Boycott
The weekend following the game's announcement at the 2009 E3 Convention, some Left 4 Dead players called for a boycott of Left 4 Dead 2 in the form of a Steam community group called "L4D2 Boycott (NO-L4D2)", growing to over 10,000 members by the end of the weekend following the game's announcement,[44] and reaching more than 37,000 about a month later.[45][46] The group noted that in addition to the potential lack of further Left 4 Dead content, they were concerned with several of the aspects such as characters, visuals, and music, shown in the E3 demonstration video, feeling these were inappropriate to the first game's aesthetics, and that the release of the sequel so soon after the first game will fracture the community.[44][47] It also questioned the timing of the sequel so soon after the first game[44] and noted the lack of additional downloadable content for Left 4 Dead based on comments from Gabe Newell made during October 2008.[48]
In response to these complaints, Valve marketer Doug Lombardi stated that the announcement of Left 4 Dead 2 at E3 should not be taken to indicate that Valve would no longer support the first game.[45][49] He also noted that what was shown at E3 was only a fraction of the new content and atmosphere for the game.[45] He asked the community to "trust [them] a little bit", and noted that their team was eager to get new material out to a large body of players of Left 4 Dead and determined that the sequel would be the best option.[27] Lombardi also stated that the most common desire from players was the need for more campaigns, and felt that the addition of these along with new enemies and weapons made the content much more than downloadable content as was the case of Left 4 Dead's "Survival Pack".[27] Both Faliszek and project lead Tom Leonard stated that the team, in putting down ideas to add to the original game, found that too much of the content relied on each other, making incremental patches in the same style as Team Fortress 2 very difficult to do.[23][24] Leonard stated that he suggested rolling up the content into a sequel to be released a year after Left 4 Dead's release, an idea that the rest of the team eventually warmed up to.[23] Faliszek stated that Newell was skeptical of the idea when the team brought the sequel forward, but still allowed the project to go through.[24] Faliszek noted that the boycott did not change any work on the development of Left 4 Dead 2, but did affect "how we talked about it and how we talked with everybody".[50] Some of the player community has also supported Valve, forming a "L4D Enthusiasts" group in response to the boycott group.[51][52]
In September 2009, Valve flew out two of the boycott group leaders to playtest Left 4 Dead 2, to which they responded that they felt that the sequel was well done. This opinion was not shared by some of the members of their Steam boycott group.[53] This event, through a series of correspondences made in jest, shortly led to Valve's Gabe Newell and designer Erik Johnson flying to Australia to visit "Joe W-A", a Left 4 Dead modder. Newell jokingly reported that Valve was "boycotting" Joe's new mod for the game when Joe asked when he would be flown to Valve in the same manner as the Left 4 Dead 2 boycotters, but whimsically offered that if Joe was to pay to fly him to the country, he would take a look at it. Joe was able to raise the required funds, $3000, through donations through his website, though ultimately Newell paid for the trip himself, with Joe's collected donations going to the Child's Play charity.[54][55]
On October 14, 2009, the boycott groups' leaders announced that they had ended their boycott and were shutting down the 40,000-plus group. The leaders were satisfied that Valve was retaining their promise of additional content and fixes for Left 4 Dead, as evidenced by the then-recent release of the "Crash Course" campaign, believing their boycott helped to assure this commitment. The leaders also believed that the group itself was losing its purpose, being populated by those that were simply trolling to bad-mouth Valve and other players.[56] In a video interview posted on October 29, 2009, Gabe Newell stated, "for people who joined the Boycott Group on Steam, we can look at their pre-orders, and they're actually pre-ordering the product at a higher rate than Left 4 Dead 1 owners who weren't in the Boycott".[57]
sounds great! I gotta pick up the 2nd one!
