By John Walker on October 1st, 2009 at 8:17 pm.
It’s official – Gabe Newell is heading for Australia. If you missed the story of how 19 year old L4D modder Joe W-A ended up raising $3000 (US) to fly Gabe Newell and Erik Johnson out to see his L4D map in order to convince Newell to stop boycotting it… Er, you need to go read this and this. Now Valve have confirmed that they’ll be heading to Oz next week, and less official sources are stating that of course they’re paying their own way so the money goes straight to charity.
Because clearly $3000 wasn’t going to buy one first class ticket in one direction.
Gabe Newell had this to say of the malarkey:
“The power of the gaming community and their ability to rally around a cause – be it serious or fun in nature – is amazing. In 2003, the community helped the FBI and European law enforcement officials find the people who stole the Half-Life 2 source code. This year, the community is putting me on a plane to the other side of the world to meet Joe W-A and see his MOD. It’s going to be a fun trip.”
Valve have created an interesting position for themselves. Unquestionably one of the most responsive and engaged developers, their relationship with their audience has created both a lot of love, and in turn a lot of hate. Expectations of the team are so astronomically high that when they fall short of customer’s extreme standards the backlash is enormous. The L4D2 boycotting debacle was the result of people feeling let down (legitimately or otherwise), but of course let down from expectations they’d not even pause to imagine of any other developer. Some (and clearly not all) who feel short-changed or unfairly treated by the existence of L4D2 (even after the release of free L4D1 DLC Crash Course) are now looking at anything the company does as a reason to announce more contempt for them. As was the case in response to this story. A number claimed, indeed in comments on this site, that Joe W-A’s campaign was cynical marketing on the part of Valve. What really happened was Newell sent two private joking emails to a regular correspondent, and literally nothing more. The rest happened without Valve’s involvement, encouraged by gaming websites like us who were delighted by the adorable story. The result, of course, was fantastic positive coverage for Valve, who once more came out of this situation looking friendly and extremely good natured. Which of course made a few people more angry.
I think, since I’m editorialising so heavily, that this is truly reflective of at least part of Valve. The response to this story should surely be one of realising, “Oh, Valve really are like that.” Rather than searching for a reason why this only proves how evil they must really be. Clearly they’re a large company, with strengths and flaws, and not a big cuddly stuffed penguin for us all to coo over. When it comes to releasing games their behind-the-scenes antics are irrelevant – the games are judged on their own merits and nothing else. It happens that so far they’ve failed to make a bad game (you may not like one of their games – I’m not enormously partial to TF2 – but I’d have to be madder than a sock full of Nesquik to argue it was anything less than brilliant). Oh, apart from Ricochet. I’m told.
Of course, now Valve are using this as fantastic PR. I’m writing this story because the trip was officially confirmed by a press release sent by the company. It begins, “Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Half-Life and Counter-Strike) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced its studio co-founder and president, Gabe Newell, will be visiting Australia next week.” But hell, who wouldn’t? It occurred organically and without their creation, and it would be insane not to take advantage of it. A month before they release their new game. (Which means Gabe and Erik are skiving off right in the middle of crunch, the cheeky buggers.)
Clearly people angry about the perceived lack of free L4D1 content and/or the existence of L4D2 will remain angry. People who don’t care will carry on not caring. And those looking forward to the new game will still be looking forward to the new game. But in the end, the owner of the company is flying to the other side of the world to visit some teenager to look at his Left 4 Dead map, and that’s still fucking awesome.
Is it too much to hope that someone meets them at the airport dressed as the sniper? (minus actual rifle, of course, I don’t think that airport security would look too kindly on that)
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Jarate, then?
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Just so you know, everyone in Australlia is dressed like the sniper 24/7 so unless he actually got a rifle to go along with with his outfit no one would even notice.
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How dare you John Walker! Ricochet is AWESOME! I used to play that all day long every day for years. It takes time and some serious skill to be good at that game and I got very good ! I really wish they’d release a source version of that
(also What ever happened to the teleporter from UT, I think that was just as cool as the Portal gun, the ability to launch a teleporting disc any where you want then teleport inside someone who is standing on it is brilliant and needs to be used more often)
<edit> This wasn't suposed to be a reply to the above post it was suposed to be a reply to the whole thing, sorry :P <edit>
Baron Shatteredstone “What kind of elf shoots down a bird anyway?!”
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Rallick is actually correct. Well, at least about the Northern Territory.
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If I were Gabe N I would be very concerned if meet at the airport by a man dressed as the sniper holding jarate and smiling. Heads up!
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Well played valve, well played.
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\o/
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Hah, this is awesome.
They're still bastards for the broken promises regarding L4D's post-release support, mind.
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You’re such a Valve fanboy.
Join the club.
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It’s confirmed that they paid for their own tickets. Joe donated ~3100$ to charity yesterday and posted it on his blog.
It’s also worth noting that they aren’t exactly ‘visiting some teenager’s house’. They are flying Joe from Brisbane to Sydney where they will meet up with him and check out his campaign.
I also thought the whole press release idea wasn’t very smart. Or, at the very least, they could have tried not to take PR advantage of it as obviously and blatantly as they did. If it were up to me, I would have worded the press release very differently.
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Do you do the press releases for your own company as well?
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I don’t, no. What I meant was, I would have left this whole thing as a community affair instead of making it an ‘official’ sounding press release/advertising fluff piece. In simpler terms, I would have left it as an l4d.com blog update instead of a Steam news release.
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While he is there, maybe he can meet some politicians? or he is too small a celebrity for that? shit… we need some people to talk with politicians (these that don’t ask for a brive to accept talk) and explain one or two things to then.
FIRST.
Internet. Our good Oz guys need good internet. And good internet is not the internet of USA. The internet of USA suck because is a big country, and is expensive, and because theres zero inversion there on that.
SECOND.
Second. Stupid censorship. Games like any other human medium shows violence and sex and other stuff. Games don’t need more censorship than books. There are books for childrens, and there are books for old people. Banning L4D was stupid.
Since he will be unable to meet a politician, he will only meet a modder. I ask for this:
A BIG HUG.
We modders need hugs too.
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*hug*
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I actually think that they might have that idea as well. I’m guessing they will be talking to people about the L4D2 ban… where is your censor board located?
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Australia’s censorship “board” is a guy named Michael Atkinson who lives in 1976.
