Play indie games, get PC Portal 2 early

By Fred Dutton Published 15 April, 2011

Get stuck into the Potato Sack now.

Want to unlock Portal 2 on Steam ahead of its published 22nd April launch date? Then you'd better get stuck into the Potato Sack indie bundle.

The Valve countdown clock reported earlier today has hit zero, revealing a new page stating "Portal 2 Steam systems offline. Computing power required for launch."

To force an early release it seems you'll have to go and play the various Potato Sack titles until a "computation" bar has filled up.

At the time of writing, another countdown clock projects the game will unlock on Steam in 93 hours and 30 minutes. If you want to speed things up, you'd better check out those indie games.

For the uninitiated, the Potato Sack includes 13 indie titles: 1... 2... 3... KICK IT!; AaAaAA!!! – A Reckless Disregard for Gravity; Amnesia: The Dark Descent; AudioSurf; BIT.TRIP BEAT; Cogs; Defense Grid: The Awakening; Killing Floor; RUSH; Super Meat Boy; The Ball; The Wonderful End of the World and Toki Tori.

It's available now for £27.22 via Steam.

Picture of Fred.

About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (39) Latest comment 1 year ago

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

  • Chufty #1 1 year ago

    Get to it people.

  • ChthonicEcho #2 1 year ago

    Alternatively, if you don't feel like playing 'em, fire up the game, minimise it, browse Internet as usual.

    Edit: Make sure to be in-game, not on the main menu. There are some reports that Steam detects key strokes, so actual idling may be out of the question. It's all very fuzzy.
    Edited by ChthonicEcho at 16/04/11 @ 15:12

  • ianegg #3 1 year ago

    review scores?

  • Leolian #4 1 year ago

    Shameless...

  • Tomo #5 1 year ago

    Do people need to be playing these simultaneously, or is it just separate accounts opening the games once that count towards the timer's depletion?

  • japstersam #6 1 year ago

    GET PLAYING!! :D

  • NimbusTLD #7 1 year ago

    I think we're all just Valve's test subjects in the "Are people really mindless sheep?" experiment :p

    edit: Where Portal 2 is the metaphorical cake. Please let there be cake!!!!!!!
    Edited by NimbusTLD at 15/04/11 @ 17:51

  • asphaltcowboy #8 1 year ago

    So do you have to pay for these indie games?

    EDIT: Mega-negged for asking a question?!
    Edited by asphaltcowboy at 18/04/11 @ 10:13

  • DozyKipper #9 1 year ago

    Bowlocks to this. Back to Killzone 3!

  • TheApologist #10 1 year ago

    If I don't get Portal2 early, I blame you people.

  • the_dudefather #11 1 year ago

    It's like Folding @ home, but instead of helping medical research you get VIDYAGAMES :D

  • Miths #12 1 year ago

    Is it just the UK that has an official April 22 release date? I'm in Denmark and Steam tells me the release date is April 19. Although it obviously wouldn't be the first time the UK has to wait until Friday for a game while other European countries get it 1-3 days earlier.

  • japstersam #13 1 year ago

    i can honestly say this is the first advertisement in the world i have ever been totally powerless to resist.

    GAMES = DOWNLOADING

    edit: MY FINGERS DO NOT OPERATE CORRECTLY DUE TO EXCITEMENT
    Edited by japstersam at 15/04/11 @ 18:03

  • darleysam #14 1 year ago

    This is a really nice move by Valve. It's not saying "buy OUR games and get Portal 2 early", it's getting a whole bunch of sales and publicity for other games and is a good advert for Steam too. It's a great gesture to these guys.

  • mumblyjoe #15 1 year ago

    This is all well and good but it doesn't get me my PS3 copy any faster does it...?

  • Lummox #16 1 year ago

    @Miths

    The Steam release date is the 19th in the UK as well. The 22nd is the retail release date.

  • WJF #17 1 year ago

    'it's getting a whole bunch of sales and publicity for other games'

    To put on the self-righteous hat for a second: indie games no less. Sure some are popular and well-known like Super Meat Boy, but there's a fair few that aren't as well.

    A friend I know, for instance, has suddenly fallen in love with AAAaaaaaa (etc) which he wouldn't have played before this promotion

  • darkmorgado #18 1 year ago

    Is this a shared effort thing or does each person have to unlock their own copy?

  • metalangel #19 1 year ago

    Valve have had to install more chutes to cope with the amount of money from idiots now flowing into their Scrooge McDuck-esque Money Bin.

    Alas, the aforementioned idiots are no doubt saying 'hehehehe, CAKE IS A LIE lololololol' and pumping their money into this.

  • darkmorgado #20 1 year ago

    Jesus, talk about cycnical metalangel.

    Did it occur to you that perhaps they are actually promoting indie developers with this?

  • spudsbuckley #21 1 year ago

    They're only promoting indie-devs because they're making money off of them.

  • metalangel #22 1 year ago

    @darkmorgado: Yes, it does occur to me. I could ask if you think you're being naive to think Valve so altruistic, but I'll avoid being condescending, there's a good lad.

