The Crazy Story of Portal 2's Early Release

[@Casperr]

It took me a while to make this one, but would you guess that this video required *a lot* of research?! 😅 I didn't want to just repeat the bullet points from an article somewhere, I wanted to *understand* everything that happened so I could decide for myself what the interesting parts of the story were to tell. So if you've got any burning questions about this ARG that weren't addressed in the video, or if there's something in the video you would like explained in more detail, just let me know because I probably have the answer, or know exactly where to find it! If there's a lot of frequently asked questions I might do a follow up video or an AMA livestream or something, so we'll see! As always, thanks for watching and (hopefully) enjoying my videos. After 9 weeks in development I hope it was worth the wait.

[@ren.67]

Definitely needs more views

[@koza.]

that was _way_ too much research if it took 9 years to make this video...

[@redjarman]

realsed

[@StormBurnX]

It's crazy to think that, in addition to all this ARG, it wasn't over - the SSTV sound files and hints in Portal 2 itself both explain the first ARG, and build on it further - valve is a crazy beast.

[@UnassumingVirgo]

How the heck people figure this stuff out is insane.

[@Casperr]

Could not agree more! If you're interested in knowing more about that side of things I really recommend looking at the sources in the description. A lot of the devs of the games did retrospective blogs. It's super interesting to see their thought process on designing the puzzles and their reactions to how people approached them. The timeline is quite interesting too - you get to see all the leads that people tried which were actually NOTHING 😅

[@bobisnotaperson]

Collaboration

[@lividus4804]

Yes this is totally insane

[@dickiewongtk]

A lot of free time.

[@feelx92ger]

Reddit. Mass intelligence.

[@wolfcl0ck]

Ah, to have a Valve like this again. Wouldn't it be nice?

[@joko49perez]

I'm fine with 2019-2020 valve. As long as we stay far far away from 2013-2018 valve, they're fine.

[@SCP--oz6oz]

joko49perez they were making source 2 and half life Alyx for most of that time

[@SurmenianSoldier]

I think there will be another ARG for Half Life 3. But I'll doubt that since I think they wont do that since the Half Life: Alyx ending gave it away but I hope that happens anyway

[@LlamaLogic]

Value nowadays: releases Half-life: Alyx with no warning

[@joko49perez]

@@SCP--oz6oz The issue was their attitude. I don't think anyone appreciated being left in the dark completely about what they were doing. Most of their public stuff during that time was mainly fuckups. They can easily generate hype for things if they set up the right expectations, specially if they say X is in early development.

[@games4uall]

I am convinced that people who do ARG’s are the most big galactic brained people on earth

[@earlgrayness]

69 likes looks like im ruining it

[@cardo128]

As one of the developers who got to work on The Ball’s potato sack DLC I find this such a fascinating and nostalgic trip. Thanks so much for researching and putting this video together!

[@JoaoOstroski420]

The amount of views on this video are sickening low considering the video itself is amazing. Keep on going. Because the quality is incredible!

[@Thangalang21]

I absolutely loved the idea that Valve got together with other indie developers to launch the Portal 2 ARG with clues and puzzles, and even then there were real-life clues and puzzles located using GPS coordinates. Being in college at the time. and coincidentally during the April mid-break, I was glad to be a part of this huge event and had a freaking BLAST. Thank you for this summary video. It brings back really cool memories!

[@mr_indie_fan]

The fact that edmund mcmillen was somewhat involved in this just makes it even more hilarious

[@BubbleDouble]

Congrats to the guy completing an ARG at 5 am. 8:04

[@Flamme-Sanabi]

"Realsed" on the Thumbnail.

[@jamesbryan287]

Looks like he fixed it!

[@Casperr]

I always always always proof read everything, MULTIPLE times... But a typo always finds its way in 😆

[@jamesbryan287]

@@Casperr this was great, btw. Like the pastel colors for the merch, might join the channel sometime, keep making videos, this covered some things I didn't know about the ARG I was there to observe at the time

[@justarandomdood]

9:31 Easily the best line all of this video. Also, pretty good recap of the arg. If only I could've participated in this when it happened, oh well.

[@d3athandr3birth69]

Oh man, I was part of this! What a wild ride and they gave full Valve game libraries to anyone who had received a golden potato. It was quite the time.

