As GameDaily prepares to fight the Combine once again, we sit down with Doug Lombardi, Director of Marketing at Valve, to get some insight behind Half-Life 2: The Orange Box and episodic gaming.

"Rather than have them compete in the market or hold one or two of them to allow space between the releases, we decided it would be more interesting to put the titles together in one offering." -- Valve's Doug Lombardi

We saw the three titles on a collision course in terms of their completion date. Rather than have them compete in the market or hold one or two of them to allow space between the releases, we decided it would be more interesting to put the titles together in one offering. Historically, this isn't a radical notion for Valve. In 1999, we decided to re-launch Half-Life in the first "Game of the Year Edition" and included Team Fortress Classic instead of releasing the later as an add-on. That move pushed Half-Life to number one and allowed us to sell more units in its second year than the first. In similar fashion, all versions of Half-Life 2 sold in the first year also included Counter-Strike: Source. Again, the end results were lots and lots of happy customers. So, in a sense, The Orange Box is just an extension of a product strategy we started experimenting with almost 10 years ago.

We notice that Counter-Strike: Source, which was originally included with Half-Life 2, is not in the Orange Box. Any reasons for this?

Team Fortress 2 is the multiplayer component for The Orange Box. Adding yet another title to the box might have pushed us into a crate in terms of packaging.

We believe Portal introduces the most interesting new form of gameplay since Half-Life 2 introduced the physics gun. It prompts the player to think differently about the world in which the game takes place in the same way Half-Life 2's physics gun prompted players to think differently about the objects in the game world. And like the physics gun, we very much intend to expand the gameplay opportunities made possible by the Portal device. In the near term, we're very interested to hear everyone's reaction and feedback when the first game ships. That will be taken into deep consideration as we decide what comes next. But, certainly, one can envision more Portal (perhaps even a collection of free new challenges), a sequel, a multiplayer incarnation and perhaps even seeing the device in the hands of Mr. Freeman one day.

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