A Zombie of a Chance: Looking Back at the Left 4 Dead 2 Boycott

[woodyear99]

Interesting analysis.....good job Valve.

http://www.crispygamer.com/features/2009-11-19/a-zombie-of-a-chance-looking-back-at-the-left-4-dead-2-boycott.aspx


A Zombie of a Chance: Looking Back at the Left 4 Dead 2 Boycott

For four-and-a-half months, upwards of 40,000 gamers took part in one of the most visible protests in the industry's history. Where did they succeed and where did they fail? Crispy Gamer investigates.


In general, gamers aren't very effective at organizing to effect change in the game industry. Sure, there are hundreds of online petitions demanding everything from a "Full House" game to a generalized end to game hacking, but the vast majority fail to garner much attention or support. Even well-organized and well-publicized efforts, like those seeking LAN support in StarCraft 2 or further support for the Earthbound games are met with official responses ranging from polite refusal to teasing hints, and rarely with real change.

But this year, many gamers took a different tack to protest what they saw as a betrayal of a publisher's past promises. Mere hours after Valve announced the planned November release of Left 4 Dead 2 (L4D2) at June's Electronic Entertainment Expo, a group calling for an L4D2 boycott popped up on Valve's own Steam user community. The group's first public message asked a simple question that would come to define its cause: "Where's all the content and the updates you promised for [the original] L4D, Valve?"

Left 4 Dead 2 Boycott
The somewhat impolitic logo for the boycott group.
By casting their disagreement in the form of a boycott, the tens of thousands of gamers that joined the L4D2 boycott group immediately set themselves apart from the Internet petitioners that came before them. A petition is just a polite request for someone to change their mind, if they would, please. A boycott, by definition, is a statement of collective action -- a way for a group to flex its economic power to force change. It's a way for a community to effectively put its money where its mouth is and demand that its case be heard. It's a cause that brings up images of patriotic movements, civil rights struggles, international incidents and other momentous events that seem much more important than a silly argument over the timing of the release of a videogame sequel.

But, in the end, was this boycott any more effective than any of the other failed grassroots petition efforts undertaken by gamers over the years? Now that Left 4 Dead 2 is actually available for sale, can those that took part in the boycott argue they achieved their goals? Did Valve change its plans to gain the approval of the masses, or did it effectively pacify the Internet throngs with nothing more than a couple of plane tickets and a hotel reservation?

In other words, was the boycott successful?

Well, it depends on what you mean by "successful."

An explosive start

From the start, the Left 4 Dead 2 boycott effort was definitely successful at attracting a lot of attention. Thanks to mostly bemused coverage from gaming Web sites during the high-traffic E3 news window, 5,000 Steam users signed up for the group in its first three days of existence. "We gave interviews to just about anybody that asked," said Walking_Target, the pseudonymous founder of the L4D2 boycott group, in a recent interview with Crispy Gamer. "[We] responded to questions from our members and benefited from a lot of press exposure, even if a lot of it was negative. In the end, it was so successful [at attracting members], because this was a group made mostly of Valve fans who just wanted to let Valve know that they expected more for L4D."

But getting people to click a button and sign up for an Internet protest group is simple. Getting them to actually accomplish something is the tough part. Luckily for the group, Walking_Target realized this early on in the process. "To simply talk about the release of L4D2 and the issues we have with it are not enough," he wrote in a June 4 message to the group. "It is only half the battle. A storm of words without action is no more potent in its ability to move our cause forward or make our goals happen. It is time we took some action as a community."

But first they had to figure out what those goals were. So, after a quick poll to gauge the group's "official concerns," the boycotters put together a 325-word manifesto that laid out their commitments, beliefs and requests for Valve. Crucially, the manifesto started off by recognizing Valve's need to make money off its games, and that "judgment cannot be passed on the quality of Left 4 Dead 2 until its release." But those concessions didn't change the stark reality of the group's demands:


    * "That Valve honor its commitment to release ongoing periodic content for Left 4 Dead,"

    * that "Left 4 Dead 2 not be released as a stand-alone, full-priced sequel but as either a free update to Left 4 Dead or an expansion with full compatibility with basic Left 4 Dead owners,"

    * and "that Left 4 Dead owners be given discounts for Left 4 Dead 2, should it be released as premium content."

While the requested changes to the price and format of the sequel were important, it was the idea that Valve was somehow abandoning the original Left 4 Dead that animated the most passion in the boycotters. "Left 4 Dead has not yet received the support and content which Valve has repeatedly stated will be delivered," the manifesto argued, and not without justification.

Left 4 Dead 2 Boycott
A scene from the trailer that led to the boycott.
In an October 2008 interview with VideoGamer.com before the original game's release, Valve Co-Founder and Managing Director Gabe Newell compared Left 4 Dead to Valve's own Team Fortress 2 (TF2), a multiplayer staple that had received frequent free updates since its late-2007 release. Newell said that these updates had proved key to the continued success of TF2's online community, and that Left 4 Dead would receive the same kind of attention. "We'll do the same thing with Left 4 Dead where we'll have the initial release and then we'll release more movies, more characters, more weapons, unlockables, achievements, because that's the way you continue to grow a community over time," he said.

