Half-Life 2 protest weekend update

So, how ’bout that Half-Life 2 mass-play thing this past weekend, huh? Thirteen thousand people turned up.

That sounds pretty impressive, and it is, but it’s also less than half of the original 30,000 or so who signed up, and only about a quarter of the 50,000 people who’d joined the group by last week. Where were the rest of you guys? Tsk.

“We were very close to reaching the top 10, finishing in the 11th spot on the list for concurrent players in a game, just short of our secondary goal. However, we were anticipating to gather around 10,000 concurrent players, and those expectations were surpassed,” wrote one of the event organisers.

“I am personally impressed with what we’ve achieved today. We’re nowhere near done — in fact, we are currently in the process of planning new activities; this was only our first attempt, and, in my eyes, was a success for everyone.

“If our group closed today, I would be proud of everything we’ve done and all the Half-Life fans who were able to unite together and work towards a common goal. However, we’ve got no intention of stopping now; this is only the beginning.”

Valve hasn’t said anything about it, but then, Valve doesn’t say much about anything at all. That’s the whole point of this group.

Also, over the weekend, I had this dream I was visiting Valve HQ, and John Noble was there, and he had this magic printer that took orders from his Blackberry and made food. It was really weird.