The Black Box

[Kyon]

Does anyone remember this

 

 

I wanted to buy it, but it got cancelled. I wonder how much the box would be worth in 20 years. Anyway, it's pretty self explanatory, I just wanted to know if I'm the only one who remembers this/ knew about it in general.

[CooL]

I've never even seen this before. What was it supposed to be? At first glance, it looks like some fan-made cover art.

[Kyon]

I've never even seen this before. What was it supposed to be? At first glance, it looks like some fan-made cover art.

 

A dumbed down Orange Box. It was supposed to be $30, instead of $60. They cancelled it several weeks after it was released in favor of the Orange Box.

[Ross Scott]

Yeah it was announced before the orange box and was going to to be the same thing as the orange box at a lower price, minus half life 2 and episode 1. They later cancelled it and raised the price, making the orange box the only option.

[Axeldeath]

I never knew that, I'd seen it before but I just thought it was some fan-made cover art.

[CooL]

Interesting, glad they included HL2 and Ep1, that way newcomers to Half-Life 2 would get to experience the whole game instead of just Ep2 upon buying the bundle.

[Alyxx Thorne]

The Black Box sounds kinda foreboding too. I sense creepypasta stories being made about it.

[Kyon]

The Black Box sounds kinda foreboding too. I sense creepypasta stories being made about it.

 

I like that idea.

 

Also, your avatar stares through my soul. I don't know why.

[Brad]

I knew about it before, but I didn't know that they canceled it. I thought it was just an obscure derivative of The Orange Box.

[Blue]

You're probably right, it'll be worth monies in the future.

[ArcticAvenger]

That box is kinda sexy.

[DooMas]

Was it released to stores and then cenceled ? or was it just an idea of selling these ?

[saja]

Guys! I have the Black Box (kind of). Proof: http://people.inf.elte.hu/sajsaai/downloads/foto/black_box.jpg

Well, it's not the actual, mentioned one, because this is just a paper card, with an activation code on the other side. It was bundled with an ATI graphics card. So this is not a single product with a disk, just a virtual one with the name "Black Box" and of course with the three games.

[Vapymid]

I wonder how much the box would be worth in 20 years.

 

Probably nothing, as Valve will no longer exist and anything dependent on Steam activation will be useless...

 

Regards

[Kirkreng]

Way to be a buzzkill.

[Collective Foal]

Silly goose! Valve will never die. Gaben has enough grease on his face to keep him a live for 500 more years, and plus he has enough jelly in his rolls to buy out the entire world's food budget.

[Vapymid]

The bigger a company is the faster it burns money. A slip up in revenues because of a flopped product or competition and all of a sudden you are in a liquidity crisis. It is just as easy for a big one to go bust as for a small grocery shop. All it takes is a lawyer-CEO or Gabe Newell run over by a tram...

 

But there is a larger issue here. I could not care less about Sierra going bust - my Half-Life 1, Opposing Force and Blue Shift are on CDs and all I need to install them is a CD-key. For HL2 etc, which is Steam-based it's not enough to have a copy of the game. You always have to ask daddy for permission and when the daddy's gone so is your HL2.

 

This is the price you pay when you trade physical possession for DRMs.

 

Regards

[Axeldeath]

Valve had said that if they go bust they will remove all DRM from your library.

[Vapymid]

Yes, so they did. But will they? It is solely down to their goodwill and discretion, and an ability to do it in the future. None of that can be taken as a given.

 

Regards

[Kirkreng]

Lets not be so negative

 

Also to be honest I don't see Valve going down anytime soon, I mean they seem to have taken every genius game developer in this universe and formed a company with it. Also pretty much ALL of their games have been a success.