[@Casperr]

Thanks for your service to this awesome part of gaming history 🥰

[@d3athandr3birth69]

@@Casperr you did an incredible job summarizing it. Man, I still have that golden potato as my front steam badge after all this time. There were a lot of sleepless nights. One of the hardest ones though was Super Meat Boy. I can't even remember the requirements, but we were saved when a group managed to create a save file that could be passed around to us noobs at the game

[@glez3711]

Jesus Christ, when it comes to Valve and ARG puzzles, it's amazing.

[@Thalpy]

I miss having the little golden potato by the side of my profile (It's a badge now).

[@napalmslayer21]

Man this was Valve at their highest point in their history in how they interacting with their fans and I remember how much of a big event it was for everyone back then even those who did not participate in the ARG event. Because it was such a huge spectacle that everyone playing a Valve game would talk about waiting to see what would come out of it as it progressed.

[@IMVADER2]

Very awesome! Never knew that this was the case, as at the time my pc crapped out on me and was in the middle of getting a new one, so all of this was lost on me. Just goes to show how much Valve actually cares about their IP, whenever they actually decide to ACTUALLY release something.

[@SwitchyWitch_]

I still remember helping with the audiosurf one in a forum. It was such a cool arg.

[@afrizaldaniswaraali8980]

Absolute Excellence of a video. Came for tf2, stayed for well made content. Hope this channel grows bigger over time

[@quoteclone]

Just found out about this after playing through Amnesia for the first time. Looked up an explanation for Justine and through a couple videos, lead me here. Super cool!

[@lizardizzle]

One of the most tragic outcomes of the ARG affected me as well as thousands of others. Legitimate leaks. I destinctly recall viewing a forum thread discussing some new arg puzzle being found, with some KZbin links involved. One of them was a strangely high quality portal themed video of a bunch of turrets singing a song to a person in an elevator, then leaving the elevator into a field, with a companion cube at the end. Yes, someone had somehow leaked the ending cutscene of portal 2 weeks before the game had released. No one on the thread could figure out what it meant, and I remember thinking about the video being so absurd that it must be a fan project. To my dismay, the thread was locked and erased from the forum the next day and I immediately suspected foul play and was upset that I probably witnessed a huge leak, and my suspicions were completely proven as I finished my first playthrough of portal 2 back in 2011.

[@Odyanii]

I was feeling nostalgic and wondered if anyone had done a video on this, found this and it's great! This was the first time I was ever introduced the concept of ARGs, and I remember working on the puzzles in the RUSH and Audiosurf parts of it. Others figured it out quicker, but it was a lot of fun! The most memorable part to me was the guys who went to the devs of Defense Grid and were given a bunch of Legos to figure out their game's clue which had stumped the community more than expected.

[@maxresdefault_]

Never underestimate a group of nerds with too much time on their hands

[@kebasnaek4129]

I’m so glad this appeared in my recommended. I’ve actually known about all this for years, but I never saw a single video about it - every portal 2 arg video I would find was about the portal 1 radio ARG. I’m extremely glad to see this ARG finally get a video all to its own.

[@Breadn]

Valve have been such game developers, and did an amazing job on Portal 2. Hopefully one day we get a game on the same level as Half Life 2 or Portal 2, other than Alyx.

[@toesnub9676]

Well what’s wrong with Alyx?

[@nanni5230]

@@toesnub9676 i think hes saying alyx is the only good one

[@SaimizZ]

It's insane how much effort was put into this. No other company would ever do this

[@Mlikaw]

Only Valve can make shit like this, I love it.

[@Oretal]

That must’ve been fun to be part of! Never have I seen so many developers come together to do something like this before.

[@atticusnari]

Holy crap I remember this!!! I had completely forgotten. What a trip back in time :)

[@beron_the_colossus]

Honestly great research and a great video, thanks man! The pacing is good, the visuals are great, the new timestamp feature is always nice to see. Well Done!

[@tatertatertatertatertater]

I can confirm, as a potato, that this is 100% accurate

[@marisbaier6686]

That is one of the coolest things i have heard about a video game. I absolutely love Portal. I hope I will be part of the hunt for portal 3 sometime in the future :D

[@ProdCashhier]

I've been seeing a lot more of portal videos that were posted recently and I love it

[@RandommBoyo]

Hearing the Scout line in intro feels so weird to me.

[@genroynoisis6980]

woo! check it out, casperr!

[@ClarkieReidri]

Great video dude!

