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.

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[Photo credit: Justin Kaminski and Chris Roberts]

[Penny Arcade]