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Left 4 Dead 2 boycotters at 21,000 members and growing
The recent Left 4 Dead 2 announcement was quite a surprise; one that readers here on TechSpot seemed enthusiastic about. However, the sequel isn’t being welcomed with such open arms in some gaming communities. In specific, the disgruntled Steam Group named L4D2 Boycott (NO-L4D2) has seen a substantial rise in members from its start on June 1. At the time of writing, the group just cracked the 21,000 member mark.
Determined to stop the second installment of Left 4 Dead, the group has called Valve out on their decision. The boycotters argue that by releasing a sequel so soon, the L4D gaming community will be split – ultimately leading to the original becoming obsolete. They feel that the original title has yet to see its fill of downloadable content. As such, they are requesting that Valve honor its commitment to ongoing DLC releases. The group suggests that Valve should either deliver L4D2 as a free update or an expansion and if it is pushed as premium content, they request that Left 4 Dead owners be given discounts.
In response to the outcry, Valve has suggested that updating Left 4 Dead in the manner which fans desire is too difficult. During company meetings, it was determined that they wanted to see improved storytelling, new environments including swamps and New Orleans and a more intelligent AI. I’m certainly far from game developer so my outlook is moot at best. Which side of the fence do you sit on, and why?
Determined to stop the second installment of Left 4 Dead, the group has called Valve out on their decision. The boycotters argue that by releasing a sequel so soon, the L4D gaming community will be split – ultimately leading to the original becoming obsolete. They feel that the original title has yet to see its fill of downloadable content. As such, they are requesting that Valve honor its commitment to ongoing DLC releases. The group suggests that Valve should either deliver L4D2 as a free update or an expansion and if it is pushed as premium content, they request that Left 4 Dead owners be given discounts.
In response to the outcry, Valve has suggested that updating Left 4 Dead in the manner which fans desire is too difficult. During company meetings, it was determined that they wanted to see improved storytelling, new environments including swamps and New Orleans and a more intelligent AI. I’m certainly far from game developer so my outlook is moot at best. Which side of the fence do you sit on, and why?
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User Comments (39)
Post a comment| Justin on June 9, 2009 12:30 PM | I'd say releasing L4D2 so soon would be a mistake. Early
adopters of L4D (including myself) found themselves
surrounded by huge issues with online play, primarily in
finding stable servers (or finding servers at all). The
content updates released for it have been few and far in
between. There's been little to no development actually put
into the game since launch. A L4D2 release would just be a slap in the face to the loyal L4D fans who stuck through all that garbage to where L4D is today. |
| oinari on June 9, 2009 12:33 PM | I don't get it. Why would Valve offer L4D2 as an upgrade or offer discounts when it's a one time buy. I could see if it was an MMORPG where you pay a monthly subscription fee after purchasing the game, otherwise it doesn't make any sense. Isn't that like saying if you bought, say, Devil May Cry, you should get a discount on the sequel or get it for free because the original isn't as good as it could be potentially? Are they suggesting that L4D2 is just a bunch of upgrades meant initially for the L4D? |
| TomSEA on June 9, 2009 12:41 PM | I don't have a problem with it. L4D will have been out a
year and even with recent DLC is starting to wear a little
thin. You can only kill so many zombies in the same
locations, in the same way with the same weapons and you're
now getting to a yawn factor. L4D2 will have new landscapes, new weapons, different boss zombies - it's a different different game with the same theme. In my mind, that's another stand-alone purchase, not an expansion. Lastly, as of April, L4D has sold over 4 million units - probably closer to 5 million units now with the specials Valve has been running. So those 21,000 "protestors" amount to .0042 percentage of total units sold. In other words, completely and totally insignificant. |
| Guest on June 9, 2009 12:44 PM | When I first heard the news I was torn between 'I paid full
price for a beta???' and 'Wow, an expansion pack! Finally
real content for L4D.' When I heard that it was going to be