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Australia’s Classification Board resides in Canberra, and has no power to introduce R18+ ratings for games. That power resides with the government, who are based in Canberra at a Federal level, and in each state capital at a state level. In the case of an R rating for games, the problem is Michael Atkinson, who resides in Adelaide, South Australia, so unless Valve fly him out to Sydney or fly to Adelaide, I suspect they’re not going to have much to do with him.
L4D2 was denied classification because it’s content doesn’t, in the opinion of the Classifications Board, fit the restrictions of the MA15+ category.
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You’re seeing what you want to see.
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Let’s have a go at it!
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“and less official sources are stating that of course they’re paying their own way so the money goes straight to charity.”
This seems obvious, but I’m a little surprised they didn’t put it in the official announcement.
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They’re getting flack for announcing it via press release at all, imagine how much more they’d be getting if they said they’d pay their own way and have the donations made to charity.
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This isn’t to say whether Valve is an awesome company or not (because I really think they are awesome), but this is sort of a forced PR move. Once this kid made the joke public, started a fundraiser to get the money, and got game news sites talking about the situation, Valve would have to be downright mad not to take the trip. If they hadn’t accepted the trip, the audience would be up in arms in all factions about how Valve has become just another heartless company who ignores its fans. To be quite honest, companies don’t have hearts in the first place. Just smart (or sometimes dumb) PR.
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Companies may not have hearts but the people that run them and work for them most certainly do. For example Fed Ex may not have a heart since it isn’t a person, but the people that run it have done a great deal of good for their community for example flying a little terminal girl with cancer home by air ambulance so she could be with her family when she passed. Or Pixar giving the little girl and advanced copy of Up! so she could watch it before she died. These are things that companies do because their owners/employees have a heart. Yes, it is good PR, but that doesn’t make the things they do any less good.
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The people that work in companies do have hearts, I agree. I however disagree that those decisions were made out of the goodness of individual employees hearts entirely. There are a million terribly sad charity cases that they could have done the same thing for, but they choose single, high profile examples to prove what a good company they are. Companies sponsor and donate to charities every year, not because the company just feels like throwing money to a good cause, but because it’s good publicity and good advertising, and happens to make the employees feel warm and fuzzy inside too. I personally think it’s great that companies can find profitable reasons to take part in these activities, because if they didn’t they largely wouldn’t happen.
The fact that Gabe is flying out a month before a major release is near-proof that this is a forced PR move. It would be fiscally irresponsible for a founder and president of a company to just step out for a trip across the ocean during a major crunch period unless it was important business. However, if that trip can drum up a little more press for the company, and therefore its upcoming title, now there’s a fiscal benefit to partaking in the activity.
But nonetheless, this sets Valve apart as a great company, because most companies would ignore or wave off the invite. Valve has very progressive, proactive PR.
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In the Fedex case it was only because someone in the little girls family knew someone in Fedex to call, it was not a high profile case (It became such AFTER however) The same for the little girl and Pixar , it wasn’t high profile until AFTER it happened , as far as they knew ahead of time no one would have ever known about it.
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It doesn’t matter whether it was before or afterwards that it was made high profile, it’s that it was the company’s goal to make it high profile, because it doesn’t care what nice things it can do unless it can toot its own horn about it. That’s the way the corporate world works. And I know I sound terribly cynical saying that, but that’s what enough business and marketing classes will do to you. There’s no charity, just opportunities to look good.
That’s beside my point, however. My point is meant in regards to Valve. The move was in all likelihood made to to keep up their image as a gamer-friendly company, because to wave off the invite would certainly indicate otherwise, no matter how good to reason for not doing it. Smart move on their part, and I love their business model. Keep up the good work.
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I’m pretty sure everyone could find comparable examples of nice things they’ve done at work out of kindness or honesty. If one of those things happened to get the attention of a local paper or a blog, does that mean it was suddenly a PR move?
Companies will take advantage of such opportunities, sure, but it’s individual people who create them, and the ratio of genuine decency to indifferent PR spotting is enormous.
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“There’s no charity, just opportunities to look good.” – All charity is done to look or feel good. Either that, or it’s for reasons of self-interest, like donating to a medical charity for a condition someone you know has. If you want to be cynical about it, you can be cynical about pretty much everything. The Up screening, etc, were all acts of kindness, regardless of the PR gained from it. It’s not like someone in a PR department sat with a spreadsheet calculating the number of acts of kindness they’d need to mandate to make this year’s figures when Gabe & Erik agreed to go to Australia.
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Large companies generally do have a budget specifically set aside for ‘good deeds’ that they can squeeze good PR from. If you want a company to e.g. sponsor your team to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro then if they have money left in that ‘corporate responsibility’ budget then they might assign it to your good cause.
However I don’t really see Valve acting that way in this case. I R fanboi though.
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Man, you guys are some cynical mofos.
All charity is done to look or feel good? Really? REALLY? You’re seriously going to downplay all charity work to inherently selfish motivations?
Christ.
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MacBeth: Well, true, there is CSR, but like you say I doubt this was an intentional exercise in that.
Tyshalle: Well, why do you donate to charity, if it doesn’t make you feel good about what you’re doing? I agree that it’s perhaps cynical, but the point I wanted to make was that you can make cynical arguments about every act of kindness that benefits the person who does it. I don’t think someone who donates to charity is a cynical person intent on manipulating their image, but charity donations and fundraisers aren’t *entirely* about masochism in the name of others.
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@MacBeth : All companies have a “good deed” fund because the government give them tax incentives for it. Yes, it looks good, but they usually do it for their books, which is why most donation occur near the end of the business year.
That being said, the government give tax rebate on good will for a reason. Large companies would be stupid not to take advantage of this… Don’t be so cynical.
This being said, Joe W-A is giving the money to charity, not Valve.
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Bagalot – there’s a big difference between a publically listed company and a privately owned one. For a publically listed company, you’d be right, and that duty can be legally enforced on the officers of the company. For a private company, it can’t.
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you’d have to be a special kind of bitter to not find this situation interesting and witty.
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Yeah.. well, the Internet is sadly full of that. Some people will never be happy, or will act like they’re never happy.
Me? I’m part of the bunch that don’t really care either way, I’m just glad that a charity got to receive the money.
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On an unrelated note, this is the 11th RPS post today. That’s an unusually high posting volume, and I approve heartily. The more RPS, the better!
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“Some who feel short-changed or unfairly treated by the existence of L4D2, even after the release of free L4D1 DLC Crash Course, are now looking at anything the company does as a reason to announce more contempt for them.”
