Gearbox impressed by Portal
Pitchford taken with Orange Box
Valve's incredibly inventive Portal, an added bonus alongside the Team Fortress and Half-Life content of The Orange Box, has been a huge critical and commercial success. Indeed, other developers have been more than a little impressed by Valve's added 'bonus'.
Gearbox's Randy Pitchford has certainly been taken with the generosity of Valve's Orange Box package, telling Eurogamer.net: "What I like most about Portal was that it's a quick sample of a game. To me what that suggests is, that can be a business. That we can invest in creating these kinds of things, include them in bigger products, and there are people that will love those in their own right, even if it's only a two-hour experience."
He also revealed his envy of the freedom that The Orange Box approach gave Valve: "There are brilliant things we're doing with Hell's Highway, amazing things technologically, but we also have to confine ourselves to the authenticity of the subject," the game maker admitted.
"Xbox Live is neat, but why not include something of that scale in with your game? That's neat added value. If it can affect the purchase decision of the customer, you can rationalise what it costs to develop," he added on the topic of Xbox Live and PSN game releases.
"I would love to do because it's fun and a great opportunity to play with gameplay elements that might be a little bit outside the scope of your core game."
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