Quoting Heavenfall, reply 2I've pre-ordered, obviously (yes, I said obviously). But I refuse to participate in this feast of advertising that is the ARG running. I said it from the start that it is nothing but a huge marketing ploy, and it has become even clearer now that Valve are urging people to buy other games in order to release portal 2 earlier ( http://www.aperturescience.com/glados@home/ ).
Ya! Fuck Valve for providing 13 indie companies with success. What fascists!
First, they get 30% of everything sold on steam.
Second, they'll make it back a hundred times over from creating buzz around portal 2. The purpose of the ARG is not to make them money, it is to advertise their release to make them money.
During the first part of the ARG it was "believable" that this wasn't just another moneygrab. Then they launched the second part with a HUGE FUCKING AD telling the players to go buy the games to get portal 2 earlier. Then it wasn't "believable" any longer.
If EA had done something similar, people would just be laughing it off and it wouldn't be on every forum everywhere all the time. But it's not EA, it's Valve. And that means they have a lot of Good Will for previous games. To me, a lot of that Good Will got used up in this cashgrab ARG.
Hell, I see many people doing the ARG complaining, and they're about as dedicated as you can get. Days of efforts to push the release a few hours earlier?