me if you like.

Eh, nobody cares who you are. Honest.

This was a triumph.
I'm making a note here:
HUGE SUCCESS

That's how you do marketing.

It's hard to overstate my satisfaction.

(Sing along time!)

Aperture Science: We do what we must, because we can!

for the good of all of us, except the ones who are dead

But there's no sense crying over every mistake.

You just keep on trying, 'till you run out of cake.

@Austin: Even Brian Crecente (editor of Kotaku? ring a bell?) didn't get a picture of it. So, yes. We got the only distinguishable pictures to surface tonight.

@Wince: Thanks. I e-mailed Luke Plunkett, the writer of the Kotaku article, so we'll hopefully get a nod there.

Its obvious that they are making a blue box that contains half life 3, half life 2 episode 3, team fortress 3, counter strike 3.0, left for dead 3, Portal 3 (they skipped 2 for unknown reasons) and they are announcing this at e3

I guess they skipped Counter-Strike 2 as well?

or does 3.0= 2?

no cs source is #2

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Valve's viral plot thickens with Portal blue screen of death

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