Why complaints about Valve's Portal 2 ARG miss the point

Valve put together a comprehensive and deep alternate-reality game to get the word out about the launch of Portal 2, as if this was a title that needed an extra level of publicity. The ARG lead to a lot of speculation, people playing games in order to speed up the release of Portal 2, and a network of players coming together to try to figure out what it all meant. Now Portal 2 has been released and the game is over—we think—and there are a large number of people oddly bitter about the whole thing.

That's silly: the entire point of any alternative-reality game is to publicize something, and there was no downside for anyone. For the gamers that played along, there was much to be gained. This is why the complainers have it all wrong.

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