When Valve announced Left 4 Dead 2 in early June, this was beginning to look like a bit of an empty promise. True, the company had released a collection of small tweaks and new modes as a "Survival Pack" and had provided a beta version of a software development kit for eager modders. But these tepid additions didn't come close to matching the robust updates being provided for Team Fortress 2.

In fact, the depth of Valve's support for TF2 set a precedent that may have come back to bite Valve during the slow rollout of new Left 4 Dead content."I do think that a bit of the issue falls on Valve for training us for such good free content," said Brent Copeland, host of The Safe House, a Left 4 Dead-focused podcast. "I almost think if L4D came from a different company that there wouldn't be as big of an issue." Walking_Target agreed that Valve's handling of TF2 led people to think of it as a different kind of company. "It made a reputation for Valve as a company that supports their games. It was probably a bad idea to compare support for L4D to TF2 so early on though."

Fair or not, Walking_Target and his growing group expected Valve to live up to its reputation for supporting existing games, rather than quickly abandoning them for sequels. What's more, they wanted to give Valve a chance to explain itself. In another split from the petitioners that came before them, the boycotters worked hard to start a conversation with Valve -- a company that they still respected for creating the first Left 4 Dead -- rather than simply shouting their demands into the Internet ether. The group sent its manifesto as an open letter to the company, and followed it up with further requests for information and dialogue as the boycott went on. "It's never been 'us versus them,'" Walking_Target recalled later. "People took the wrong view of it. We've been talking with Valve since the first few weeks of the boycott, because in the end, the only way to get anywhere is to work with the people who you have an issue with. Whining at them gets you nowhere."

Valve's first public response to the controversy came in a statement to Kotaku on June 10. By that point, nine days after the boycott's creation, the group had grown to include nearly 25,000 members. In the statement, Newell tried to allay the growing group's fears by arguing that nothing had really changed. "Doing a sequel in one year is new for Valve," Newell admitted, but "providing ongoing support for our titles after the initial launch ... has been part of our philosophy since Half-Life was released ten and half years ago," he wrote. "We see no reason to change that and will continue to support the over three million customers in the L4D community. Some in the community are concerned that the announcement of L4D2 implied a change in our plans for L4D1. We aren't changing our plans for L4D1."

But the boycotters weren't satisfied with what they saw as a vague assertion of support. Less than 10 hours later, a posting by boycott group co-moderator Agent of Chaos answered Newell with a polite demand for more concrete information. "While we are excited about the idea of new content, we are still in the dark about it," he wrote. "What sort of content is it? For all we know, it could be a new main menu screen. Is it a new map, is it new monsters, is it new weapons, etc...? We'd like to know what is going to be in this new content. Furthermore, when will this content be released? Is there any sort of timetable within which the content will be made available? These are all questions we would like Valve to elaborate on."

Looking back on the eve of Left 4 Dead 2's release, Walking_Target theorized that Valve could have nipped the entire boycott movement in the bud at this point, simply by providing those requested details. "If Valve had simply talked to people more about what kind of plans they had [for L4D support] and approximately when it could be expected, the boycott would never have gotten off the ground," he said.

But when Valve actually did announce more new content for L4D, over two months later, the boycott's leaders were not mollified.

Crash Course crashes the party

The announcement of Left 4 Dead's Crash Course downloadable content (DLC) pack on Aug. 4 addressed many of the boycotters' requests for details about continued support for the original game. The DLC, set for a September release, promised "new locations, new dialogue from the original cast, and an explosive finale," as well as balancing tweaks for the game's competitive Versus mode. While the content was likely in the works before the boycott started, and wouldn't actually be released for weeks, the August announcement was exactly the kind of concrete information the boycotters said they were looking for.

Left 4 Dead 2 Boycott
G4's Adam Sessler was not one of the boycott's biggest supporters, to say the least.
But it wasn't enough for some. While Agent of Chaos did acknowledge that the announcement of a new campaign was "a good thing," he went on to argue that they deserved more. "Only two chapters?" he wrote. "Come on now. Are your employees on vacation? Is that good enough for our 8 months of patience? I'm sorry, but it's a really ... bad attempt to get away with your past promises. ... How about something valuable that can extend L4D's replay value in a broader way? New special infected, and weapons? 4v4 matchmaking? Bug fixes? Personally, I'd take any of the aforesaid over two new chapters any day." He even joked that, in this case, DLC actually seemed to stand for "delayed lackluster content."

