Potato Sack
Encyclopedia
The Potato Sack is the name of an alternate reality game
(ARG) created by the Valve Corporation
and the developers of thirteen independent video games
to promote the release of Valve's title, Portal 2
, in April 2011. Valve president Gabe Newell
envisioned the game as a "Cross Game Design Event" in December 2010, and allowed the developers a free rein to design the game using Valve's Portal intellectual property
. The game, requiring players to find and solve a number of puzzles hidden within updates of the thirteen games, ultimately led to the opportunity for players to release Portal 2 about 10 hours earlier than its planned release by playing games under the pretense of powering up GLaDOS
, the sentient computer antagonist from Portal 2. The ARG's theme of potatoes is based on plot elements within Portal 2, specifically that for part of the game, GLaDOS's personality module is run off a potato battery
.
Large numbers of people participated in solving the puzzles within the ARG. Reaction from players and journalists was mixed; some saw the ARG as a show of strong support and commitment by Valve for independent game development, while others thought the ultimate conclusion was of limited benefit to justify buying the games to begin with.
and Youtube
to embed clues. In the case of Toki Tori, sections of new levels included braille
code that referred to latitude and longitude coordinates of Two Tribes' headquarters. One player, "Jake_R", traveled to Two Tribes, where he discovered the glyphs and cyphers posted outside their headquarters. Several of Two Tribes' developers, upon learning of his presence, began filming him from a barbershop across the street. They would later use this footage of him climbing a pole to find these clues as part of another clue during the second phase.
. Each archive included a portion of a larger archive that was password-protected; the password was unveiled using the glyphs, cyphers, and letters from the first update. The larger archive gave further photographs of the Seattle area. When the locations of these points were mapped and connected per the puzzle's instructions, the map showed the word "prelude". Furthermore, players that reached and logged into these screens received a potato icon for each accessed screen on their Steam profile.
that pointed to a website with a countdown time set to expire on the morning of April 15, 2011. Players who discovered these audio clues would be awarded another potato on their Steam profile. A total of 36 possible potatoes were found: 35 within the games and the referenced Steam group, and a 36th earned by obtaining all 35 of the other potatoes.
Concurrent with these changes, Portal 2 became available for pre-loading on the Steam client. At this point, several journalists and players suspected that Portal 2 may have been unlocked early at the end of the countdown timer. This correlated with a separate puzzle embedded in messages sent by Newell to a number of gaming sites; the message suggested the "early release" of material and "thirteen offsite chambers", seemingly referring to the independent games, as well as a message "4/19/2011 7 AM 4/15/2011 9 AM", again referencing the planned Portal 2 release date and the countdown timer. As April 15 drew near, about nine heavily-involved players from the ARG appeared to disengage from the various chat rooms, leaving with the message "There's a hole in the sky through which I can fly"—a line used in early advertisements for Portal; when contacted by other players, these individuals remained coy and cryptic about their actions, appearing to have been "infected" by GLaDOS. It was later revealed that these players, contacted by Valve a few days prior, were invited to Valve's headquarters to be the first to play Portal 2.
efforts like Folding@home
, the site stated that if players generated enough CPU cycles by playing the thirteen games in the Potato Sack, GLaDOS would be rebooted earlier, effectively suggesting an earlier release of Portal 2 before the originally scheduled time of 7:00 AM PDT on April 19, 2011. The number of potatoes found would also serve to help to "boost" the effort. Only one game, Killing Floor, saw an update in this phase, where a special chamber in their Portal-themed map would be opened for players to complete for an in-game achievement
. The players organized a schedule of games to be played to maximize the rate of progression, and eventually, ended up unlocking Portal 2 on Steam about ten hours before this scheduled time. The approximately 1800 players that had successfully earned all 36 potatoes by the time of Portal 2s launch were given the Valve complete pack, including Portal 2, which they could gift to other players. Players who had found at least thirteen potatoes or played each of the Potato Sack games for a minimum amount of time received Portal 2-themed items within Team Fortress 2
.
Development
Valve had previously performed an ARG in the week prior to the announcement of Portal 2, at the start of March 2010. The ARG was initiated by a new patch to Portal that led to a sequence of puzzles, which were ultimately solved within hours of the patch's release.
The idea of the Potato Sack ARG came from Valve president Gabe Newell
sometime around December 2010. Following on the success of the first ARG, he saw a way to promote both the highly-anticipated Portal 2 release along with several independent games through a "Cross Game Design Event". Dejobaan Games
' Leo Jaitley believed that Valve targeted developers that had proven track records of working with other developers, and not necessarily for the sales or popularity of the specific games. Valve invited the twenty independent developers to their headquarters on December 16, though did not explain the rationale for the visit. Only there did Valve explain the promotion, with the ultimate goal being the early release of Portal 2 at the conclusion of the ARG, according to Gaijin Games
' CEO Alex Neuse. According to Rob Jagnow of Lazy 8 Studios, Valve assured the developers of an open relationship, stating that they had "No constraints. No NDA
s." and that the project was "built on trust and mutual respect". Jaitley commented "most studios got involved knowing that there was likely to be some payoff, but without anything upfront or any promises of riches".
