EA in talks with Valve to sign Portal 2

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 23 August, 2010

"You earn their business every single time."

EA is talking to Valve about publishing rights for first-person puzzler Portal 2.

The division within EA responsible for publishing externally developed games hopes its long-standing relationship with the Half Life and Counter-Strike creator will help seal the deal.

Since signing a publishing deal with Valve in 2005, EA's put out Half Life 2: GOTY and Counter-Strike for the PC, and Half Life 2 on Xbox.

And, of course, it published the original Portal as part of the superb The Orange Box.

Eyebrows were raised when Valve announced a 9th February 2011 release date for Portal 2 during German expo gamescom last week without naming a publisher.

Some have speculated that Valve is shopping its hotly anticipated sequel around various publishers as it aims to get the best deal possible.

"We're still talking about it," EA Partners boss David DeMartini told Eurogamer.

"The interesting thing with Valve is they always make great games. They ship them exactly when they're going to ship them. They're a really high quality partner, and they demand excellence from anybody they have a relationship with. You earn their business every single time.

"We're in the process of earning their business yet again for Portal 2, and we're very optimistic because of our close relationship. We do a lot of business on Steam. They do a lot of business with us on the distribution side.

"It's well polished, on schedule for the 9th February release. Everything is absolutely on track for them.

"I don't have anything signed in blood yet. I'm certainly working on it. They're a great partner and just a great studio. Clearly one of the best in the world. They just know what they're doing. They know what consumers want."

Portal 2 made waves at E3 when Valve boss Gabe Newell confirmed the game for PS3.

Christian Donlan saw the game for Eurogamer in June.

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (29) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • HermitArcader #1 2 years ago

    Post deleted at 09:17:39 22-12-2011

  • SHPanda #2 2 years ago

    I'll be honest I've kept away from as many of the Portal 2 articles as possible so that it's all a complete surprise to me when I play it, all I've read is that co-op exists in some form and that it's released next year.

    But I don't care who publishes it as long as the price isn't ludicrous, £20-30 at most, unless Valve have made a game about 5 or 10x bigger than the original.

    I think Valve shot themselves in the foot with the first. The Orange Box was such great value for money and Portal was for me the best game on the disc (although they were all great), to the extent that the customer, myself included will not be expecting to fork out anywhere near £40 for the standalone sequel.

    Or are they going to throw a surprise couple of extra games onto the disc?

    Still extremely excited about this game though.
    Edited by SHPanda at 23/08/10 @ 09:22

  • Buztafen #3 2 years ago

    Well its got a better chance of being just highly priced at EA...then being 'i need to sell both kidneys' priced with a publisher like Acti...

  • clarkwgriswold #4 2 years ago

    @SHPanda - I'm with you there, I've kept away from all news as much as possible but I still found out Stephen Merchant is voicing. Bloody internet.

  • Shinetop #5 2 years ago

    Or are they going to throw a surprise couple of extra games onto the disc?

    Surprise Episode 3!

    A man can dream...

  • HermitArcader #6 2 years ago

    Post deleted at 09:17:39 22-12-2011

  • rickyhabana #7 2 years ago

    Those puzzles look crazy hard.

  • nuanimal #8 2 years ago

    Good point by SHPanda.

    I love portal, and since it was a part of the awesome Orange Box, it was one of the few games that I was really happy to pay £29.99 for new. Given though that they are going to do Portal 2 as a stand alone sequel - I do wonder how they would price this, as it was only (still very awesome) part of a bigger game.

  • ignatiusjreilly #9 2 years ago

    Why discuss what EA will mean for the price? RRP, it'll be £49.99 on consoles and £29.99 for PC.

    That's pretty much the only thing you can predict about Portal 2 with any certainty.

  • riceNpea #10 2 years ago

    ' here is the news. soon there may or may not be some news.'

  • Ryboy #11 2 years ago

    "Clearly one of the best in the world."

    Sorry, they are THE best studio in the world. Cretin.

  • Moribundman #12 2 years ago

    Impressive - no "Waaaah! Waaaah! EA rip off spit spit" yet.

    Seems fair enough. You never know, with project $10 they might just add a little extra spice for people who can be arsed to buy it new.

    And then we can have chains and chains of whining threads full of people who like games and resolutely refuse to buy them new complaining about "chunks of game being deliberately witheld".

    Happy days...

  • patch #13 2 years ago

    The game looks awful... and I'm definitely not going to pre-order... and not going to spend endless hours playing it... not going to dream about playing it while I sleep... not going to become ridiculously attached to a stupid cube... damn you Valve!!!!!

  • ChthonicEcho #14 2 years ago

    Monday news are the best news.

    "According to recent research, it's highly likely a video game developer is currently working on as of yet unannounced video game."

  • Ryboy #15 2 years ago

    lol patch...

  • Markitron #16 2 years ago

    On GTTV they said the single player will be twice as long as the first, and the separate co op mode will be that long again. I think a full-priced release is pretty likely and, considering the quality this is likely to have, seems totally fair to me.

  • Hyoscine #17 2 years ago

    "They ship them exactly when they're going to ship them."

    Pretty bold to just come out and say it. Way to nail your colours to the mast, buddy.

  • SAMagic #18 2 years ago

    "I don't have anything signed in blood yet."
    That's because EAs haemoglobin burns through any paper it touches.

    Oh wait, that must be Activision, they're the publisher to hate at the moment.

  • sneetch #19 2 years ago

    It's a full game SHPanda, I wouldn't let the fact that they gave us a ridiculous amount with the Orange Box dissuade me from buying it at full price. Quite the opposite in fact, especially considering that many other companies would think nothing of charging £40 for the first Portal.

    Of course if they throw something else in then, well, it'd be rude to refuse. ;)

  • BuddyChrist #20 2 years ago

    I've just seen the future, "portal 5 will still have nothing to do with Episode 3, you'll have to wait for the next instalment"

  • Vyggo #21 2 years ago

    I am curious how they'll expand Portal into a "full" game, hope it doesn't get too gimicky.

  • cw- #22 2 years ago

    @Moribundman EA would only be distributors for Portal 2, so they won't be able to do Project 10$ at all.

  • azix2 #23 2 years ago

    What is with all this valve praise? They make safe titles with a millennium old engine. =/

  • SAMagic #24 2 years ago

    azix2 : How many puzzle-based FPS games have you played? There was nothing "safe" about developing Portal instead of what most other devs do, which is usually another COD clone. As well, the original Half-life - with its absence of cinematics and everything else it did - was far from "safe" compared to games of the time. Then there's the mods like Team Fortress 2 and Counter-strike that Valve spurred on - I bet some publishers thought games by modders (They're not professionals - what do they know?) weren't worth a look at and so weren't "safe".

  • StooMonster #25 2 years ago

    If I could pre-order now I would.

  • hiddenranbir #26 2 years ago

    Woo, pointless news article. Something might happen!

  • Ryze #27 2 years ago

    Pucker up and kiss that ass, bwoy!

  • TravisTouchd0wn #28 2 years ago

    Of course, being an EA game - you'll only be able to fire both Blue AND Orange portals if you buy the game new. If you buy second hand, you'll need to hand over an additional £10/1200MSP - otherwise, it's Blue portals only. You Monster.

  • loopy #29 2 years ago

    @TravisTouchd0wn That would only be true if EA were the publishers, but fortunately, as someone pointed out earlier in this thread, they will only have rights to distribute (assuming they get the deal), and nothing more. :)