I think people have completely the wrong mentality when it comes to the orange box, consider HL2 and Ep1 free. I'm not sure if that's the official standpoint but that's certainly how I see it. You say you're not going to pay for the orange box ($50)... you're not going to pay $50 for three games you don't have? That, good sir, is a downright bargain.
VALVe is to blame, for ever announcing the black box. Everyone seems to be blind to the amazingly good value for money orange box now. Shame.
completely and utterly the wrong view point.
the ever normal standard of games is single player + multiplayer for roughly £25-30. the idea of episodic content shouldn't detract from the fact that any other game split up in 3 parts would still have some kind of multiplayer free.
hl2 had cs:s (whatever i got had it free), for years valve have been trying to split games apart as much as possible so the extra £5 you spend becomes £1 on 4 different parts, then it becomes an extra £10 but only £2 extra per episode, but its less noticable.
they are slowly but quite massively increasing their prices and everyone is saying how good value it is.
crysis + multiplayer will be £20-25, hl3 as it was, should have be £20-25 WITH some kind of multiplayer, thats standard. hl2 was for me i think £25 with multiplayer. so far, if i bought the orange box i would have paid £12 for ep 1, £25 for ep 2, and for all we know they'll make us pay £35 for ep 3 + everything else free.
black box £15 for ep 2, portal and tf2 as it should have been. they bumped up the price, added on 2 games that 90% of people buying ep 2 already had thereby making a 66% increase in price. the 10% of people that didn't have the game get a good deal, but the majority don't get a good deal.
even if ep 3 is its minimum price of £12, then the standard buyer will have spent £12 ep 1, £25 ep 2, £12 ep 3, + tf2 and portal. thats the price of two full games, for one game plus its multiplayer plus, though fantastic, an hours game of portal.
crysis could make the multiplayer use the engine but change the style, the weapons and everything and simply split it and sell it as a separate game, thats what valve are doing. but they, and all other games with single and multiplayer combined don't do that.
but if valve continue to simply split games in two, double the cost and add in a tech demo for free and we pay it. then in 2 years crysis plus its multiplayer will cost £45. and CNC4 will sell the single and multiplayer separately for £25 a piece.
I got the blackbox for free with my card, so i'm happy, but had i not the only real way to get ep 2 was the orange box.
Also, this idiotic idea of giving away the first two games free, the person that gets them for free, then wants to play ep 2, so he gets the orange box, and boom, he's paying for 2 games he doesn't need.
marketing genius by valve, yes, massive money spinner for them, yes, ripping us off massively, yes. should we let them get away with it encouraging everyone else to do the same NOOOOOOO!
. I already had HL2 and ep1 just like you.