To help with the ARG, Valve gave the developers a free rein over the game's structure, and full access to Portal intellectual property
to include within their games. Such assets included further voice work from Ellen McLain
, the voice actress for GLaDOS
, who recorded additional lines for the developers of the games to taunt the players with. Furthermore, the developers were given the opportunity to play what had existed of Portal 2 to build ideas for the ARG. Valve and the indie developers worked together over the next few days to design the ARG, creating the three phases, the timing between phases to allow for the puzzles to be solved, and the general fiction of the game. The developers decided to design the fiction of the ARG around the return of GLaDOS, who had been apparently destroyed at the end of Portal, leaving clues to her revival in the various games. The potato theme was based on Portal 2s fiction, in which, during a portion of the game, GLaDOS' personality is placed into a potato battery
. To help promote the ARG, Valve and the developers arranged for the Potato Sack sale as to "make it easier for hard-core fans to participate in every aspect of the ARG".
Between the December meeting and second gathering in March 2011, prior to the ARG's launch, there was no direct verbal communication between Valve or the developers. Instead, the independent developers spent time, using a shared wiki provided by Valve, to plan out and coordinate the game. They also had to develop the new content for their games, which in most cases was work in addition to existing projects that they were presently undertaking. Others had to go back to older programming code and re-acquaint themselves with it before undertaking the new additions for the ARG. Valve's Jeep Barnett helped to coordinate the large effort. The second visit to Valve in March 2011 was to affirm the plans for the launch of the ARG.
The first update was tied with April Fools' Day
, with the addition of potatoes and gibberish sentences being in line with the pranks one normally sees on that day. Throughout the ARG, the players were monitored by the developers through the Internet Relay Chat
, forums, and web sites that were being used to coordinate the solving effort. This allowed, for example, Two Tribes to prepare for Jake_R's visit, and the integration of a screenshot of the chat log into one of the puzzles. In another example, another chat room user, following a red herring
, visited a physical location near the California studio for Team Meat; Edmund McMillen
was able to arrange to meet the user and give him a signed copy of Super Meat Boy. Monitoring of the players enabled the developers to provide hints and clues for puzzles that players were struggling with as to allow the ARG to progress in a timely manner. While many puzzles of the ARG included cross-game clues—such as finding the password for one of the Aperture Science login screens from another game—Neuse felt they could have increased the cross-game complexity of the puzzles if they had more time to plan it out. The developers were aided by the agility of Valve in its participation. During the second phase, one of the developers asked if Newell would become involved in the ARG. Newell then fed the image with the encrypted message to media outlets. Valve also placed hidden messages in promotional videos for Portal 2 which helped to point the ARG players in specific directions, including calling some of the players out by name.
There were points during the ARG that players used unexpected means to solve a puzzle, but the developers and the player community worked around these issues. In some cases, players attempted to download beta versions of the patches to the games, but Valve was able to respond, usually in minutes, to block access to these. Valve also quickly responded to a web site that used Steam credentials to award players the potatoes without having to complete the target achievements; only about 1% of the potatoes were earned this way, and Valve later revoked them, though let players earn them again though legitimate means. Other players examined the files and binary code of the patched games to try to find password strings or other identifiers that would normally be seen only while playing the game. In at least one case, where this action served to reveal the solution to the puzzle before it was truly solved, the ARG players discouraged this behavior and apologized to Valve for these actions. When possible, the developers laid red herrings for those that tried to hack the ARG, including the use of Rickrolling.
Jagnow commented on several changes the developers would have made in hindsight after the completion of the ARG. One aspect he considered was the weak part of the fiction of the ARG, something he believed they would have integrated more in the game from the start. The release of the Potato Sack on April 1 may have been a bad decision according to Jagnow, as they did not get the press exposure they thought they would in conjunction with the other April Fool's events occurring that day, with some media outlets hesitant to report on potential pranks for fear of having to retract these later. In the third phase, where certain players were "taken over" by GLaDOS, Jagnow felt they extracted these players from the game too early as they were influential in coordinating the chat rooms and wiki, leaving the remaining players confused. Instead, Jagnow suggested they should have found a way to allow these players to continue participating until near the end. Jagnow considered the push of the crescendo of the ARG, the "appearance" of GLaDOS@Home, to have been the biggest failing. Originally scheduled for April 16 or 17, it was pushed to April 15 to allow more players, including international ones, to participate in the effort to release Portal 2 early, and to gain media attention. Instead, the developers found that existing players of the ARG were frustrated with no new puzzles to solves, while new players brought to the site by the media were skeptical and saw the event as "a cheap media ploy to get players to buy the Potato Sack in the hope of an early Portal 2 release".
