All along we have thought that the recently reported Black Box that is supposed to ship with Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal, was too good to be true. Well, apparently it was, as Valve just decided to cancel that very shiny Sku from retailer’s systems, and make gamers pay for each title over again.

The director of marketing at Valve, Doug Lombardi, spills:

We’re going to have one package, The Orange Box, available on the PC (US$49.99) as well as the 360 and PS3 (US$ 59.99). In addition to the three new products—Portal, Team Fortress 2, and Half-Life: Episode Two—The Orange Box will also contain the full version of Half-Life 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode One. Those who purchase the PC version of The Orange Box will get three separate Steam product codes: One for the three new games, one for HL2, and one for Episode One. This way a PC Orange Box owner can give away their Half-Life 2 or Episode One unused Steam product codes if they don’t need a copy of those games. We are excited to deliver the highest value of new gaming content ever offered in one box.

Great, now we get to buy everything all over again and feed what we already have to our dog, (or friend.) I’m sure the extremely large Steam community will be in uproar about this.

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