Uhm,… “some” like both ice cream and the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard, I’m sure. Correlation is a bitch.
I’m really tired of being lectured how being disappointed with Valve’s drop in continued support for L4D would be ungrateful. I don’t know how it was meant exactly, but this piece feels unnecessarily personal.
I agree with anything in the article. That Valve are still awesome, that it’s beyond cool that Gabe travels to Australia to see some guy’s L4D campaign, that they still have better support for their games than pretty much any other company out there… Why am I treated like a douchebag for my criticizing.of L4D’s surprisingly slow support, a drop in Valve-awesomeness unmatched in their 10+ years history?
This could have been a fun post, but with all the unneeded defense of Valve enclosing an otherwise positive announcement, it became a pain to read.
If you really want to defend Valve, drop the boycotter-boycotting-meta-bash-bashing. This doesn’t have to be more than an unfortunate slip. I’m still confident that Valve will announce something amazing again in 2010. An epic “Episode 3″? Portal 2? Bring it on!
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Yes, this would be why I wrote “some”. Since clearly not all are. Most aren’t. Some are.
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Look chaps, a boycotter. Burn him!
/me burns him
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Rock on. I was thinking the “charity route” myself, for the same reason. Anyone who’s hopped a pond will heartily endorse the reasonableness of paying at least a J-fare if you can convince someone to pay it. These guys scared up enough for a Y-class ticket, and we’ll respect that, since that’s what Valve probably paid to bring out the L4D2 protest leaders. But, seriously, they were happy for the attention, and they probably didn’t have to fly 18 hours. You get less confused flying over the dateline when you’re riding up front, and I can’t fault ‘em. Besides, if they’re using the event for PR purposes — which this article leads me to believe — then the fans should not have to pay at all.
Look folks, I can only repeat hearsay about Valve. But I do enjoy two degrees of separation, as do most gamers, I suspect. These folks have a philosophy that works, and they put out product, and support that wins people over.
Yet, L4D poses a problem. It’s not TF2. People run TF2 servers forever. Dartt supervises the ever-beneficial RPS TF2 server, for example. But L4D? We all love L4D, but it’s something that occurs far more rarely. You can justify TF2 content based on the fact that people will buy the game, and the servers available are sufficient to support it. But look at L4D: this latest DLC not only cooked off Valve’s DL servers, it saturated the available ded servers. In short, everyone loves L4D, but more as an episodic event than a lasting passion. That requires a completely different infrastructure that’s not in place. I look at it and wonder, “maybe a new game will drive people to buy servers”. It’s all complicated.
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This is interesting. My clan ran an 8 man L4D server and paid a premium for a very good server which ended up top rated. Problem was no member of the community that effectively donated to pay for it (we run TF2 too) was able to play on it as it was always full of dedicated 4 man teams. So we ditched it as it was of no benefit to our actual. community.
I am currently considering L4D and L4D2 again for my community, but we just can’t seem to justify the expense.
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We ditched our L4D server too as it was not practical to actually play on it ourselves… silly matchmaking system… not that it stopped us loving L4D though.
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L4D’s server situation is odd. When it was released, the server situation was the main reason that my clan didn’t open up a division. You can run servers, but there’s not a really easy way to play on them. Even if you are able to play on them, if you play with groups of friends, you won’t have many new people to try and recruit. It’s also hard to admin groups of servers with constantly revolving lobbies.
That said, it is possible to run a server where, for the most part, it is only friends using it. And that method is (was? I keep hearing vague things about problems with the new patch) sv_search_key. You can set it up so that your for lobbies to get on your server, they need the same search key as the server has.
One of my TF2 clan members had had a L4D server for months now that I admin/mod/setup, and the only time we can’t get on it is if one of our personal friends is on it.
But seriously, the whole server situation shouldn’t be this much of a problem. Let the lobby leader pick a server from the server browser, and input a password if needed. Bam, done. Let a ninth slot be used for admin purposes without needing to run a mod.
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I shouldn’t laugh at the mentally disturbed…..
hahahaha! (points) You’re screwed up.
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While this is cute and all I would rather be playing Episode 3 right now. Just saying.
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Well, I’m sure they’re going to be utterly paralyzed as a company while their boss is out of town for a few days.
As someone in the last L4D thread pointed out, the game is about 90% the product of Turtle Rock, 10% Valve. Valve basically came in during the tweaking, testing and balancing phase. It was never going to be a big game, and the fact that there was going to be any support came more from Valve having bought up the studio than anything Turtle Rock could have offered.
So, yeah. L4D2 is a proper Valve game. Looks to be longer, more polished, more varied. They definitely have different feels about them.
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Re: 90% Turtle Rock, 10% Valve,
Everything makes a lot more sense that way. I was never part of the “boycott L4D2″ crowd, since I felt they were doing a pretty good job supporting L4D1 as is, but this puts it all into perspective. The fact that they’ve done so much to support a third-party game they basically adopted is already amazing. Now they just want to make the real thing.
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Thanks Dominic White. You just quoted my speculation. But it’s sound speculation. :D
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Well…they actually worked with Turtle Rock for a long time (over a year) before the announcement went out about bringing them legally in the fold. I visited Valve HQ three years ago and saw them working on it then. TR had a great concept…but it took Valve resources and genuine game-making prowess to turn what was a concept around a simple theme of Zombie AI in a co-op environment into a real release.
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Careful John, statements like this:
“The L4D2 boycotting debacle was the result of people feeling let down, but of course let down from expectations they’d not even pause to imagine of any other developer.”
leave you out in the tall grass. Those expectations were born of specific statements made by Valve. I think people very much DO expect most developers to keep their promises regarding post release content (see discussions of Empire Total War regarding multiplayer co-op and “the most modable TW yet”). The backlash against Valve has been more energetic than is typical, in large part because they’d built up such a pool of good will that it was particularly surprising when they welched on their promised updates, but it’s not like most of this reaction is coming from people having unreasonable expectations.
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Yeah, watch out John. Watch out.
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How deranged do you have to be to read that as a threat?
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I sleep with one eye open. And the other one with a painted ping pong ball over it to look like it’s open.
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Yikes, that must be some nasty dry eye.
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Seriously, though, the next time Valve promises post release support for something, are YOU going to believe them?
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Eee! He’s asking ME!
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It’s a sincere question, I’m uncertain why it doesn’t deserve a sincere answer.