Reception
Overall, the alternate reality game received mixed response from gamers, some praising it as outstanding marketing between Portal 2 and the indie gamers, others considering it a way to force players to buy games they do not want to gain access to Portal 2 earlier. Pete Davidson of GamePro
considered it a "risky marketing move" that relied on Valve's long-standing reputation with the community to build on their trust, as well as a "hugely positive sign of support for indie games" from the company. David Ewalt of Forbes
considered the tactic a huge benefit for the indie developers, whose games led Steam sales charts in the weeks leading to Portal 2s release. Ben Kurchera of Ars Technica
noted that it was entirely possible to ignore the alternate reality game without any negative effects or losing any potential benefits. Luke Plunkett of Kotaku
was more critical, commenting that for most players in North America, having the release only ten hours earlier—occurring overnight for many—would be "business as usual" in that they would not be able to play until the next day; thus, players that purchased and spent time in the Potato Sack games may have simply wasted their money for something they didn't want to gain almost nothing back. Leigh Alexander of Gamasutra
also criticized the ARG for not providing an idea of the expectation of reward when it was successfully completed, comparing the ten-hour gain to a vignette
in the movie A Christmas Story
, where the main character after saving up money and waiting weeks for a secret decoder ring to decipher a message from a radio program, finds that the coded message is only an advertising blurb. Alexander suggested that instead, ARGs should give players an idea of the type of reward that may be offered, and then can exceed player's expectations when it is completed. Retailers in countries where the disc-based version of the game would have lagged a few days behind the Steam release opted to break their street date to avoid losing sales to the digital downloads.
Though direct sales from Steam are unknown, the Potato Sack ARG helped to boost sales of the independent games. The whole Potato Sack promotion was the second-highest selling compilation on Steam in the week prior to Portal 2s release, following Portal 2 itself and ahead of the Potato Sack/Portal 2 bundle. Dylan Fitterer, programmer for Audiosurf, noted that during the promotion, more than 6000 people were playing his game at a time, compared to 300 players before the event. Fitterer also saw an opportunity to create a new game based upon the ARG-themed addition to Audiosurf. Ichiro Lambe of Dejobaan Games was also pleased with the sales increased; while not a windfall, it helped him to continue to live comfortably. Thomas Grip of Frictional Games
claimed that the boost of sales for Amnesia within the first two days of the Potato Sack sale completely covered the development costs for the added "Justine" content they had developed for the ARG. John Gibson of Tripwire Interactive
believed that similar ARGs could be run in the future without the presence of a major title like Portal 2 as long as there is a significant payoff for the players.
Journalists noted that many of the user reviews for Portal 2 on Metacritic
evoked negative opinion of the game, believed to be tied to the minimal impact on Portal 2s release time. These users cited complaints about the game being too short (with some saying it is only four hours long), the existence of paid downloadable content
at launch for some versions, and supposed evidence that the game on Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X were ports of the console version. Journalists have defended Valve in these claims, countering that the game's length depends on the amount of immersion the player puts into the game, that the downloadable content is only cosmetic additions for the co-op mode, and that the quality of the graphics on the Windows and Mac version do not suggest a simple console port.
External links
Alternate reality game
An alternate reality game is an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform, often involving multiple media and game elements, to tell a story that may be affected by participants' ideas or actions....
(ARG) created by the Valve Corporation
Valve Corporation
Valve Corporation is an American video game development and digital distribution company based in Bellevue, Washington, United States...
and the developers of thirteen independent video games
Independent video game development
Independent video game development is the process of creating video games without the financial support of a video game publisher. While large firms can create independent games, they are usually designed by an individual or a small team of as many as ten people, depending on the complexity of the...
to promote the release of Valve's title, Portal 2
Portal 2
Portal 2 is a first-person puzzle-platform video game developed and published by Valve Corporation. The sequel to the 2007 video game Portal, it was announced on March 5, 2010, following a week-long alternate reality game based on new patches to the original game...
, in April 2011. Valve president Gabe Newell
Gabe Newell
Gabe Logan Newell is the co-founder and managing director of video game development and online distribution company Valve Corporation.-Work:...
envisioned the game as a "Cross Game Design Event" in December 2010, and allowed the developers a free rein to design the game using Valve's Portal intellectual property
Intellectual property
Intellectual property is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized—and the corresponding fields of law...
. The game, requiring players to find and solve a number of puzzles hidden within updates of the thirteen games, ultimately led to the opportunity for players to release Portal 2 about 10 hours earlier than its planned release by playing games under the pretense of powering up GLaDOS
GLaDOS
GLaDOS, short for Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System, is a fictional artificially intelligent computer system in Valve Software's Half-Life video game series and the main antagonist in the video games Portal and Portal 2. She was created by Erik Wolpaw and Kim Swift and is voiced by Ellen...
, the sentient computer antagonist from Portal 2. The ARG's theme of potatoes is based on plot elements within Portal 2, specifically that for part of the game, GLaDOS's personality module is run off a potato battery
Lemon battery
A lemon battery is a device used in experiments proposed in many science textbooks around the world. It is made by inserting two different metallic objects, for example a galvanized nail and a copper coin, into a lemon. The copper coin serves as the positive electrode or cathode and the galvanized...
.
Large numbers of people participated in solving the puzzles within the ARG. Reaction from players and journalists was mixed; some saw the ARG as a show of strong support and commitment by Valve for independent game development, while others thought the ultimate conclusion was of limited benefit to justify buying the games to begin with.
