Valve was going to ship The Orange Box in a white box before staff 'destroyed' the idea, and yes they saw you all doubting Portal before release: 'You guys are gonna eat those words'
On October 10 2007 Valve released what is perhaps the greatest deal in gaming history: The Orange Box, a compendium of Half-Life 2 with both episodes, the long-awaited Team Fortress 2, and the unknown quantity Portal. OK, Half-Life 2 was a few years old by this point (Episode 2 was new), but every single game in that package is an all-timer, and you got the lot for the price of one retail game.
And at the time, retail still mattered to Valve: Steam was a few years old, but boxed sales were the focus for The Orange Box at launch. Which naturally made the box itself a very important part of the whole deal and… well, this is the one aspect on which The Orange Box fell flat. The final product was a weird tripartite presentation of all three games, which have distinct aesthetics, and a bunch of text telling you what was in the box.
Luckily for Valve the contents were so special that an ugly cover didn't matter much, but The Orange Box ended up here after an initial pitch that came from a totally different direction. It was so different, in fact, that it inspired a minor revolt.
«I don't normally talk about non-public things at Valve,» says former Valve writer Chet Faliszek, «but that person's gone now and this was the funniest thing to me and a great example of how Valve dysfunctionally works but works well.
»Half-Life 2: Episode 1 comes out and it doesn't set the world on fire, it does OK. Half-Life 2: Episode 2 we're working on, early days of TF2, Portal." Faliszek chuckles recalling how some corners of the internet perceived Portal in particular: «Go back and look at the early days before the Orange Box came out, like 'They're throwing in this student project, it's gonna be crap.' It's crazy. Even then we knew 'Oh this is special, you guys are gonna eat those words.'»
To return to the box, it comes down to an internal meeting which is «a great example of how decisions get made,» says Faliszek. «Going into the meeting the box is the most important thing possible
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