That’s what this all comes down to after all, those of us that are upset with Valve feel they violated our trust. They made promises, they didn’t keep them. In the future if they make promises again, we won’t be able to believe them, and that’s really kind of depressing for a game company that we were quite fond of.
So, again, if Valve says they’re going to support L4D2 “like TF2″ with new campaigns, characters, weapons etc, will you believe them? If they announce Portal 2 and guarantee new levels post-release, will that affect your purchase decision? In short, didn’t they violate your trust too?
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I am surprised no one has mentioned the fact that L4D 2 is effectively banned in Australia because it was refused classification. I wonder if Gabe is going to try and meet a politician or two while he is there.
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They’ll probably pass the cost of the flight on to consumers in the price of L4D2.
Haha! Just kidding. Valve is great!
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Which, with a quick Google and some quicker math later, works out to 0.12¢.
TOTALLY WORTH IT.
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The hilarious part is that really, if they had just called it an expansion rather than L4D2 then everybody would have been happy. Who doesn’t like expansions?
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The cynical answer to that is that consoles don’t like ‘em, because the expansion idea doesn’t really work on consoles. Games aren’t installed, so you can’t determine if the user has the original game, and you can’t share resources. Everything that comes out on disc for a console is a separate game.
So the world is moving towards everything being either 1) full-length sequels or 2) DLC that is by definition, shorter than traditional expansions (10-20% of the content of the original game rather than 30-40%), and cheaper than traditional expansions ($5-10 rather than $20-30).
L4D2 clearly (to me at least) is not a $10 DLC kind of thing. Valve could have released each campaign separately as DLC for $5-10, but I’m glad they didn’t take that route. They also could have released the whole thing for free, but I also can see why they didn’t do that — its a year’s worth of work for a whole team just given away.
Some are arguing that L4D2 does not have enough content for a full-length sequel. I can see their argument, although I cannot fully agree with it. On paper, L4D1 seemed small for a full game, but I got over 60 hours of gameplay out of it. L4D2 has at least 20% more content than the original, which doesn’t sound very “expansiony” to me.
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Jad – isn’t that why the expandalone was invented?
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“You’re seeing what you want to see.”
As opposed to you in that comment? lol
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“since I’m editorialising so heavily”
You can say that again – you should put some kind of note at the top because this piece really abandons all journalistic integrity in some places. It’s not the least bit objective.
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Writing an opinion piece “abandons all journalistic integrity” now? That’s bad news for, well, basically all journalists everywhere.
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Good god. RPS having an opinion? Unheard of.
If I just wanted a copy of the straight up press release, I would have read it off my Steam announcements RSS feed.
… Oh wait, I did. Then I immediately switched to my RPS feed to see what they had to say about it.
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THE RPS OBJECTIVE ROBOT APOLOGISES FOR OPINION… PLEASE FORGIVE… ABORTING JOHN WALKER…
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John Walker was a menace to society. Thank you, RPS Robot, for taking care of this tragic situation so efficiently and objectively.
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But John Walker is past the third trimester Robot, NNNNOOOOOOoooOOOooOOOoooo!
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That’s so cute. :-)
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I actually like articles that are a little subjective and speculate, as long as they are honest about it. Insights that may not be the objective truth are still valuable, if done properly.
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If every third RPS article didn’t make fun of players complaining about developer moves because of reasons similar to “LOL ANGRY INTERNET MAN FUNNY TO ME XD” in one way or another, I’m sure nobody would mind a bit of subjectivity.
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And if some commentors won’t so prone to ridiculous exaggerations like that, it’d be much easier to be consistently sympathetic to their complaints.
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Good to know that hyperbole is a free card for somebody to ignore an argument!
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When it’s accusatory, untrue hyperbole – yes it is. Make your point without the daggers next time and maybe it’ll have a positive effect.
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There have been plenty of posts expressing similar opinions without any daggers attached, e.g. lumpi’s comment about “boycotter-boycotting-meta-bash-bashing”. A reaction remains to be seen. After witnessing weeks of memetic Diablo 3 Angry Internet Man condescension that later turned into L4D2 hater-hate, there is not much left to draw attention to the matter other than sharp remarks. Commenters do have a hang to latch on every angry-man joke in sight…
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My theory is still that if they are impressed with his campaign he will be offered a job.
Good show Valve.
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If it’s good enough, they might. However I think it’s more likely that they would include it in an official update to the game (like they do for TF2 community maps). At the very least, the guy is going to get feedback from guys who are the arguably the best in the business.
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You know, I can’t help but wonder what happens if they get down there and realize the map totally sucks. Then again the guy obviously has a real love, and serious dedication to the game, or else this situation probably would have never happened. And, I suppose having some of the best game designers in the world giving you some tips probably won’t hurt either :-P
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Had a chuckle when i saw the PR release in my mailbox, in my mind i envisioned the valve guys standing behind a 19″ screen in a small room having a chat with a aussie about the game.
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Actually they’re meeting him in Sydney somewhere. Joe’s bringing his campaign with him.
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I still haven’t played a single Valve game, and I continue to be amazed at the adoration they receive here. But I’m sure they make fine games.
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All i can say is WHY?
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Well, I don’t know what you’ve been smoking but from what I’ve seen Valve treats it’s community a helluva lot better than other companies do. :)
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I have to say, I’m rather impressed with Newell’s involvement with the community. The amazing thing about gaming still technically being a baby industry is that you have semi-grassroots moments like this.
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Good for Valve.
I think the problem is that Valve dont have all these heavy marketting people whom calculate every move, carefully and EVILLY. It means they just do what they want to do, or think is right, sometimes they make mistakes(percieved by the masses). I like that though.
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It must be a very depressing world that you live in.
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It’s really great this has turned out how we hoped/thought it would. Yay Valve again.
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The amazing thing here is that a bunch of money got given to charity, and a multi-million-dollar studio are flying their company heads out to Australia to check out a fans mod, and people are STILL COMPLAINING.
I’m half-convinced at this point that Valve could adopt a thousand orphan puppies, and there’s still be that guy at the back grumbling about how they should have adopted kittens instead, and how puppies were just a cynical corporate move.
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Can John confirm or deny that his ambivalence towards TF2 is due to bad experiences with using the Medigun?
How can anyone not love TF2? It’s like Bill and Ted’s music, one day it will end all war and unite the planet. (Just as soon as the Engineer update is out).