The Potato Sack Bundle
The ARG began without announcement with the release of the "Potato Sack Bundle" on Steam on April 1, 2011, which offered the included games at 75% off their normal price. The games included in the Potato Sack are listed below with their developer and release year.| Game | Developer | Release Year |
|---|---|---|
| 1... 2... 3... KICK IT! (Drop That Beat Like an Ugly Baby) | Dejobaan Games Dejobaan Games Dejobaan Games is a video game developer based in Massachusetts. The company was founded in 1999. The company originally developed games for mobile devices,but has since branched out to other products for Microsoft Windows. Their most recent title is 1... 2... 3... KICK IT! .-Titles:* 1... 2... 3..... |
2011 |
| AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! – A Reckless Disregard for Gravity AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! – A Reckless Disregard for Gravity AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! – A Reckless Disregard for Gravity is a simulation video game released on September 3, 2009 by Dejobaan Games for Microsoft Windows... |
Dejobaan Games Dejobaan Games Dejobaan Games is a video game developer based in Massachusetts. The company was founded in 1999. The company originally developed games for mobile devices,but has since branched out to other products for Microsoft Windows. Their most recent title is 1... 2... 3... KICK IT! .-Titles:* 1... 2... 3..... |
2009 |
| Amnesia: The Dark Descent Amnesia: The Dark Descent Amnesia: The Dark Descent is a survival horror video game by Frictional Games, who previously developed the Penumbra series. Released for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux platforms, the game features an unarmed protagonist exploring a dark and foreboding castle, while avoiding monsters and other... |
Frictional Games Frictional Games Frictional Games is an independent video game company located in Helsingborg, Sweden. The developer comprises a small core team and is led by Thomas Grip and Jens Nilsson. Certain key roles such as Music and Narrative Design are performed by external staff like Mikko Tarmia and Tom Jubert,... |
2010 |
| Audiosurf Audiosurf Audiosurf is a puzzle/rhythm hybrid game created by Invisible Handlebar, a personal company created by Dylan Fitterer. Its track-like stages visually mimic the music the player chooses, while the player races across several lanes collecting colored blocks that appear in sync with the music... |
Invisible Handlebar | 2008 |
| The Ball The Ball (video game) The Ball is a first-person shooter puzzle video game developed by Teotl Studios and published by Tripwire Interactive in 2010. Originally developed as a mod for Unreal Tournament III, the mod was ported over to the Unreal Development Kit to enable a standalone commercial release... |
Teolt Studios / Tripwire Interactive Tripwire Interactive Tripwire Interactive is an American game development studio and publisher based in Roswell, Georgia, formed by members of the international team that created the acclaimed Unreal Tournament 2004 mod, Red Orchestra: Combined Arms. Red Orchestra won top prize in the nVidia-sponsored Make Something... |
2010 |
| Bit.Trip Beat Bit.Trip Beat Bit.Trip Beat, marketed as BIT.TRIP BEAT, is an arcade-style music video game developed by Gaijin Games and published by Aksys for the Wii's WiiWare download service. It was released in 2009 in North America, and released in Japan and PAL regions in the same year... |
Gaijin Games Gaijin Games Gaijin Games is an independent video game development studio, best known for their BIT.TRIP series of video games. The studio was founded in 2007 by Alex Neuse and is located in Santa Cruz, California.-History:Gaijin Games initially emerged in 2004... |
2009 |
| Cogs Cogs (video game) -Gameplay:Cogs is built on a number of puzzles that mimic sliding block puzzles. Each level, representing some three-dimensional object, has various objectives, but generally involve moving tiles to connect sets of gears, piping, and other physical elements to make that object behave in a specific... |
Lazy 8 Studios | 2009 |
| Defense Grid | Hidden Path Entertainment | 2008 |
| Killing Floor Killing Floor (2009 video game) Killing Floor is a cooperative first-person shooter video game developed and published by Tripwire Interactive. It was first released on May 14, 2009, for Microsoft Windows, and for Mac OS X on May 5, 2010.-Gameplay:... |
Tripwire Interactive Tripwire Interactive Tripwire Interactive is an American game development studio and publisher based in Roswell, Georgia, formed by members of the international team that created the acclaimed Unreal Tournament 2004 mod, Red Orchestra: Combined Arms. Red Orchestra won top prize in the nVidia-sponsored Make Something... |
2009 |
| RUSH | Two Tribes Two Tribes B.V. Two Tribes B.V. is a video game developer with its offices centered in Amersfoort, Netherlands. They develop both original games and games for franchises. They used to specialize in portable games but later had plans to start developing games for video game consoles due to the popularity of the... |
2010 |
| Super Meat Boy Super Meat Boy Super Meat Boy is an independent video game designed by Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes and developed by Team Meat. It is the successor to McMillen and Jonathan McEntee's October 2008 flash game Meat Boy. Super Meat Boy was released on the Xbox 360 through Xbox Live Arcade in October 2010, on... |
Team Meat | 2010 |
| Toki Tori Toki Tori Toki Tori is a puzzle video game with platform elements originally released by Capcom in September 2001 for the Game Boy Color. It was developed by Two Tribes B.V. and is their first published video game. The game follows a young chick, Toki Tori, and his quest to rescue his younger siblings,... |
Two Tribes Two Tribes B.V. Two Tribes B.V. is a video game developer with its offices centered in Amersfoort, Netherlands. They develop both original games and games for franchises. They used to specialize in portable games but later had plans to start developing games for video game consoles due to the popularity of the... |
2010 |
| The Wonderful End of the World | Dejobaan Games Dejobaan Games Dejobaan Games is a video game developer based in Massachusetts. The company was founded in 1999. The company originally developed games for mobile devices,but has since branched out to other products for Microsoft Windows. Their most recent title is 1... 2... 3... KICK IT! .-Titles:* 1... 2... 3..... |
2009 |
The first update
On the release date of the Potato Sack bundle, players found the games within it had recently received updates. Most provided an immediate cosmetic change by replacing or adding assets that referred to potatoes. When players started looking deeper into these new assets, they discovered a series of glyphs that referred to other games associated with specific letters, as well as nonsense sentences that lead to specific cyphers. Other hints were less direct, using online services such as TwitterTwitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
and Youtube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
to embed clues. In the case of Toki Tori, sections of new levels included braille
Braille
The Braille system is a method that is widely used by blind people to read and write, and was the first digital form of writing.Braille was devised in 1825 by Louis Braille, a blind Frenchman. Each Braille character, or cell, is made up of six dot positions, arranged in a rectangle containing two...