[@ryanmudd3840]

A moment of scilence to appreciate those chads who gave us that master piece 10 hours early

[@Chris.Batchelor]

I’m so glad KZbin suggested this to me because I never knew about it. This was a great informative video, and I hope the algorithm spreads this poke wildfire

[@leonardofilho7397]

funniest thing is that nobody knew potato glados, so the name potato sack had no meaning at the time

[@sparklyrockets]

Ahh, I was involved in solving parts of this ARG back in the day. I'm so glad this video exists so I could finally explain to my son how I got a golden potato on my Steam account. Shout out to all the people who stayed up for days straight mapping co-ordinates and solving cyphers with me. Craziest 10 days fo my life. I remember Jake R posting about his experience at the developers and everyone's shock when it turned out they'd been filming him and used it in a later clue, and the raw exhilaration at finally solving some of the crazy hard puzzles like 'oh, this it's a wav file that was a photo that had been in twelve different parts in seven different games and then put on a lamppost in Seattle but it's just a picture of two robots'. I believe some of the puzzles have never been solved to this day?

[@joejoe4games]

Oh, I remember this: Portal 2 is the only game I ever reordered... On Amazon. When it released early I hadn't received the game and had to wait another day until its regular release date. That was a disappointment :-(

[@bog_roblox]

why does this video have only 4k views? such an amazing video tbh

[@MrMozzie]

I would sell my soul for valve to do something like this again

[@brynhendry2899]

I forgot that this happened even though i got all the games in my library from the bundle

[@Adder180]

Loved the video Casperr, I remember this ARG well and love that you explained the dev-intended route through it. Would you be able to do a similar analysis of the 2015/16 winter steam sale ARG? I remember there was some unintentional HL3 hype surrounding that one which valve got a bit of hate for I think.

[@5JSX5]

It's really cool that you had to play games to be able to complete the ARG. And you even got something for it if you did!

[@PFSnypr]

I really wish i could have those TF2 items but i was 6 at the time

[@ChrisCrossed.86]

Awesome video! However, I feel it's important to state that the Valve Complete Pack was given out as an 'apology' to those who worked on the golden potato and didn't feel they 'earned enough'. I remember the email saying I was granted a complete pack, being apologized to that Portal 2 'only' launched 9 hours early.

[@JawnGG]

I remember how cool this was, too bad they don't do anything like this anymore

[@lionobama1397]

hey casperrrr what server we playing?

[@kinrah1711]

God, I remember this. I was right there in the thick of it. Didn't contribute anything meaningful (my best contribution was stitching together the sequences of glyphs into straight lines, which somebody else then rearranged into the 4x4 grids when that was discovered shortly afterwards) but I was still an active participant. Still got my shiny gold potato to show for it too.

[@andresbravo2003]

Releasing Portal 2 on April 18 could be a big deal. Indie Games could be awesome for Valve to Cross promote Portal 2.

[@theendofit]

An important note is that late in arg (last few days) people got very uset as it seamed the (sovle puzzles to release early) progress bar was progressing at a set rate. It seemed like players were havig no effect on it no matter how hard people worked. Further it looked like bassed on that rate we would release the game at 11pm. Wich sounds great on paper 8 hr early......but gamestop and other stores were already releasing console versions at midnight so it was only 1hr early. This controversy saw the timer get adjusted in the last hours and they let us have it 2 and a half hours early to make up for the shadyness and crappyness. The base time should have been midnight like it was for consoles and we should have gotten it 8-10 hours befor that.

[@Irrelavant__]

This and NMS ARG are probably the best ones out there

[@Noah-gw9cg]

Only 5000 views? This should have way more!

[@wtrbrns]

I love still seeing portal 2 content, holly molly what a good game

[@WaldoDoesGames]

Was wondering why I had all those random games that happened to be in the potato sack bundle lol, they've just been sitting in my library without explanation bc i forgot

[@AshleySOAD]

I miss when steam had cool events like this, the events we have now are so fucking lame

[@n8te977]

He's Back!

[@ariontracks9312]

I wish valve would do this kinda stuff again

[@lord_egg]

How did people figure this stuff out...without a tutorial?

[@Casperr]

By being super nerds, and proud of it!

[@lord_egg]

@@Casperr that's...fair

[@thelunn]

I completed the arg :) got the golden potato

[@matthewsmeets]

Wouldn't it be funny if Portal 3 already is out there, and the hints are ratmans scitzo drawings

[@rasmustagu]

great video!

[@schwamph]

Haha I'm just sitting here thinking "WTF?". I'm clearly not a person who would figure this shit out by myself! xD Interesting video!