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I partition this all mentally as so: I maintain enormous respect for Valve; the TF2, Portal, and HalfLife teams, lead by the benevolent Gabe Newell. While, on the other hand, feel nothing but contempt for the powerful evil entities, lead by the PR demon-lord Doug Lombardi, that I refer to as Turtle Rock.
I am working on establishing a formal religion based on this theology.
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I remember when people didn’t talk shit about eachother in the comment section of this site
Wonder what ever happened to that
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“A month before they release their new game. (Which means Gabe and Erik are skiving off right in the middle of crunch, the cheeky buggers.)”
Oh man, what a dream world that must be – Two months of crunch, right at the end of a project? I love that idea ;)
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Valve are the best games company in the world, but implying that actually following through with what they said rather than spending those resources on a sequel that makes Left4Dead redundant is “the customers extreme standards” just impresses on me that journalists are not capable of criticising them. For all anyone who hasn’t played a Valve game knows, their last four games could be awful because they certainly can’t trust anything a reviewer has said. Only a games writer prepared to get daggers out on the best and brightest are worth listening to.
To date, I have not seen a single writer accurately represent the Boycott position, resist selectively quoting Boycott articles or even ask Valve about the ridiculous excuses and narrative they’ve given.
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The boycotter’s position is moot.
It really is.
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Not when someone attempts to criticise it. Then it’s their responsibility to make sure they are representing what they are criticising, accurately.
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It would be funny to have the trappings of a usability study in place for wherever they look at it. Cameras, folks standing behind them with notebooks asking “why did you do that?”, etc. etc.
Of course, it might seem like they had been lured into a bizzare, gamer version of the movie Hostel (set in TERRIFYING Australia, no less!) at that point. I’d pay to see that before Hostel, anyway.
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Valve are doing a sequel to Left 4 Dead? Cool!
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Yay – a satisfacotry end to an enjoyable soty. Plus all the money is being given to charidee.
Everyone’s a winner!
Except John of course; for he has no journalistic integrity left to give!
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Let’s be serious here. There is no “L4D2 boycotting debacle.” L4D has never fallen out the top ten best selling games on Steam, and it’s #1 at the moment. L4D2 will without any doubt spend years in the Steam best seller list and many, many weeks at #1. The number of people whining because they expect unlimited free updates and non-stop play until the end of time for a single $30 payment are a tiny, tiny part of Valve’s customer base.
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@ Gorgeras
I’ve gone down this road here before, but that is in a large part because Valve has made best-buds of the most critical and honest gaming critics.
It’s harder to criticize someone you like and know is a good person, but someone needs to.
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“L4D has never fallen out the top ten best selling games on Steam”
And Michael Jordan jerseys are the most popular item sold at Chicago Bulls’ stadium store. Forgive me if I don’t find this piece of data particularly insightful.
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You don’t find sales statistics relevant in determining the significance of a boycott?
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@yutt and Goraras: Games journalism isn’t that much different from conventional news journalism, in that reporting only on the absolutely most extreme and nutty aspect of a situation generates more excitement than taking a step back and reporting on what’s actually happening. I think it’s probably as simple as that. Granted, I tend to expect better from RPS, but I suppose even really good media outlets make the wrong call sometimes. It would be nice, though, not to have everyone who’s taken issue with the handling of L4D and L4D2 be lumped in with the trolls and crazy people.
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What a horrible comment thread lol. John I think you're going to have to start ninja posting L4D updates with something diffrent above the jump then once you load the post it will be all about L4d (Perchance above the post will be about a new my little ponies game coming out using the source engine I don't know)
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It would never work. Everyone knows My Little Pony is best suited to the Unreal Tournament 3 engine.
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Why does he write MOD! It’s not an acronym! No wonder that ridiculous linguistic tic is so widespread, if Gabe himself does it. GAahhhh never buying a Valve (oh sorry, VALVe) game again
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It’s like every time people get to the word ‘mod’ they’re so excited, or enraged, or perhaps just really confused, that they can’t help shouting. “Hey man, what are you up to?”-”Oh nothing much, just working on my MOD!!” -”Oh you’re making a MOD!!!! eh, what’s it about?” -”Well, my MOD!!!!! features zombies actually, and realistic military hardware”-Oh nice, you don’t see that in many MOD!!!!!s these days, awesome, I will be sure to play your MOD! when it is released”
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You got off your meds again?
Not an insult, but what the heck are you trying to say?
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That ‘mod’ is short for ‘modification’, so there’s no reason to write it in CAPITAL LETTERS as if it were an acronym.
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And that people do this ALL the FRIGGING time, but they can hardly be blamed if Valve’s head honcho started/perpetuates it. Maybe I should write Gabe a furious letter so he can prove how much he REALLY cares about the community.
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If you’re being this pedantic you may as well go the whole hog and insist on “mod.”.
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Nah, plenty of abbreviations become words in their own right, and putting a dot at the end is unnecessarily awkward. This isn’t a prescriptivist quest arguing for absolute compliance with every grammatical ‘rule’ ever devised. It’s just that there’s no logical reason to capitalise ‘MOD’ , and it reads awkwardly while taking more, rather than less, effort to type. So people are making a specific effort to write the word in a way that makes absolutely no sense, and can ruin the flow of almost any sentence.
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Don’t people have better things to do than to think about whether Valve really are good people or not… or having “expectations” on the “objectivity” of RPS articles?
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Don’t you have better things to do than wonder whether people have better things to do than the things they are doing?
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yutt makes an excellent point here.
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Actually I appreciate that the RPS writers have at least not been mocking those who are disappointed in Valve. A good portion of gaming news sites have turned the entire “boycott” scenario into an opportunity to criticize those who dare to not bow in idol worship.
Honestly Valve has been more understanding and responsive to the criticism than most of the gaming press. What kind of backward situation is that?
Anyway, I am digressing from the article topic, which is that Gabe Newell factually awesome.
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“an opportunity to criticize those who dare to not bow in idol worship.”
Ah yes, you plucky iconoclasts, speaking truth to power and saying “I demand more entertainment content for my $30! You promised!” With such daring altruism, the boycotters are the real heroes here. What scandal that these corrupt so-called “journalists” are all in league with their corporate masters, whom they clearly worship.
If you’re ever curious, it might actually be your way over the top rhetoric that prompts the mockery, not some ever-present character deficiency in those who disagree with you. This is what differentiates “someone with a legitimate grievance” from “Angry Internet Man”
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@Geoff
I see nothing over the top about what he just said. Or are you referring to the boycott as a whole?