code that referred to latitude and longitude coordinates of Two Tribes' headquarters. One player, "Jake_R", traveled to Two Tribes, where he discovered the glyphs and cyphers posted outside their headquarters. Several of Two Tribes' developers, upon learning of his presence, began filming him from a barbershop across the street. They would later use this footage of him climbing a pole to find these clues as part of another clue during the second phase.
The second update
On April 7, each of the games in the Potato Sack received a second major update. Players found that by completing certain tasks in the game, they would be presented with login screens for the fictional Aperture Science corporation within the Steam interface. Other tasks and clues led to passwords that could be used to log into these Aperture Science screens. These provided players with compressed archives of pictures that consisted of Portal 2 artwork, including photographs from around Seattle (where Valve is based) embedded in their alpha channelsAlpha compositing
In computer graphics, alpha compositing is the process of combining an image with a background to create the appearance of partial or full transparency. It is often useful to render image elements in separate passes, and then combine the resulting multiple 2D images into a single, final image in a...
. Each archive included a portion of a larger archive that was password-protected; the password was unveiled using the glyphs, cyphers, and letters from the first update. The larger archive gave further photographs of the Seattle area. When the locations of these points were mapped and connected per the puzzle's instructions, the map showed the word "prelude". Furthermore, players that reached and logged into these screens received a potato icon for each accessed screen on their Steam profile.
The third update
On April 12, another update for each game was released. These updates were all Portal themed, such as levels based on Aperture Science in The Ball and Killing Floor. Again, players found that by completing specific tasks in the new content, they would be presented with an Aperture Science screen, though this time the screens provided a cryptic audio clue. These clues were found to be two-part clues relating to the previously-identified locations around Seattle. By mapping these points, using locations commonly shared by one clue, players were lead to the name of a Steam group that contained a single member by the name of "dinosaur", a reference to an earlier ARG used for Portal 2s announcement. Screenshots within this user's profile gave a QR CodeQR Code
A QR code is a type of matrix barcode first designed for the automotive industry. More recently, the system has become popular outside of the industry due to its fast readability and comparatively large storage capacity. The code consists of black modules arranged in a square pattern on a white...
that pointed to a website with a countdown time set to expire on the morning of April 15, 2011. Players who discovered these audio clues would be awarded another potato on their Steam profile. A total of 36 possible potatoes were found: 35 within the games and the referenced Steam group, and a 36th earned by obtaining all 35 of the other potatoes.
Concurrent with these changes, Portal 2 became available for pre-loading on the Steam client. At this point, several journalists and players suspected that Portal 2 may have been unlocked early at the end of the countdown timer. This correlated with a separate puzzle embedded in messages sent by Newell to a number of gaming sites; the message suggested the "early release" of material and "thirteen offsite chambers", seemingly referring to the independent games, as well as a message "4/19/2011 7 AM 4/15/2011 9 AM", again referencing the planned Portal 2 release date and the countdown timer. As April 15 drew near, about nine heavily-involved players from the ARG appeared to disengage from the various chat rooms, leaving with the message "There's a hole in the sky through which I can fly"—a line used in early advertisements for Portal; when contacted by other players, these individuals remained coy and cryptic about their actions, appearing to have been "infected" by GLaDOS. It was later revealed that these players, contacted by Valve a few days prior, were invited to Valve's headquarters to be the first to play Portal 2.
