Developer claims that a number of arrests in number of countries have been made in relation to the theft of their partially finished 2 code from the network, and the subsequent distribution of it over the internet. Valve CEO was unsurprisingly grateful to the gaming community who helped track down the culprits, who have been blamed in part for the game's subsequent delay.

"It was extraordinary to watch how quickly and how cleverly gamers were able to unravel what are traditionally unsolvable problems for law enforcement related to this kind of cyber-crime," Newell enthused, adding: "within a few days of the announcement of the break-in, the online gaming community had tracked down those involved."

Of course, Valve has subsequently confirmed that the game was some way off completion at the time of the code theft, and we now hope to get our paws on this eagerly awaited sequel by the end of the summer - September being the current best estimate.

By Luke Guttridge