@yutt, totally off topic, but is that Skull Man?
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@DarkNoghri
I believe both yutt and I were referring to the boycott, which he describes as “daring to not bow in idol worship”. The journalistic stance on the situation I’ve seen consists of:
1. Valve released a game, which taken on its own merits or compared to other developers’ games, is a good value and well supported.
2. A bunch of guys are angry that it hasn’t received quite as much free support as they expected (as Valve told them to expect?), and have freaked out and declared a boycott of the sequel.
To characterize that assessment as “bowing in idol worship” seems a tad heavy handed on the rhetoric to me, and is likely what earned the AIM badge for boycotters.
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Fair enough.
As to your number 1, almost every review for L4D I remember reading said that it was short on content, but that Valve would almost surely be adding to that in the time to come. We’ve thus far gotten 3 new maps and gamemode update. As for bugfixes and balance changes, those have been in short supply. So the problem is really whether you believe number 1 or not.
The reason I think it almost merits the phrase “bowing in idol worship” is that every time someone brings up these points, he’s told either to shut up, that Valve needs to make money, or that he got his 300 hours worth of the game out of it anyway (yes, there are counter-arguments to these). No one actually listens to the criticism, it’s just shot down out of hand. I’ve definitely seen stuff that blasted the boycotters as being spoiled brats, but never actually counters their problems with the support thus far.
But I see where that could be construed as over the top.
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Clinical disregard? Are you still raving about L4D2? And did you even notice that this is a story about a video game exec flying half around the world to meet with a nobody?
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@yutt: I’ll have to take your word on that, I don’t usually read other PC gaming sites. Fair point, though I honestly do think this article did edge a bit closer to troll-baiting than I’d like in it’s mentions of the boycott. Maybe the comment threads on L4D2 have rendered me a bit over-sensitized.
@Railick: Funny, that sounds like a pretty good idea to me. It’d be nice to have a reasonable comment thread about L4D2. Whatever you think about the “issues” surrounding the game, it seems pretty clear that it’s a lightning rod for crazies and trolls.
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I wholeheartedly agree with your comments Mr John Walker sir. Well put.
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Valve are evil because they are allowing the donated money to be given to a charity sponsered by gamers, who are all horrible murderers and baby eaters. Obviously.
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Holly crap, this was one of the best articlesI’ve read here (and I really like your articles guys).
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And that – is all these is.
I wish I could fly up to Brisbane to meet my gaming namesake, but alas my priorities have changed since my gorgeous “Player 3″ was born 13 weeks ago. Oh well, even knowing the other Gabe’s just 1 hour’s flight away, is pretty cool.
Nah. John’s right. It’s “fucking awesome”.
PS: No, I didn’t actually name my son Player 3. (I’m not married to Gwyneth Paltrow)
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That’s right. You gave him a manly name, one he could be proud of. One that shows he’s the boss around here.
Player 1
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Nice one, Psychopomp… nice one. :-)
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Can’t wait until the Youtube video he’s gonna make!
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While he’s here, hopefully he can go visit Michael Atkinson and talk / beat some sense into him about the L4D2 ban.
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But in the end, the owner of the company is flying to the other side of the world to visit some teenager to look at his Left 4 Dead map, and that’s still fucking awesome.
Why is it fucking awesome? Because there is someone decent out there? Because you know him and he’s usually a dick head?
My point is, you seem surprised that someone out there is doing something as simple as enjoying their life and taking the opportunities that come their way. Why not fly to Australia for free? Awesome fun.
THAT’S FUCKING AWESOME. See? Doesn’t quite fit. I’m not trying to talk down the experience, you just sound a little like you don’t expect anything good to happen, or like you’re buying into the idea that all CEOs are faceless robots that don’t enjoy things that everyone else would.
Now I hope I’ve explained decently where I’m coming from, I hope you can explain where you were too :)
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Bottom line of my point is, company owners are people like you or me, who enjoy getting away from things for a while, or going on adventures, or having fun which is what he said this trip is to him.
If we start getting excited that people are doing things that people like doing… we’re probably not doing what people like doing ourself because we’re living in a dream world, an idea of reality that is warped and unreal, collective false/negative ideas. GETTING A BIT PHILOSOPHICALZ ARE WE LOLO~??
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I believe what he means is that it’s pretty fucking awesome that the head of a large corporation would take time from his schedule to fly to Australia simply to talk about and look over a teenagers mod. It’s like Donald Trump flying across sea to check out your lemonade stand. How often do you hear of such “high ranking” individuals taking the time to fly down to look at what a young modder has done?
Pretty fucking rarely I’d say.
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Donald trump wouldn’t be welcome at my lemonade stand.
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Well, the capitalist pig most certainly wouldn’t be welcome at my lemonade stand. Which isn’t my stand at all, but The People’s Glorious Lemonade Stand.
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You’ve been reassigned to the coal mines. I’m giving your lemonstade stand to my neice’s husband.
No, I don’t care that you’ve go no coalmine experience. It’s for the good of my niece. Er, the country.
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Oceania has always been at war with Lemonadestand.
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Guess it depends on the type of person Gabe Newell is. Personally, the idea of being stuck in an airplane for 20 hours (or whatever it is) to meet some random guy and look at this mod and then turning around and flying another 20 hours back is a fucking nightmare, and I was thinking Gabe was really taking one for the team in a big way here.
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Re: the adoption of puppies
No no, people would complain that they’re not working on Episode 3.
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I actually enjoyed playing ricochet, shame that there wasn’t much of a community im my area.
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Lol. anyone who thinks this is anything more than a publicity stunt to get more notice on l4d2 has been off thier meds to long.
Its a good one for sure, but personally it doesnt make a bit of difference to me, they blew it with the first 1, i will not fork over full price for this. ill wait until its half price or something.
Ill actually be to busy playing borderlands to even care about this at release.
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I clicked reply before you wrote your next post, and I just saw it now that it refreshed, and I’m not sure it’s worth responding anymore.
However, I’m convinced Gabe and/or Erik will be taking the opportunity to discuss the matter of the R18+ video game rating in Australia. As an Australian L4D fan, this is a terribly important issue for me at this time, so it’s great to see Gabe coming down.