GLaDOS@Home
At the end of the countdown timer, the countdown website redirected to a new page on the fictional Aperture Science website, calling itself "GLaDOS@Home". Spoofing other distributed computingDistributed computing
Distributed computing is a field of computer science that studies distributed systems. A distributed system consists of multiple autonomous computers that communicate through a computer network. The computers interact with each other in order to achieve a common goal...
efforts like Folding@home
Folding@home
Folding@home is a distributed computing project designed to use spare processing power on personal computers to perform simulations of disease-relevant protein folding and other molecular dynamics, and to improve on the methods of doing so...
, the site stated that if players generated enough CPU cycles by playing the thirteen games in the Potato Sack, GLaDOS would be rebooted earlier, effectively suggesting an earlier release of Portal 2 before the originally scheduled time of 7:00 AM PDT on April 19, 2011. The number of potatoes found would also serve to help to "boost" the effort. Only one game, Killing Floor, saw an update in this phase, where a special chamber in their Portal-themed map would be opened for players to complete for an in-game achievement
Achievement (video gaming)
In video gaming parlance, an achievement, also sometimes known as a trophy or challenge, is a meta-goal defined outside of a game's parameters...
. The players organized a schedule of games to be played to maximize the rate of progression, and eventually, ended up unlocking Portal 2 on Steam about ten hours before this scheduled time. The approximately 1800 players that had successfully earned all 36 potatoes by the time of Portal 2s launch were given the Valve complete pack, including Portal 2, which they could gift to other players. Players who had found at least thirteen potatoes or played each of the Potato Sack games for a minimum amount of time received Portal 2-themed items within Team Fortress 2
Team Fortress 2
Team Fortress 2 is a free-to-play team-based first-person shooter multiplayer video game developed by Valve Corporation. A sequel to the original mod Team Fortress based on the Quake engine, it was first released as part of the video game compilation The Orange Box on October 10, 2007 for Windows...
.
Development
Valve had previously performed an ARG in the week prior to the announcement of Portal 2, at the start of March 2010. The ARG was initiated by a new patch to Portal that led to a sequence of puzzles, which were ultimately solved within hours of the patch's release.
The idea of the Potato Sack ARG came from Valve president Gabe Newell
Gabe Newell
Gabe Logan Newell is the co-founder and managing director of video game development and online distribution company Valve Corporation.-Work:...
sometime around December 2010. Following on the success of the first ARG, he saw a way to promote both the highly-anticipated Portal 2 release along with several independent games through a "Cross Game Design Event". Dejobaan Games
Dejobaan Games
Dejobaan Games is a video game developer based in Massachusetts. The company was founded in 1999. The company originally developed games for mobile devices,but has since branched out to other products for Microsoft Windows. Their most recent title is 1... 2... 3... KICK IT! .-Titles:* 1... 2... 3.....
' Leo Jaitley believed that Valve targeted developers that had proven track records of working with other developers, and not necessarily for the sales or popularity of the specific games. Valve invited the twenty independent developers to their headquarters on December 16, though did not explain the rationale for the visit. Only there did Valve explain the promotion, with the ultimate goal being the early release of Portal 2 at the conclusion of the ARG, according to Gaijin Games
Gaijin Games
Gaijin Games is an independent video game development studio, best known for their BIT.TRIP series of video games. The studio was founded in 2007 by Alex Neuse and is located in Santa Cruz, California.-History:Gaijin Games initially emerged in 2004...
' CEO Alex Neuse. According to Rob Jagnow of Lazy 8 Studios, Valve assured the developers of an open relationship, stating that they had "No constraints. No NDA
Non-disclosure agreement
A non-disclosure agreement , also known as a confidentiality agreement , confidential disclosure agreement , proprietary information agreement , or secrecy agreement, is a legal contract between at least two parties that outlines confidential material, knowledge, or information that the parties...
s." and that the project was "built on trust and mutual respect". Jaitley commented "most studios got involved knowing that there was likely to be some payoff, but without anything upfront or any promises of riches".
To help with the ARG, Valve gave the developers a free rein over the game's structure, and full access to Portal intellectual property
Intellectual property
Intellectual property is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized—and the corresponding fields of law...
to include within their games. Such assets included further voice work from Ellen McLain
Ellen McLain
Ellen McLain is an opera singer and voice actress from Nashville, Tennessee, USA. McLain provides voices for many characters in several video games from Valve...
, the voice actress for GLaDOS
GLaDOS
GLaDOS, short for Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System, is a fictional artificially intelligent computer system in Valve Software's Half-Life video game series and the main antagonist in the video games Portal and Portal 2. She was created by Erik Wolpaw and Kim Swift and is voiced by Ellen...
, who recorded additional lines for the developers of the games to taunt the players with. Furthermore, the developers were given the opportunity to play what had existed of Portal 2 to build ideas for the ARG. Valve and the indie developers worked together over the next few days to design the ARG, creating the three phases, the timing between phases to allow for the puzzles to be solved, and the general fiction of the game. The developers decided to design the fiction of the ARG around the return of GLaDOS, who had been apparently destroyed at the end of Portal, leaving clues to her revival in the various games. The potato theme was based on Portal 2s fiction, in which, during a portion of the game, GLaDOS' personality is placed into a potato battery
Lemon battery
A lemon battery is a device used in experiments proposed in many science textbooks around the world. It is made by inserting two different metallic objects, for example a galvanized nail and a copper coin, into a lemon. The copper coin serves as the positive electrode or cathode and the galvanized...
