Valve played it cute at tonight's Game Developers Choice Awards, rigging up a fake Blue Screen Of Death during boss Gabe Newell's time on stage. Course, it wasn't just a BSOD. It also contained some cryptic Portal 2 marketing.
A poster over on Penny Arcade has cracked the code contained within the message (pictured above), a short statement from Valve (or GlaDOS!) buried beneath the jokes lying on the surface. Always pays to have someone able to translate hex to EBCDIC around at a time like this.
Their translation reads:
GLaDOS
A fatal exception (S) has occurred at (U)(S) : (P)(E)(N)(D) in (U)(N )(T)((I)) *
(L)(E)(E)(E). The current application will be terminated.* Press any key to flood the facility with deadly neurotoxins.
* Press CTRL+ALT+DEL again to reinstate testing. You will lose any
Non-vital personnel and their progress through the current test.Press any key to continue _
Looks like we're on hold until E3, so all you kids neck-deep in Valve's clever marketing for the game, take a breather, we'll reconvene in June.
[Photo credit: Justin Kaminski and Chris Roberts]