You may think Gabe has no chance of influencing the introduction of the R rating, but you would be wrong. Remember, this entire issue rests in the hands of one man, Michael Atkinson, thanks to a stupid legislative procedure. EVERY state must agree, and EVERYONE except M.A. has given it the thumbs up. It was the same when the whole issue got started years ago. The vast majority of the public want it introduced, but of course even 100% of the public isn’t going to persuade a single man when all he is following is his ignorant opinion.
Having the CEO of a major game development firm whose game you’ve just banned come down and talk to you would be perhaps the most influential thing that could happen, in terms of changing opinions. If public pressure worked, it would have worked by now. We need to give a face to the thing he’s arguing against, and how can you say no to Gabe’s face?
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If you had been a fly on the wall at valves studio you should have seen the following.
Valve scrub # 1 "Well guys, we really pissed off our fans by not following up with our promises, but we know that we will still sell a shit ton of copies anyway. So well, what do we do to end this boycott."
Valve scrub # 2 "Well, lets try and assure them that the game will be worth it, and we havent given up on l4d1, in fact we can crap out a small campaign in no time and claim that we had been working on it a while."
Valve Scrub # 3 way in the back of the room " we should boycott them."
Valve scrub # 1 "HaHa, ok # 2, that sounds great. lets crap one out that totally doesnt show any thing new, just the same old crap that was in the 1st one, because no one will ever notice that it took us this long to really provide nothing new."
Gabe scrub "wait wait, who said boycott them?"
Everyone tosses # 3 under the bus.
Gabe scrub " thats brilliant, it will pull the spotlight from the legit idea behind the boycott, put it on us as being funny, and will give us tons of free publicity that we can capitalize on. # 3, pack your shit, you get the office next to mine."
# 3 walks to the door, turns around and gives Double birds as he walks out backwards. Totally nerd cool.
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It must be fun inside your head.
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Man, I laughed so hard that my head exploded orgasmically.
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If I was a fly on the wall of Hug Dealers room, it would be like this:
Hug Dealer:Oh look, a dead horse. I think I’ll flog it.
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Too bad Joe wont be able to buy l4d2 in Australia. Thanks censorship!
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sometimes when we think we’re being perceptive about how terrible humans are, it’s really just a projection of our own hideous nature.
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Amen to that.
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L4D2 is nothing compared to Ricochet.
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Valve are worse than Hitlers. Not just worse than Adolf Hitler, but worse than his entire family put together!
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Judgements are blunt.
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When did all this Valve hating really occur? Was it when L4D2 was announced, or was it before that?
As far as the new campaign goes, I haven’t played it, so I really can’t speak about quality, but I have heard something about the length. Having some experience mapping, I can tell you that one does not “crap out” 2 quality maps in no time. Based on past map quality and level of detail, I would believe that they have been working on it for some time. If you feel that it isn’t enough, go to the mod scene. They have produced some excellent campaigns worth checking out.
I am a big fan of Valve based on what I see as a company that genuinely cares about it’s audience. That being said, Valve may, or may not have taken a advantage of the situation, but honestly, who wouldn’t? Not only would the internet have outraged at the Gabe if he didn’t go, but they might have lost what could be a very influential person in the future of L4D. Lest people forget that the whole reason that Gabe is flying down under is to preview a campaign made by a modder: a lover of games so great that he poured he’s blood, sweat, and tears into something for people to play (overkill, maybe, but I think a lot of people forget just how much work some people put into it, all without a check behind it).
Lastly, as far as L4D2 is concerned, I believe that it is, in fact, Valves IP. They have a right to do what they will with it. As far as people thinking that they won’t continue to support it, who cares?! The community is supporting it. Think it will die? There are still people developing mods for the original Half-Life! As long as there is a player base, there will be people there developing for it. I feel lucky that they even gave us the tools to mess with it like they did, considering so many other developers specifically restrict any editing access, or force people to use 3rd party tools. I’m not a *huge* fan of Valves games, but I am a fan of how they treat their community.
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I might agree with you in one point: We’re running out of things to say. But it seems, some still haven’t even bothered to listen. Which would explain the same arguments being thrown around all the time.
This, however, is true for both groups. The boycotters and the anti-boycot-meta-boycotter-boycotters. And, geez, there is a THIRD group nobody is talking about: People who are just plain disappointed with the untypical lack of content for L4D and are NOT boycotting L4D2. No drama, just a drop on the goodwill-barometer.
From the “antis”, I only hear are two arguments: Valve is a business. Valve can do whatever the fuck they want with their “IPs”.
Well, duh. I guess nobody on either side is questioning their “right” to do whatever they want, unless it’s illegal. That’s not anybody’s point though. If a telecom company offers the “best service in the industry” and nobody even answers their $2.50/minute hotline… people will complain. It’s the company’s “right” and “freedom” to not seat anyone next to their hotline telephones, but that’s not really the point. As a customer, I’d be disappointed, politely speaking. Now Valve is still nowhere near as bad as this example, but if you buy a game from them, trusting their promises (and them always delivering for the past 10 years), and you only get a ho-hum bonus-map, a few rushed game-modes and a half-a-year late SDK, you might be disappointed.
You might decide not to buy their next product, dramatically speaking “boycotting” it. That’s the purpose of a capitalistic system: The customer decides whether to buy stuff or not. Based on quality, value and price. What’s so disgusting about it? If you actually tell Valve, by doing a little Steam group, you’re already doing more than you had to. You’re giving them a chance to see what is going on in customer’s minds, something other companies spend millions on researching.
Where’s the evil in that? The douchebaggery? The communist/anti-capitalistic irrationality? I just don’t see it.
Also, and this might be my most “opinionated/emotionally charged” view so far: Pulling the (6 months late) SDK and community self-administration into this strikes me as a little cynical. If Valve owes nothing to it’s loyal customers, it at least does owe a lot to it’s community that stood by Valve since the beginning. Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat, Garry’s mod… even before HL, Team Fortress was a community-created mod for Quake… I would guess all of these made a lot of money for Valve. Not to mention the continued support, custom maps and campaigns still created for free, for love of the game, of Valve’s openness and fairness towards the community. When I think of Valve titles, I think of user-created content 50% of the time. It’s equivalent.
If you seriously suggest that Valve diminishing support for L4D in favor of L4D2 so quickly is OK, because the community will take over their job of supporting a full-priced game that always lacked content from the beginning… that’s just disrespectful towards the community. Spending 4 months to create a decent L4D campaign only to find out, “Guess, what? The SDK released a few months ago is already old news! Prepare for L4D2(r)!!!”… it feels like crap. I can tell you that.