    EDIT: I said elsewhere Valve is another company that apparently can do no wrong, and sure enough fanboys are all negging anyone who is daring to question their motives here. If this was EA or Activision encouraging you to buy some of their download games in order to get a retail game shipped early, you'd scream "corporate bastards" at the top of your hypocritical lungs and you fucking well know it.

    @weebl: having a differing opinion to yours does not make me an imbecile, but calling me one because you have a differing opinion does make you a cunt.
    Edited by metalangel at 15/04/11 @ 21:08

  • weebl #23 1 year ago

    ^ what an imbecile.

  • Seoh #24 1 year ago

    Actually if you boot up Steam in the UK it shows the 19th of April as the release date too, i think the 22nd is just consoles and boxed PC copies.

  • arcam #25 1 year ago

    Indie devs get money by selling games, Steam get money for their cut of the sale, gamers get to play some awesome games they mightn't otherwise have tried, and Portal 2 fans get their game early.

    Everybody wins. Seriously, how can you complain about this?!

  • penhalion #26 1 year ago

    93 hours to release so there is actually no early release at all just some stupid buy extra games gimmick. Yea thanks but, no thanks Valve.

  • Butr0sButr0s #27 1 year ago

    "93 hours to release so there is actually no early release at all just some stupid buy extra games gimmick. Yea thanks but, no thanks Valve."

    1) If you're into gaming enough to follow these stories and be interested in a portal 2 early release you probably already own 1 of the games on the list 2) if you're not interested in the promotion it effects you not at all, just wait patently for the game to come out on the publicized release date 3) if it releases early I hope you don't play it till Tuesday since you're not interested in the 'gimmick'.
    Edited by Butr0sButr0s at 15/04/11 @ 21:25

  • StooMonster #28 1 year ago

    ChthonicEcho: Alternatively, if you don't feel like playing 'em, fire up the game, minimise it, browse Internet as usual.

    No, you need to actually be playing games for it to count. Leaving the program open and idling doesn't help.

  • Krusty #29 1 year ago

    If you notice the text below the timer:
    08:57 - Default boot scheduled to finish in 89:13:15
    08:58 - Activating emergency distributed computing grid...
    09:00 - GLaDOS@home starting...
    09:01 - Recruiting cpus to force faster boot sequence...

    The timer shows the default, not that estimated by everyones indie gaming efforts...

  • KDR_11k #30 1 year ago

    Looks like each game has a different quota to reach. The Wonderful End of the World (Katamari clone) is far ahead of the others, probably because Valve gave it a fairly low quota. Meanwhile Killing Floor has the lowest progress despite having the most players, probably overestimated the game's popularity and gave it too high a quota...

  • ChthonicEcho #31 1 year ago

    @StooMonster

    I should have clarified you can't just idle in the main menu, yes. You can, say, leave Super Meat Boy running on a level indefinitely, however - technically, you're playing, and the game consumes very few resources.

    So, you can idle. You just have to idle in the game itself, not the main menu or some such.

    Edit: Or so I think. Looking into this further, I see conflicting reports. Ah, well.
    Edited by ChthonicEcho at 15/04/11 @ 23:41

  • deano2099 #32 1 year ago

    MetalAngel has a point, Valve are doing this to get more publicity for Portal 2, not out of pure altruism. On the other hand, that doesn't stop it being really bloody cool.

    And you only have to buy one indie game to participate (assuming you don't have any of those in the list at all). A couple of quid.

  • sonicgoo #33 1 year ago

    I don't see EA or Activision promoting indie games the way Valve does. Yes, the games in question are sold through Steam, but if that upsets you, you can usually buy them directly from the creator and then add the key to Steam. Because Valve are cool that way.

  • sanctusmortis #34 1 year ago

    I've had Super Meat Boy since PC launch, so I'll take pity on you guys and boot it for some hours tonight. It's one of the reasons I haven't bothered with the Potato Sack - it's one of only 3 games I have any interest in.

  • StooMonster #35 1 year ago

    @ChthonicEcho

    Yep, certainly seems to be some conflicting reports.

    Wonder if this is going to work out, what's the odds of an early release?

  • uknortherner2000 #36 1 year ago

    The potato is a lie...

  • ChthonicEcho #37 1 year ago

    @StooMonster

    Depends on one's definition of early. I can pretty much guarantee (as can two different third party counters) that it won't see a release during the weekend, and at the very earliest it will arrive on Monday.

    My personal guess is that it will be released in the afternoon on Monday PST ( late evening GMT). Half of it is promotion, half of it is a clever mask for any delays it would have inevitably suffered at the time of its scheduled release, like every Valve title before. If something goes awry, they can say we didn't do well enough. If everything goes smoothly, they unlock it a bit early.

  • c0Zm1c #38 1 year ago

    @metalangel

    Kudos to EA and Activision if they ever do something like this.

  • apoc_reg #39 1 year ago

    Bad publicity stunts are back again are they...