CURRENT THEORIES:
-It's kleiner with an ammo belt (HL2: Episode 3).
-It's a new source engine for a new Half-Life game (HL3).
-It's Duke Nukem Forever, now appropriated by Valve.
-It's fake.

Okay, here's the situation, maggots.

At 2050 Greenwich Meridian Time today valve apparently added an image to the frontpage of their website. As far as the internet has been able to gather so far, the image was removed precisely four minutes afterwards. This was long enough for someone from 4chan to grab a screenshot, but nothing more.

Exhibit A - The Screenshot:


There was a short-lived thread full of manic speculation, the only remnant of which was some MSpaint highlighting.

Exhibit B - The Paint:


Gentlemen, you may remember the dicking around on Valve's part that we were subject to during the Sniper/Spy update a few months back. It seems Gabe is back to his old tricks. Ready your tinfoil hats, and let the rumour mill grind into action.


Edit:
Exhibit C - The Brightened Screenshot courtesy of Mike55:



Stay back jimbomcb, we have 400+ readers who will crush you under boxes.

(User was banned for this post ("Remaking locked thread." - Jimbomcb))

Agreed, fake or not let us discuss it.

Please don't close this thread Jim, I like it

In before he closes it anyways

Edited:

He totally will too

Shit guys. If this is real then I will proceed to shit some serious bricks.

Just for confirmation, how many people actually saw it on the website?

One of my steam friends claims he has seen it after me linking him the previous thread.

Which is not really reliable.

Duke Nukem Forever, being worked by Valve... if this is the surprise i'm gonna do something bad.

yeah, the "freeman. june 14." thread got to stay, and that's most likely fake too, so why didn't he just close that one as well?

Last updated.

That's this very second.

are people keeping an eye on the frontpage?

also do we need to keep refreshing or will the banner auto-update?

http://www.valvesoftware.com/hocopus/

I smell error message maker.

Occasionally

So how do you see when it was last updated?

But wait, that means it'll be done in no time!


...Um.

javascript:alert(document.lastModified)

actually.

From HL1.

Oh shit

id be surprised if DNF came out before episode 3

.....

I would never stop laughing

DNF, or Freeman in overalls(?)



EDIT: there is now a portal 2 website? thinkwithportals.com

Aw. I guessed from the filename... But alas, I was wrong.

yes we've all seen it you don't have to keep reposting it

So far, the only groups that have this scoop are Facepunch and 4chan.

The Steam forums are absolutely unaware of this, which I can't believe in the event the image actually appeared.

The only thing that could potentially top a semi-secret announcement of Episode 3, would be something like Half-Life 3 or Opposing Force 2, and even that is secondary to the possibility of Duke Nukem Forever being developed and released by Valve.

There's wishful thinking, and then there's sheer naivety.

Actually I saw this.
Maybe a reference?

"javascript:alert(document.lastModified)" returns blank for me.

Maybe its my browser, who knows.

This shit is freaking me out..

Because Duke Nukem and Valve in the same ad sounds like a hoax begging to be spread around.

Me thinks it's actually the id of a game. Like in the url of games from steampowered.com

Probably a joke on Valve's behalf. Just to fuck with us.

The fact remains that people claim to have seen it. Besides, steampowered.com users aren't much more likely to visit the valvesoftware.com frontpage than 4chan users.

There's that, too. I'm just a skeptic in the face of all these fakes that have been popping up recently.

I'm just saying that given recent events, it's unlikely, but if it's real, awesome. I just wish I'd have seen it myself; I can't verify it or go back to check, so there goes that chance.

Just a simple contrast change.

Can I ask why over 1000 people are reading this fake stuff

i'm hoping i missed something else because unless I did I don't understand how people actually believe it

People are just really dumb.

How About i drown your Scanner again

Edited:

And B let people discuss even if it is fake