While many rank-and-file boycotters wrote comments echoing Agent of Chaos' anger, the Crash Course details seemed to take some of the wind out of some boycotters' sails. "After the announcement the number of new members dropped off sharply," Walking_Target admitted later, and the boycott's comment threads after the announcement help show why. " think we should *maybe* give Valve a little bit of breathing space and actually indicate that this is a very big step towards the kind of support for L4D that we have been looking for," commenter [UCF] TerranUp16 wrote. "Really, if you maintain this kind of ambivalence, if Valve has alreayd [sic] not just said 'FU' they surely will," he added. "I don't think this is a very good thank-you," commenter Crunchie wrote. "Valve have listened to us and are clearly trying to please us. Be thankful that they even bothered at all. ... If we really want to get the message across, you must stop being so arrogant." Commenter Kabolte put it more succinctly: "I've lost respect for this group. See you guys."

But the official announcements from Walking_Target and Agent of Chaos kept up their indignant, occasionally conspiracy-laced tone. "By not adding anything in the way of meaningful content [to L4D], they still hope to interest us in buying L4D2," Agent of Chaos wrote in one post. The group had gotten a bit bolder with its demands, too, asking for limited access to the L4D2 demo shown to press at E3. "In fact, the only reason I could see not to give certain members of the community access [to the L4D2 demo], is that L4D2 is *not* that different than L4D," Walking_Target wrote.

At this time, Walking_Target was also growing somewhat suspicious and tired of the increasingly negative coverage his boycott was receiving in the wider gaming media. The tone of this coverage was perhaps best exemplified by G4's Adam Sessler, who, in June, posted a scathing video where he argued the boycotters were being "kind of juvenile" and that their actions reflected "this amazing sense of entitlement that exists in the gaming community." Walking_Target saw these kinds of reactions to his efforts as a sign that the media was in Valve's pocket. "Main stream [sic] gaming media won't run an intellegent [sic] piece on us because they are scared of losing money; all we get is a knee-jerk reaction to avoid angering their main source of income," he wrote.

Through its statements, the boycott leaders were building up their reputations as hard-to-please, outside-the-mainstream firebrands. The us-versus-the-world rhetoric arguably animated more members than it turned off, and the supportive comments and members continued to flood in. When the group's membership swelled to a high of over 40,000 members in early August, the boycotters were probably at the peak of their righteous fury. They saw themselves as angry outsiders, beating on the castle walls, and they wouldn't be happy until they were let inside.

So it came as a bit of a shock when Valve opened the doors and, literally, let them inside.

"The Trip" and the beginning of the end

On Aug. 14, Walking_Target hinted to boycott members "there may be something else coming up in the near future, but we can't discuss that right now because the details are vauge [sic]." By Sept. 5, they were teasing that their "big announcement" had to be delayed by a few days. But on Sept. 8, the boycott leaders could finally reveal what they'd been working on for the past few weeks. As Walking_Target memorably put it, "Valve took the course of Facta Non Verba [deeds, not words] in dealing with myself and Agent of Chaos. Rather than trying to explain everything via email, they invited us out to their offices in Bellevue, Washington."

Left 4 Dead 2 Boycott
Boycott leaders Walking_Target and Agent of Chaos with Valve Co-Founder and CEO Gabe Newell (center).
It was an unprecedented move for Valve, and indeed for any game publisher dealing with an Internet protest. Absent overwhelming numbers, or wider support and pressure from the media, the safest thing a company can do in handling any sort of protest group is to politely ignore it. To do anything else risks giving the protesters the attention and appearance of influence they crave. Even at 40,000 members strong, Valve probably could have followed the standard playbook and ignored the boycotters' concerns without much consequence for the bottom-line sales of their sequel. Instead, it threw open its doors and its wallets, purchasing flights and hotel rooms for two guys who, four months before, had just been a couple of random Left 4 Dead fans on the Internet.

Looking back in an interview with VideoGamer, Valve Writer Chet Falsizek, who initially extended the invitation to the boycott leaders, said he felt it was important to show them they were paying attention. "We have 3.5 million people playing Left 4 Dead 1. 40,000 said something," he said. "They are passionate about our games. They play our games. So we always take the feedback seriously, because we're gamers as well, and these are people who are playing our games and will probably play our games with us. So we always want to make sure we're listening and understanding the issues."

Newell later explained his rationale behind the trip in an interview with GameSpot. "We tried to find people who were sort of articulate spokespeople for that skepticism [about the sequel] and bring them in here and show them what we were doing and say, 'Look, this is exactly what we're doing, these are the people who are doing it, ask them whatever you want, play the game.' And that proved to be a pretty effective way of communicating with these really hardcore members of the community and reassure them this was a good thing rather than something they should be skeptical and worried about."

So, depending on your perspective, the trip was a huge concession to the power of a new kind of Internet protest, a powerful demonstration of Valve's commitment to maintaining good relations with its fans, or a shrewd move to pacify the company's most vocal opponents. In the end, it was probably a bit of all three.