. To help promote the ARG, Valve and the developers arranged for the Potato Sack sale as to "make it easier for hard-core fans to participate in every aspect of the ARG".
Between the December meeting and second gathering in March 2011, prior to the ARG's launch, there was no direct verbal communication between Valve or the developers. Instead, the independent developers spent time, using a shared wiki provided by Valve, to plan out and coordinate the game. They also had to develop the new content for their games, which in most cases was work in addition to existing projects that they were presently undertaking. Others had to go back to older programming code and re-acquaint themselves with it before undertaking the new additions for the ARG. Valve's Jeep Barnett helped to coordinate the large effort. The second visit to Valve in March 2011 was to affirm the plans for the launch of the ARG.
The first update was tied with April Fools' Day
April Fools' Day
April Fools' Day is celebrated in different countries around the world on April 1 every year. Sometimes referred to as All Fools' Day, April 1 is not a national holiday, but is widely recognized and celebrated as a day when many people play all kinds of jokes and foolishness...
, with the addition of potatoes and gibberish sentences being in line with the pranks one normally sees on that day. Throughout the ARG, the players were monitored by the developers through the Internet Relay Chat
Internet Relay Chat
Internet Relay Chat is a protocol for real-time Internet text messaging or synchronous conferencing. It is mainly designed for group communication in discussion forums, called channels, but also allows one-to-one communication via private message as well as chat and data transfer, including file...
, forums, and web sites that were being used to coordinate the solving effort. This allowed, for example, Two Tribes to prepare for Jake_R's visit, and the integration of a screenshot of the chat log into one of the puzzles. In another example, another chat room user, following a red herring
Red herring
A red herring is a deliberate attempt to divert attention.Red herring may refer to:* Red herring , the informal fallacy of presenting an argument that may in itself be valid, but does not address the issue in question....
, visited a physical location near the California studio for Team Meat; Edmund McMillen
Edmund McMillen
Edmund McMillen is an American video game designer who is known for his unique visual style and innovative gameplay design, as well as his emphasis on the importance of careful level design and rewarding difficulty curves.-Early life:...
was able to arrange to meet the user and give him a signed copy of Super Meat Boy. Monitoring of the players enabled the developers to provide hints and clues for puzzles that players were struggling with as to allow the ARG to progress in a timely manner. While many puzzles of the ARG included cross-game clues—such as finding the password for one of the Aperture Science login screens from another game—Neuse felt they could have increased the cross-game complexity of the puzzles if they had more time to plan it out. The developers were aided by the agility of Valve in its participation. During the second phase, one of the developers asked if Newell would become involved in the ARG. Newell then fed the image with the encrypted message to media outlets. Valve also placed hidden messages in promotional videos for Portal 2 which helped to point the ARG players in specific directions, including calling some of the players out by name.
There were points during the ARG that players used unexpected means to solve a puzzle, but the developers and the player community worked around these issues. In some cases, players attempted to download beta versions of the patches to the games, but Valve was able to respond, usually in minutes, to block access to these. Valve also quickly responded to a web site that used Steam credentials to award players the potatoes without having to complete the target achievements; only about 1% of the potatoes were earned this way, and Valve later revoked them, though let players earn them again though legitimate means. Other players examined the files and binary code of the patched games to try to find password strings or other identifiers that would normally be seen only while playing the game. In at least one case, where this action served to reveal the solution to the puzzle before it was truly solved, the ARG players discouraged this behavior and apologized to Valve for these actions. When possible, the developers laid red herrings for those that tried to hack the ARG, including the use of Rickrolling.
Jagnow commented on several changes the developers would have made in hindsight after the completion of the ARG. One aspect he considered was the weak part of the fiction of the ARG, something he believed they would have integrated more in the game from the start. The release of the Potato Sack on April 1 may have been a bad decision according to Jagnow, as they did not get the press exposure they thought they would in conjunction with the other April Fool's events occurring that day, with some media outlets hesitant to report on potential pranks for fear of having to retract these later. In the third phase, where certain players were "taken over" by GLaDOS, Jagnow felt they extracted these players from the game too early as they were influential in coordinating the chat rooms and wiki, leaving the remaining players confused. Instead, Jagnow suggested they should have found a way to allow these players to continue participating until near the end. Jagnow considered the push of the crescendo of the ARG, the "appearance" of GLaDOS@Home, to have been the biggest failing. Originally scheduled for April 16 or 17, it was pushed to April 15 to allow more players, including international ones, to participate in the effort to release Portal 2 early, and to gain media attention. Instead, the developers found that existing players of the ARG were frustrated with no new puzzles to solves, while new players brought to the site by the media were skeptical and saw the event as "a cheap media ploy to get players to buy the Potato Sack in the hope of an early Portal 2 release".