[@gorgolyt]

I still remember this ARG and the potato counter thing. It was horrible and a waste of time. Valve got their math badly wrong so that the whole thing barely made any difference.

[@quote6013]

Man, I really wish I was around when this happened, I was able to get the portal 2 pin but, I missed out on the experience

[@crusaderzim]

shoutout to the mad fucking lad that climbed that pole

[@ChecletBur]

Could you talk more about the Valve ARGs?

[@Casperr]

I'll add it to my list and see what I can come up with 😊

[@ChecletBur]

:OOO

[@TaccRaccoon]

The people who found this out back then should be investigators

[@GnomeKr]

If i could go back in time and do one thing differently in my entire life - i would search up the words "Valve" and "Half Life" in my browser when i got my first pc. I missed so much fun and hype that i had to catch up with through the past few years it makes me sad that i couldn't participate in stuff like that. And i missed all that only because somehow i didn't knew that a company like Valve and Steam even existed

[@FatEngineerGaming]

I think they like potatoes.

[@fausto123]

1:18 Wrong, ARG is ARGentina

[@MnemonicHeadTrip]

I’ve literally only watched 5 seconds of the video, but I love it already!

[@lohiboi6331]

how the times have changed.

[@PhantomDogman]

Never know about this. But then again when I discovered first Portal then Portal 2 might have been already out. Plus at that time we didn't had internet access at home so I didn't follow game releases.

[@bzqp2]

Lost it at the guy climbing the lantern xd

[@jackusy3414]

“You know what this is? This is a potato battery!”

[@PuregoldSTF]

Nice to see a fellow welsh individual. I used to watch TF2 videos by you, if I remember right.

[@AmitFriedman1]

how do you only have 61k subs?

[@jackatjack2886]

I FINALLY FOUND A VIDEO ABOUT THIS

[@sidecharacter3999]

What is the song in the outro?

[@thevinstigator2511]

Wow, Bit Trip Beat was on there? Havent played that sense I used my Wii

[@robk5969]

plot twist: somewhere in here is a clue thats not from the portal 2 arg, this video is the start of the portal 3 arg,

[@rantherat]

1 upload a month is better than no uploads :)

[@richthe1kid]

Hello Casperr! I have seen many args in many video games, and I was wondering if you can do the ARG about Sombra in Overwatch. I think it was really well handled, while others think it was a hassle. What is your opinion about it, and will you make a video about it?

[@Casperr]

Thanks for the suggestion 😊 that was a pretty cool ARG and there's some really interesting details I remember (like people trying to make a melody out of the skybox on Dorado which actually turned out to be... Well just the skybox 😆). As much as I'd love to make it, I'm not sure how well my audience skews towards Overwatch these days. I'll add it to my list of ideas but I'm afraid I can't make any promises!

[@richthe1kid]

Casperr I understand the Muselk term, but as long as your content is good and varied, I think people will very much like it.

[@Skinned_fried_n_cut_up_potato]

To think while this was going on I was playing Tetris on the family computer

[@pkeod]

I was there. I have a golden "the potato sack" potato. It's the only badge that matters.

[@pkeod]

Also a sad thing is I already had all of Valve's games...

[@whitesod4]

And now we're waiting for something like this for Portal 3...

[@dogewow8999]

By early, I thought you meant 10/10 polished feeling and looking game in 2011

[@Tredenix]

9:06 What is this, the Sombra ARG? /s

[@Pendleton115]

Ah yes... MacRumours, the well known gaming site.

[@TheG_Boy]

Ok how tf did they found any of this !?

[@allisterproductions9503]

Is no one gunna talk about the new KZbin update that has "intro" next to the time at the beginning

[@Scorch-qy6by]

It's part of a thing that they are doing that puts time stamps in the timeline of the video.

[@paolaromero7725]

I think you meaning ARG con ARGENTINA

[@bluerie._.3021]

this whole thing seems like one big conspiracy theory

[@Casperr]

It sounds pretty crazy but I really happened I promise 😆

[@commenturthegreat2915]

This just proves gamers can solve anything if they want to.

[@coalstocking]

I want to join but i can't find the button????

[@Christian-gr3gu]

Just as I wanted to hear about this a video comes out about it cool

[@feritye767]

as soon as I heard ''9 hours'' I got disappointed. I wasn't expecting same day

[@xvon]

he's back!!!!

[@ghidorahvg]

It would be amazing if halve did another arg for another instead of just a one a done deal