a full game I was pretty pissed off. Now that my initial anger has worn off, it's time to be a bit more rational about the news of the L4D sequel. After thinking about it (and looking at my stats in the game), I got my moneys worth out of L4D 10 times over and I will continue to play it more in future once I'm a bit less bored of it and more community made maps become available. I think another member of the boycott group hit the nail on the head about why a lot of people are so mad about this. It's not really so much about content because we pay more for less all the time. Who do you know that bought the Orange Box even though you had half the games in it? I did. We buy the Half Life sequels and don't make a peep (while crying for more) because that's how the game was marketed to us. For me, I just don't like the look of L4D2, the new characters or the horrible 'horn and fiddle' crescendo music. Even if the new game was released as a paid DLC or as an expansion pack, I don't think I'd get it right off the hop based on what I've seen so far. If I bought it at all I'd probably just wait until it went on sale so I don't feel like I was ****ed in the *** like I did with L4D when the updates and SDK release dates just kept getting pushed back, month after month. Not to mention that L4D2 doesn't really have the same 'Holy ****! I need that game!' factor L4D had for me. It's too much like the original without the character continuity like in other sequels. Would you have bought Tomb Raider 2, 3, 5, 100, 1000 without Lara Croft jiggling around in it? I doubt it. Or HALO without Master Chief? Unlikely. You get to know the characters and even though fictional, they become like a friend that you can kick some zombie, alien, mummy, etc *** with. The new L4D characters are either boring/stupid hicks or cheesy caricatures of the worst possible types of people Unlikely in-game dialog: Player 1: “I wanna be the fat black guy!!!” Player 2: “NOOOOO!!! I want to!!!! You can be the scrawny cracker that sounds like he was dropped on his head as a baby!” Player 3: “Piss on you, I'm going to be the sleaze-ball in the Miami Vice suit that's too big for him” Player 4: “I LOVE playing the whiny black chick!” Uh... Yeah, right... If you don't know what I'm talking about, check out the game play videos on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNHwr6fpAC8&feature=channel As for the new 'stuff', yeah, there's some neat ****. But I haven't seen anything that looks like it couldn't be implemented in the current game. I'm sure within weeks of L4D2 being released the mod community will be porting those items into L4D without too much difficulty. Maybe Valve will do that so we don't have to. As for myself, I'll wait and see what Valve comes up with to appease it's customers. Regardless of how soon a sequel is released, I wouldn't pay full price for a game unless they put a new game engine in it and made it substantially different than the first one, which they haven't. So I'm perfectly happy that they plan to release more content for L4D because it's unlikely I'll play the new game unless they make it backwards compatible to the existing one and rethink the new characters. I won't get too far into the point about the music, decide for yourself. Watch the videos, yell me if the 'horn and fiddle' crescendo music has you climbing the walls and trying to claw at your ears after a few minutes. |
| yukka on June 9, 2009 12:45 PM | I agree with TomSEA. It makes a good headline until you put it into perspective. |
| Matthew on June 9, 2009 12:49 PM | @TomSEA: You can't say that 21,000 members makes up the
collective force against L4D2, really. Who knows how many
people are opposed to the sequel. That single group does not
represent all who are against Valve's decisions. Anyhow -
the group is still growing, and pretty quickly
too. Even if their growth were to halt at 21k members, there are now dozens of news posts around the web due to the group's presence - which will undoubtedly skew the opinion and mindset of most impressionable people. I can personally say that I am genuinely uninterested in purchasing another L4D game so soon - then again I didn't fall head over heels with the original anyhow. |
| Guest on June 9, 2009 1:05 PM | I will download day one |
| coldFuSion on June 9, 2009 1:23 PM | Most people I know who bought the original L4D have grown tired of it as TomSEA mentioned. They love it, played it hard, and got their money' worth. It's amusing watching 21,000+ people all crying at the same time. This article is not even newsworthy |
| polidiotic on June 9, 2009 1:26 PM | Not doing my homework, I purchased L4D (thinking it was
going to be the next best thing since TF2). While it's been
a fun MP (multiplayer) game, it definitely lacks in
considerable content. Valve could release new maps, new
campaigns, new MP characters, new weapons, etc.... as they
do for TF2, but they won't. I feel like I've been a bit
ripped off, since it's primarily a MP/online game, which
should inherit new dlc on a somewhat regular basis. They
should have followed the winning formula for
TF2. However, that being said... if they do offer a discount for the 2nd game, since the first game asked for the price of a regular, full content single player game of $49.99, I'll probably purchase it. They're allowed to produce what they want, and if it's a good/better successor (and they're not ripping me off) I'll be all for it. Otherwise, release some dlc, because I haven't touched the game in a month b/c I'm sick of playing the same thing over and over again. |
| polidiotic on June 9, 2009 1:31 PM | coldFuSion said: 21,000+ people all crying at the
same time about the same thing is pretty newsworthy if you
ask me. It is tech/pc gaming news...
