Left 4 Dead Left Behind?

So less than a year after the original game, Valve announced at E3 that a sequel to Left 4 Dead 2 was slated for release in a few months. In the game: new campaigns, new special infected “boss characters”, new characters, a new focus on melee combat and weapons, and obviously a brand new setting based around New Orleans. Very shortly after the announcement, and seemingly predictable to everyone except the people at Valve, there was a huge backlash and eventual boycott for what was termed “an unneeded sequel”.

If you don’t understand why there is such nerd outrage, it’s because the average development cycle for a Valve game lasts around half a decade. Half-Life, arguably their biggest game ever, didn’t get a sequel until 2004, nearly 6 years after its release. Team Fortress 2 was nearly vaporware until its release in 2008, nearly a decade after the release of the original mod for Half-Life. So for Left 4 Dead to get a sequel almost exactly one year after its original release is odd for a development company like Valve.

The other side of the nerd rage is the lack of content that was packed into the disc and the amount of content that was given to the players post-release. Left 4 Dead was priced as a full-price game, but had the content of your average expansion pack. Post-release, it was patched in with free downloadable content (which was nice) but the amount of content was minimal, at best (you get one new mode which is basically Horde mode from Gears of War 2).

Now Valve claims that the sequel for Left 4 Dead will have a lot more content than its predecessor, but how much can we believe this claim? I love Valve as a developer, but they are barely trustworthy. Their own firm release dates are never met, and Gabe Newell’s “fantastic and futuristic” episodic content system is long forgotten. He promised “6-8” months between the Half-Life 2 episodes – it’s nearly two years after the release of The Orange Box (and in it, Episode 2) and we have seen hide nor hair of Episode 3.

Over 25,000 people have now signed a petition on the Steam forums boycotting the release of the new Left 4 Dead, pledging they won’t buy it. Internet petitions rarely work, but I hope Valve can take notice and at least realize that in the current economic climate, where video games are considered a luxury item, they can’t charge full price for a game that is nothing more than a half-price expansion pack!
You know whom I blame for this? The console crowd – who oftentimes have more money than sense (no offense guys and gals, it’s the truth). Console folk are gouged when it comes to downloadable content – map packs and extra stuff post release is just considered part of a patch (free of course) to PC players. So the idea of an expansion pack (usually ranging in cost from 25 to 35 dollars) is alien to the console people. Valve is taking advantage of this, because they know their biggest sales for Left 4 Dead 2 will be on the XBOX360, easily.

That’s what makes me sad, mostly. A developer like Valve, who is in neither any dire economic situation or has a history of this kind of gouging, bilking their fans. It’s disloyal. It’s mean. It’s almost Activision-y.

-       - Baljot