Reception
Overall, the alternate reality game received mixed response from gamers, some praising it as outstanding marketing between Portal 2 and the indie gamers, others considering it a way to force players to buy games they do not want to gain access to Portal 2 earlier. Pete Davidson of GamePro
GamePro
GamePro Media was a United States gaming media company publishing online and print content on the video game industry, video game hardware, and video game software developed for a video game console , a computer, and/or a mobile device . GamePro Media properties include GamePro magazine and...
considered it a "risky marketing move" that relied on Valve's long-standing reputation with the community to build on their trust, as well as a "hugely positive sign of support for indie games" from the company. David Ewalt of Forbes
Forbes
Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...
considered the tactic a huge benefit for the indie developers, whose games led Steam sales charts in the weeks leading to Portal 2s release. Ben Kurchera of Ars Technica
Ars Technica
Ars Technica is a technology news and information website created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, science, technology policy, and video games. Ars Technica is known for its features, long articles that go...
noted that it was entirely possible to ignore the alternate reality game without any negative effects or losing any potential benefits. Luke Plunkett of Kotaku
Kotaku
Kotaku is a video games-focused blog. It is part of Gawker Media's "Gawker" network of sites, which also includes Gizmodo, Deadspin, Lifehacker, io9 and Jezebel. Named to CNET News' Blog 100, Kotaku is consistently listed in the top 40 of Technorati's Top 100...
was more critical, commenting that for most players in North America, having the release only ten hours earlier—occurring overnight for many—would be "business as usual" in that they would not be able to play until the next day; thus, players that purchased and spent time in the Potato Sack games may have simply wasted their money for something they didn't want to gain almost nothing back. Leigh Alexander of Gamasutra
Gamasutra
Gamasutra is a website founded in 1997 for video game developers. It is owned and operated by UBM TechWeb , a division of United Business Media, and acts as the online sister publication to the print magazine Game Developer...
also criticized the ARG for not providing an idea of the expectation of reward when it was successfully completed, comparing the ten-hour gain to a vignette
Vignette (literature)
In theatrical script writing, sketch stories, and poetry, a vignette is a short impressionistic scene that focuses on one moment or gives a trenchant impression about a character, an idea, or a setting and sometimes an object...
in the movie A Christmas Story
A Christmas Story
A Christmas Story is a 1983 American Christmas comedy film based on the short stories and semi-fictional anecdotes of author and raconteur Jean Shepherd, including material from his books In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash, and Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories. It was directed by Bob Clark...
, where the main character after saving up money and waiting weeks for a secret decoder ring to decipher a message from a radio program, finds that the coded message is only an advertising blurb. Alexander suggested that instead, ARGs should give players an idea of the type of reward that may be offered, and then can exceed player's expectations when it is completed. Retailers in countries where the disc-based version of the game would have lagged a few days behind the Steam release opted to break their street date to avoid losing sales to the digital downloads.
Though direct sales from Steam are unknown, the Potato Sack ARG helped to boost sales of the independent games. The whole Potato Sack promotion was the second-highest selling compilation on Steam in the week prior to Portal 2s release, following Portal 2 itself and ahead of the Potato Sack/Portal 2 bundle. Dylan Fitterer, programmer for Audiosurf, noted that during the promotion, more than 6000 people were playing his game at a time, compared to 300 players before the event. Fitterer also saw an opportunity to create a new game based upon the ARG-themed addition to Audiosurf. Ichiro Lambe of Dejobaan Games was also pleased with the sales increased; while not a windfall, it helped him to continue to live comfortably. Thomas Grip of Frictional Games
Frictional Games
Frictional Games is an independent video game company located in Helsingborg, Sweden. The developer comprises a small core team and is led by Thomas Grip and Jens Nilsson. Certain key roles such as Music and Narrative Design are performed by external staff like Mikko Tarmia and Tom Jubert,...
claimed that the boost of sales for Amnesia within the first two days of the Potato Sack sale completely covered the development costs for the added "Justine" content they had developed for the ARG. John Gibson of Tripwire Interactive
Tripwire Interactive
Tripwire Interactive is an American game development studio and publisher based in Roswell, Georgia, formed by members of the international team that created the acclaimed Unreal Tournament 2004 mod, Red Orchestra: Combined Arms. Red Orchestra won top prize in the nVidia-sponsored Make Something...
believed that similar ARGs could be run in the future without the presence of a major title like Portal 2 as long as there is a significant payoff for the players.
Journalists noted that many of the user reviews for Portal 2 on Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
evoked negative opinion of the game, believed to be tied to the minimal impact on Portal 2s release time. These users cited complaints about the game being too short (with some saying it is only four hours long), the existence of paid downloadable content
Downloadable content
Downloadable content is official additional content for a video game distributed through the Internet. Downloadable content can be of several types, ranging from a single in-game outfit to an entirely new, extensive storyline, similarly to an expansion pack. As such, DLC may add new game modes,...
at launch for some versions, and supposed evidence that the game on Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X were ports of the console version. Journalists have defended Valve in these claims, countering that the game's length depends on the amount of immersion the player puts into the game, that the downloadable content is only cosmetic additions for the co-op mode, and that the quality of the graphics on the Windows and Mac version do not suggest a simple console port.
External links