Most people I know who bought the original L4D have grown tired of it as TomSEA mentioned. They love it, played it hard, and got their money' worth. It's amusing watching 21,000+ people all crying at the same time. This article is not even newsworthy |
| TomSEA on June 9, 2009 1:41 PM | Assuming that 5 million units have been sold, if I were Valve I wouldn't even begin to pay attention until the protestors had reached the 10% threshold. That's 500,000 gamers, folks. Hard for me to visualize a half-million people getting this upset over it, personally. |
| polidiotic on June 9, 2009 2:02 PM | TomSEA said: 21,000 complaints are still quite a bit.
Asking for 10% is a bit much, when most people are reluctant
to or too timid to say anything, and smaller sample
populations for polls have been taken to get valid results
before, such as election polls. Out of about 300 million
Americans, Gallup continues to take sample populations of
about 1,000-2,000 people from around the country and produce
polls that are pretty accurate.Assuming that 5 million units have been sold, if I were Valve I wouldn't even begin to pay attention until the protestors had reached the 10% threshold. That's 500,000 gamers, folks. Hard for me to visualize a half-million people getting this upset over it, personally. 21,000 out of 5,000,000 is about .42% of the population My calculator won't do 1000/300,000,000, but it's about .003% of the population or about Just throwing that out there. Valve would be wise to listen to the 21,000. ;/ |
| Guest on June 9, 2009 2:55 PM | The problem is that early users of L4D paid full price for
half of a game and are not happy at the prospect of doing it
again in less than a year. That could come out to be around
$100 for what should have been one $40-$50
game. Why did it 6 months to get the last two maps to work on versus? The SDK still isn't out and there is no word on other content. Value did promise TF2 like updates which was a reason many people got L4D in the first place. It also doesn't look good when Valve started working on L4D2 months before any meaningful content was added to L4D. |
| captain828 on June 9, 2009 4:54 PM | Though I played it for very little time, I enjoyed L4D, but
didn't buy it because I saw it as a bad investment, even
after the recent updates. I can see I was right about it and I have to agree, this seems like a slap on the face of all those fans that shelled out $50 (or more if you're in the EU!). But let's not forget one thing: The guy that sells the crap isn't dum, the guy that buys it is! As such, it is Valve's EXCLUSIVE RIGHT to publish sequels of its games and/or give out free DLC whenever they wish. How would it be if people would start boycotting EA for FIFA, Sims and NFS?! Or Relic for CoH?! or MS for Windows?! or Apple for the iPhone?! or Intel for their CPU's?! See a pattern?? I sure do: it's called BUSINESS SENSE. I, personally, don't like it, but this is how things go. Something is new now, then something better comes out that sometimes is even cheaper than the original one. |
| MrAnderson on June 9, 2009 5:08 PM | It feels like we are getting upset prematurely. Valve would
be crazy to let L4D fall waist side when they can still
benefit from its future sales. So they believe they can handle making new content for L4D and releasing upcoming titles too. Doing this even if they have to farm out the work to other firms, keeping a close eye on the projects is still a win situation. Id Software does this, with their titles so why not Valve at some point. Games are becoming more like platforms. There are plenty of opportunities to open up in the modding community when the SDK becomes available. I'm glad the community has shown Valve their concern. Let us not threaten or punish Valve for making new experiences. Let's have some faith and keep an eye on how they fulfill the promises made. It is obvious our community has a voice. Although the kind of outrage that could contribute to voicing customer displease should have been a sign, I bet a movement like this a lot of firms did not completely expect. This ushered in when firms create social networks around their products. Facebook’s own community outrage over a change in policy and this present situation are a sign of things to come. |
