I’d like to present my own opinion on the controversy surrounding Valve’s E3 announcement of Left 4 Dead 2. Why use a blog post and not discuss this on message boards? Well, because this way I can present my honest opinion without (hopefully) provoking flame wars or huge discussions. I don’t intend to bash Valve for their decision – rather, I’d like to present an explanation on the justification of the community’s backlash against this sequel, which has been far beyond huge.
Personally, I’m not getting Left 4 Dead 2 – simply because, while I found the first a good game, I didn’t particularly enjoy it as much as everyone else, due mostly to my laptop’s inability to run the game at full capacity. Therefore, I don’t find any interest in getting the sequel.
Having that spelled out already, I’ll start my trying to calmly answering the big question:
So, why the community backlash?
Valve, as we know, is a very successful videogame company – and most of that success is owed to its dedicated fanbase, earned through the multiple acclaimed hits, such as Half-Life, Counter-Strike, and, of course, the original Left 4 Dead.
Valve’s community is one of the largest gamer communities, and a very loyal one. Unlike most gaming companies, Valve takes a long time polishing and preparing their games – which provoked many jokes on their “episodic” releases, that take almost as long as full-fledged sequels to be released -, but the fans patiently wait and keep the speculation and hype up and running. Which, for the first time, backfired for the company, with the announcement of Left 4 Dead’s sequel.
Single-player experiences usually justify sequels, because those offer a new and usually vastly different experience, hence the constant expectations of Half-Life 2 episodes. Multiplayer games, on the other hand, are created under the logic that they’ll see support from the developers in order to keep the game up and running, with tweaks and occasional new content provided to keep interest in the game and resolve technical and balance issues.
A sequel, in multiplayer experiences, has the major downfall of invalidating the original, because the support from the developers is switched from the previous offering to the new one. The attraction of new content serves to bring some players from the old game, but usually a sequel is only justified if it vastly differs from the previous outing – such as in the case of a game engine switch, which is what happened with Counter-Strike: Source (which, actually, also received major unjustified backlash because of its differences with the original game), or major gameplay changes, as can be seen in the Battlefield series. Players will hardly find reason to spend their money on a full-priced sequel to a multiplayer game if the only differences are slight graphical or style differences and tweaks to the gameplay – which is why DLC (Downloadable Content) has seen so much success, because it adds to the multiplayer game without invalidating the previous content, allowing the customers to evaluate if the new content is worth the price tag, which in turn is smaller than a full-price sequel, and still play the same game if they decide not to acquire new content.
Valve owes much of its success to the good decisions it made amongst the community. The choice of making Team Fortress 2 DLC completely free, adding to each release a “Free Weekend” event, helped not only boost the game’s sales, but augment the fanbase’s respect for the company, which in turn justifies interest in new IPs under Valve’s brand – such as Left 4 Dead, when it was originally released one year ago.
However, the recent announcement of Left 4 Dead 2 manages to break that unique costumer support that Valve has, because it goes completely against the standards the company had defined. Instead of the generous free content adding to an existing game, the company instead set to release a sequel only one year after the first one was released.
Not only that, but the differences between the two outings appear slim at best. The gameplay concept remains identical – four characters fighting through campaigns, while under siege by Infected enemies controlled by a dynamic AI system called “AI Director”. While the settings and personalities of the characters are different, it’s just a change in looks – Coach is no different to play than Francis, and the change from night to day has only minor effects on gameplay (the Witch enemy wandering instead of waiting for the players, for instance), being mostly a graphical showcase. Even the enemies, Left 4 Dead’s selling factor, remain the same, with a few new additions – although only one has been revealed so far, the Charger, which is actually very similar to the still-present Tank enemy. The only real differences between the games are the addition of new situations and meele weapons – essentially tweaks to the gameplay. Otherwise, Left 4 Dead 2 is identical to the original outing.
And, with the release of a sequel instead of free or paid DLC packs, Valve falls under the problem I’ve described – making the original game obsolete. So far, Valve insists that they will keep supporting the original game, but the fact is that the community must choose to either buy the new game, only for new campaigns and gameplay tweaks, or act as they are acting – refuse to acquire the sequel.
The biggest problem for Valve, however, is not the lack of support to Left 4 Dead 2 – it’s the hit to its reputation. Instead of evaluating the costumer opinion as they usually do, Valve set off imediately on making a sequel – and the community doesn’t want one. And, in all honesty, their opinion is justified – while paying for new content would be justified with a fair price tag and interest in the new additions, paying $50 or 40€ for what is essentially the same game with minor additions seems like a poor choice.
Valve’s new course of action must be to attract the community’s interest on this sequel by adding more gameplay changes and differences from the original. Otherwise, they will not only have their first commercial failure, but they’ll lose their good reputation, impacting interest of future releases as well.
EDIT: It might be interesting to read this article at Rock, Paper, Shotgun on Valve’s reaction at the backlash.
Delirium’s “Happy Birthday, Mythos!”
