This is how desperate the Half-Life fanbase has become. Or, at the very least, certain elements of it. They are… well, they are… uh…
Meet “Operation: Crowbar”, and its official Steam Forum thread. Those who choose to participate in this operation are actively… buying cheap crowbars from Amazon… and mailing them to Valve. And this is considered a form of protest, to get across a message – that the Half-Life fanbase is fed up of all the silence. So, apparently the best way to go about doing that is to waste money on cheap iron crowbars. Not exactly, if you ask me. Alternatively, participants can simply… spam Valve’s e-mail accounts and Facebook page with pictures of crowbars and pictures of crowbar-related puns. Which is even worse.
I honestly have no idea either. This is just… just… I don’t even know. It’s one of those ideas that is so unbelievably silly that it either came from a troll or a really, REALLY wacky person. I could say “crazy”, but then again, they don’t really believe this will turn out to be fruitful either. Crowbar companies are going to have a good season in spring 2012, and that’s for sure. Look, guys. Need a better suggestion? Instead of throwing your money at crowbar producers, donate it to the charity of your choice, then send Valve the receipt. If you REALLY want to do something with crowbars (maybe that’s a fetish or something), then at least do something useful with these crowbars – Leveraged, the Valve ARG Network’s admin, suggested that you give them to Tools For Self Reliance. Because as it stands, you’re simply wasting Valve’s time, your time, AND your money.
Ludicrous. Just ludicrous. All of it is ludicrous. The whole thing. I’ll give you an example using my recurring “Valve time travel” joke: if you travelled back in time to the 10th of October, 2007, and told the guys at Valve that in 4 and a half years’ time, they would drive the HL fanbase mad to such a point where they would literally be mailing Valve crowbars, I think you’d be escorted out of the building. Brutally.
12 Responses to ““Operation: Crowbar” – Crazy Fans Pay Money… To Send Valve Crowbars… To Get Across A Half-Life “Message””
Honestly, there is no hiding that it’s happening right now with the creation of another Half-Life game. They just won’t tell us. It’s as simple as that. They just want to keep the secret.
Well it feels like Valve is trolling us all, but Im pretty sure they are developing HL3/ep3, the thing is that they might want to make something very good and in a new wole level like they use to, and that takes time saddly, the thing is that the more time more and better games come arround and its getting harder to be inventive, that was the Portal success, also this wole wait time is raicing hype in the fanbase, I really really hope this dont ends like Duke Nukem Forever.. Anyway Im pretty happy to know that I will be able to play Gunman Chronicles 2 in the next bojrabs to come, and I just hope to get to play HL3/ep3 in my life time and that its as good as I think it will be after the wait.
Don’t waste your money in crowbars, donate it to a charity!
Well said!
I’m kinda *really* behind the charity option.
Don’t worry about it, Vic, Valve will give all the crowbars away to charity once they stop coming.
But they shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. We’re the ones who should be doing that job, not us.
I think this is hysterical. Half-Life 3 T-shirt? You think you’re being funny, Valve? I mean, I’m not about to send one of these to their offices or post any spam on their Facebook wall, but I don’t think this is as “ludicrous” or “detrimental” as many are making it out to be. I consider Half-Life to be my favorite series of all time. I spent the last years of my childhood awaiting the release of Episode 3 and nearly 5 years later, now a registered voter/busy college student, I’m in the exact same position that I was in back when I was only 14 years old. Nowhere. I don’t have closure. I don’t even know if I’m going to get closure. That, ladies and and gentlemen, is what I like to call some old bullshit.
Valve’s mistreatment of the franchise, and its inherent hilarity, isn’t what we’re really talking about here. What we are talking about is the futility and the waste of such a childish endeavor: as if Valve would really care about a bunch of crowbars. They’ll just set up a room for them and put them on display.
I understand where you’re coming from, Vic. For the most part, I agree that this is ultimately going to end up solving nothing. If nothing more, it’s a humorous testament to the dedication of the Half-Life following. It is, however, time for Valve to speak up and inform its troubled community about the status of this series. I suppose I understand Valve’s decision to remain silent on the game, but I don’t agree with the lengths that they’ve gone. They have yet to formally say anything about the game, but then out of nowhere a Valve employee wears a Half-Life 3 t-shirt to a gaming event and allows for a picture to be taken only to plead the fifth on the topic of Half-Life yet again? That is not how you treat your loyal fan base. It’s not funny. I love Valve, but this whole thing is frustrating and I’m not so sure I intend on supporting this company in the future unless it’s by purchasing their next Half-Life title.
Am I making sense? What’s your take on their silence, Vic?
I consider the “Great Half-Life Wall of Silence” a pretty grave mistreatment of the fanbase and the franchise as a whole. Sure, they definitely deserve a long and quiet development period, but there’s ways to ensure that without completely alienating the community.
Im sure most of the people at valve would love their own half life-esque crowbar.
call it operation ‘gift giving’ or ‘thank you’. ‘posative emotion trumps negative every time’
If I had the ability to crap money, I would personally fund this entire ridiculous crowbar trolling.
Maybe it’s enough to just send Gabe a painting of Gordon. I’m sure he would appreciate that.