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There’s no such think as “lack of content” in L4D. The game shipped as it was intended. Anybody who believes otherwise is hopelessly deluded.
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The Boycott has given absolutely no comment on Gabe’s trip to Australia, nor the events leading up to it being confirmed. This doesn’t seem to matter to those who seem to think(originating as a joke) that the Boycott itself has been criticising Valve non-stop. Walking_Target’s posts are downright moderate, but it’s like religious nuts with Richard Dawkins: there must be an evil twin version of him going around saying strident and controversial things that only religious apologists can see and hear because the man himself is as polite as you get and fills his statements with buts and ifs. Walking_Target must have one too, saying all the crap that people come up with about the Boycott.
The Boycott did have a position statement on the Australian ban; of course hardly anyone bothered to read it and just assumed the Boycott was delighted.
It would help Jakson Breen if he at least made it look like his generalising and glossing over were accidental.
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In a large way it is. This was the only article I’ve really read on the subject, and everything else I’ve heard is due to glossing over or hearsay. Sorry if I was mis-informed about something, and going back I’ve realized that the boycott and this are two different things. However, I still think that the boycott (those serious about it) is useless…
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Useless to who? While journalists and anti-Boycotters have been going out of their way to attach views and statements to the Boycott which it’s never expressed, Walking_Target was gathering feedback(because the Boycott does actually want L4D to improve) and talking directly to Valve about it. The feedback is apparently useful otherwise Valve wouldn’t be answering. Criticism and feedback is useful and it’s why there is a Boycott.
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I give up. I’m annoyed at the fact that this is news, when I don’t think it should be (Opinion). The definition of “useless” as I used it was to mean that I have a strong dislike for it. I don’t like the group because I’ve yet to see anything constructive come out of it (Opinion). I also hereby quit propagating this subject by posting to it anymore. I’ve done my best to fill this last post with my opinions, and since opinions can’t (logically) be argued, there should be no more to say. Let us move on to the next outrage:
Kieron was Murdered?!
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If you want news go to a news site.
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John wins yesterday.
KG
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I was part of the L4D2 Boycott group. I didn’t agree with the release so soon after L4D, and i said i would NEVER buy L4D2.
I have to say, this has changed my views completely.
Valve are a company and companies need money. Valve cannot continue to release free content, they have to make their money from somewhere. Most companies release a game and that’s it, they offer no more content after release.
This is why i have left the “Boycott”, and this is why i will buy L4D2.
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So your argument is “companies make money”?
I can think of several good reasons to get L4D2 (including that you just like to check out the new tweaks and content). But “A COMPANY NEEDS MONEY” is… wow, it’s just depressing to hear that being mentioned everywhere as the best reason not to complain.
Whatever happened to money-making for money-making’s sake being seen as something negative?
I will get L4D2. But statements like the above really make me consider joining the “boycotters”. I always enjoyed buying games from Valve because it seemed to me like a company that cares, that loves games more than money. That’s right, not equally, but more! Hearing how well-accepted the notion of game developers being nothing but corporate profit-factories has become over the past few years, really breaks my heart.
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It’s just really freakin bizzarre, like they’ve discovered some profound truth and they’re letting us scrubs benefit from their wisdom: companies make money.
If he was a Boycotter, surely he bothered to read the manifesto? It begins:
“WE RECOGNIZE(bloody ‘merican spelling):
-Valve is a company with financial needs and can not be expected to survive without the release of new games.”
That’s always been there, it hasn’t changed and signing up to the Boycott means you either agree with it or don’t significantly disagree with it and that you respect that this is the view of many other members and the adopted position of the collective.
The Boycott isn’t and never was a dispute over ‘free-content’; it was a dispute over content we already paid for: a full-game price-tag for what was not a full game, even for a multiplayer(ESPECIALLY for a multiplayer if we include balance and bug fixing support).
We recognise what we need to, but capitalism doesn’t go just the one way.
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John walker, i still love you.
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Great news, loved this whole thing.
Angry men of the internet and tinfoil hats always give me a chuckle.
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Editorialise more.
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Yeah, this is great stuff. It’s nice to have a game developer I ca wholeheartedly root for. Seriously all a developer has to do to win my support is to patch games when they need fixing and have some sort of mod support for their games. Once you release the SDK anything after that is beyond the icing on the cake; It’s like another serving!
The cynical side of me wonders how good this person’s map/mod is. I mean seriously, imagine a worse case scenario of flying around the world, walking into someone’s house and them showing you a killbox survival map? Awkward! That said the work this person has done could be really good. I haven’t seen it.
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Just seen on Steam that LFD2 will be selling for $50. I'm sure the game will be good, but I'm simply not prepared to pay that kind of money for a game that is so similar to its predecessor. LFD2 really sounds like a standalone expansion from all I've heard so far, and I'm surprised it hasn't been priced accordingly.
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And in the usual bout of Steam idiocy – L4D2 is 50 €. That’s about 80 of your dollars. With no discount for the fucked-over L4D1 buyers.
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Oh, for anyone who wants to see the actual campaign, it should be here.
http://joesmoddingmenagerie.blogspot.com/
Photobucket screwiness notwithstanding, there used to be NSFW pics at the bottom, that may have moved to the second page.
Map looks good though.
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50 pounds for a new game that is more or less just a fancy expand alone is a bit of a crazy price point. . . and I'm a Valve fan boi so that's saying a lot coming from me. I'd never pay 80 bucks for a game unless it came with a vial of zombie juice so I could make my own live action zombie slaying action :)
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As several comments have pointed out, L4D2 was recently refused classification in Australia, a fact not mentioned in the article. I would of thought Gabe Newell visiting has alot more to do with highlighting this silly situation (as the first game passed the censors with no problem), than with appeasing some petty nerd rage.
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Well put Mr Walker – I have enjoyed this entire event and no amount of sourness from a minority will convince me otherwise. Making use of a fun situation for some good PR is not a crime. I hope the money does go to charity however :)
I hope they have a good trip :)
Gobion
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I love this story. Regardless of the naysayers, this just goes to show that Valve are team players. Go team Valve!
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I’m tempted to link to the wikipedia page on strawman argument. Especially 1) assuming people who had a problem with the l4d2 announcement hold valve by a higher standard than other developers and 2) assuming all those people are still angry.
I don’t mind the editorialising, but most of the rest of this article is just name calling.
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