| darkshadoe on June 9, 2009 6:02 PM | TomSEA said: So Tom..if those 21000 download L4D2
off the torrents..that would be "insignificant" also? Its
just 21000 people...nothing to get alarmed about,
correct?I don't have a problem with it. L4D will have been out a year and even with recent DLC is starting to wear a little thin. You can only kill so many zombies in the same locations, in the same way with the same weapons and you're now getting to a yawn factor. L4D2 will have new landscapes, new weapons, different boss zombies - it's a different different game with the same theme. In my mind, that's another stand-alone purchase, not an expansion. Lastly, as of April, L4D has sold over 4 million units - probably closer to 5 million units now with the specials Valve has been running. So those 21,000 "protestors" amount to .0042 percentage of total units sold. In other words, completely and totally insignificant. |
| darkshadoe on June 9, 2009 6:16 PM | Btw...21000 x $50 = $1,050,000 that Valve can just piss away. They don't need it because 21000 people are "insignificant"...right? |
| polidiotic on June 9, 2009 7:30 PM | It's .42% not .0042%. Just sayin'. lol It makes a difference. |
| Guest on June 9, 2009 7:51 PM | I'm sorry but i would've gladly waited another year to have
all the content being released in the sequel to be released
as one concurrent game. Four campaigns, a handful of weapons and 5 types of zombies wasn't worth the first release, or the money I paid for it. |
| TomSEA on June 9, 2009 9:06 PM | Apples & oranges argument, darkshadoe. Complaining about a game release and stealing it are two completely different things. |
| tengeta on June 9, 2009 9:13 PM | Welcome to the current era of video games
people. All they care about is addicting you and getting your money, quality control and spacing releases is far beyond a consideration any developers offices, its out the window and gone for good. Valve fans are just the Linux fans of game developers, no matter what issue/problem you show them, it doesn't even exist. Its simply perfection in their minds period. |
| polidiotic on June 9, 2009 10:31 PM | I don't know about that, Valve has been pretty consistent with their work ethic. They release very high quality products and don't just pump shit out at a rapid rate. I admire the company for that and I applaud their efforts. Same as Blizzard. |
| Guest on June 9, 2009 10:38 PM | I think the maps in the first l4d were incredibly detailed
and varied and the gameplay was imaginative and innovative.
Who doesn't want to fill zombies with lead from a minigun or
pounce on a stray survivor. Some people have little respect
for how much work goes into planning a map, modeling, play
testing and so on. Finding some decent people to play with though is crucial for gameplay and adds to the odds of survival. I still find it annoying to join a public server only to find out it's filled with russian dudes who only want to play with their friends. Why not have an option of a public server list like any other multiplayer game? It's not like it'll detract any thing from the game. It is still early to release a sequel but I'll probably buy it anyway. |
| Torpeedo on June 9, 2009 10:40 PM | Valve should figure out how to transition L4D2 to the
players that paid for the original version and charge the
new comers the premium price. Heck, weren't we the ones
that made it popular? It was through our publicity that this game has done so well... Beginner business etiquette is "Take care of the customers and they will take care of you." |
| darkshadoe on June 9, 2009 10:43 PM | TomSEA said: Either way,
Valve is going to loose $1,050,000. So what makes the
difference going by your 21000 insignificant people
argument?Apples & oranges argument, darkshadoe. Complaining about a game release and stealing it are two completely different things. One may argue also that of those 21K who illegally download it, a certain percentage may actually purchase the game for the online multiplayer capabilities. Therefore, Valve would lose less money by illegal downloading than by alienating 21k people and them not purchasing the game anyways. |
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