Valve drops black box to boost steam sales.

There we go, the correct rumour. Before someone goes nuts with the wrong rumour again.

http://steamreview.org/posts/hl2blackbox/

Valve is dropping the black box and making the orange box cost more, while making the steam versions cost LESS so you'd buy on steam.

No problems, unless your truly anal about digital distribution...

But then, your buying cds to put on digital distribution, so ***?

 

That's devilishly clever on Valve's part.

As mentioned though, no matter what the game has to go through Steam, and there's not much we can do about it (except possibly violate our EULAs >.<).

 

" In this case, Valve are circumventing retailer’s hold over minimum prices: stores can easily refuse to stock a product if it’s being sold for less online, but refusing to stock a different pack because a theoretically less valuable one is being sold cheaper elsewhere might not go down so well with shareholders."

The explanation makes sense. I don't really care - I buy games directly from Steam all the time. As long as I can download Ep. 2, Portal and TF2 for a low price (here's hoping for $30, although I'd be willing to pay $40 for those three games).