L4D2 Boycott Considered Harmful

[VanityGirl]

snip

I'm too tired to even argue, but I will say that even GameInformer called boycotters "whiny entitled brats". It's from the August Issue that has Crackdown 2 on the cover. I'll quickly quote what GameInformer said in response to a boycotter who wrote in. (I have the mag sitting on my bed).

The "controversy" surrounding the announcment of Left 4 Dead 2 is pathetic. Have you played the full game yet? Do you know exactly how the team is improving the mechanics? Do you know all about the weapons and enemies being added? No, you don't. Furthermore, without that information, you are wholly unqualified to make any judgements relating to the game's scope, quality, and appropriate pricing. Here's a little tip: Complaining about these things with no firsthand experience doesn't make you a gaming activist. It makes you a whiny, entitled brat.

That's what gameinformer said.

 

[NBSRDan]

I got about half-way and then I was like TLDR. The only way the Left 4 Dead 2 "boycott" could be harmful is if it wound up increasing sales overall by promoting the game.

 

[Jumplion]

snip

I'm too tired to even argue, but I will say that even GameInformer called boycotters "whiny entitled brats". It's from the August Issue that has Crackdown 2 on the cover. I'll quickly quote what GameInformer said in response to a boycotter who wrote in. (I have the mag sitting on my bed).

The "controversy" surrounding the announcment of Left 4 Dead 2 is pathetic. Have you played the full game yet? Do you know exactly how the team is improving the mechanics? Do you know all about the weapons and enemies being added? No, you don't. Furthermore, without that information, you are wholly unqualified to make any judgements relating to the game's scope, quality, and appropriate pricing. Here's a little tip: Complaining about these things with no firsthand experience doesn't make you a gaming activist. It makes you a whiny, entitled brat.

That's what gameinformer said.

Yeah, I have that magazine to. Though what exactly is your point? Could you elaborate, I'm not trying to argue, it just seems as if you're trying to contradict me or something.

If 40,000 people are "whiny, entitled brats", then how come over 40,000 of them came together? If the L4D2 boycott was as useless as people said it was, how come over 40,000 people banded together? 40,000 people is a god-damn-lot of people, regardless of the circumstances. If we could transfer that amount of people, and probably quadruple it for a more relevant concern (DRM) then we've got an even greater force to be reckoned with.

 

[VanityGirl]

Yeah, I have that magazine to. Though what exactly is your point? Could you elaborate, I'm not trying to argue, it just seems as if you're trying to contradict me or something.

If 40,000 people are "whiny, entitled brats", then how come over 40,000 of them came together? If the L4D2 boycott was as useless as people said it was, how come over 40,000 people banded together? 40,000 people is a god-damn-lot of people, regardless of the circumstances. If we could transfer that amount of people, and probably quadruple it for a more relevant concern (DRM) then we've got an even greater force to be reckoned with.

Let me answer your question with a question.
Even if I made an undeniable point, would you change your mind? Chances are you would not.
I see no point in arguing, but I was trying to say why maybe the guy you quote thought the people were "whiny entitled brats".

I had a wall of text after this, but then I decided to save the arguement and let you think one way and let me think another.
Neither of us will win, so it would be pointless.

 

[magnuslion]

I read steams page on the boycott, and being that most of their objectives went unfulfilled, I would suggest they sold out.

 

[Jumplion]

Yeah, I have that magazine to. Though what exactly is your point? Could you elaborate, I'm not trying to argue, it just seems as if you're trying to contradict me or something.

If 40,000 people are "whiny, entitled brats", then how come over 40,000 of them came together? If the L4D2 boycott was as useless as people said it was, how come over 40,000 people banded together? 40,000 people is a god-damn-lot of people, regardless of the circumstances. If we could transfer that amount of people, and probably quadruple it for a more relevant concern (DRM) then we've got an even greater force to be reckoned with.

Let me answer your question with a question.
Even if I made an undeniable point, would you change your mind? Chances are you would not.
I see no point in arguing, but I was trying to say why maybe the guy you quote thought the people were "whiny entitled brats".

I had a wall of text after this, but then I decided to save the arguement and let you think one way and let me think another.
Neither of us will win, so it would be pointless.

I'm not trying to argue, I just want a discussion. Nothing wrong with that, I think, I'm open to your opinion and I want to hear it regardless of my opinion. Most likely, no, it wouldn't change my opinion, but I always like to hear the other side of the story.

 

[VanityGirl]

I'm not trying to argue, I just want a discussion. Nothing wrong with that, I think, I'm open to your opinion and I want to hear it regardless of my opinion. Most likely, no, it wouldn't change my opinion, but I always like to hear the other side of the story.

Yes, but the arguement becomes circular. I could mention how 40,000 people really isn't that big of a number for a game that sold as many copies as L4D. I think for the boycott to be successful, it needed have more supporters. You mentioned the 200,000 people that signed a petition. Think of your example, but in a different context. You compared a petition that have 5 times the number of people to a boycott.

Yes, do the multiplication, the petition had 5 times the number of supporters as the boycott. If 2million people are playing a game, and 200,000 people quit then you've lost 10% of your population.
Now, let's for fun say only 2 million copies of L4D were sold, if 40,000 people boycott, then Valve would only lose about 2% of it's fan base... that's not a lot to a developer honestly.
If you start losing over 8-9% of your fan base, then you may have a problem.

Now, considering I know for a fact that L4D sold at least 2.5 million copies, let's do the math on how much fanbase Valve would lose. My math says Valve would lose 1.6% of its fanbase.

These numbers mean that the boycotters did not have enough supports to actively pull a boycott through. For a boycott to work, you need to seriously harm the company finacially by not buying their products.

Valve would lose 2.4 million dollars (assuming the game is sold at 60bucks a pop) if the boycotters did not actually buy L4D2. Now, let's assume the other 2,460,000 people who are not boycotting Do buy the game.
Valve is still looking at a profit of $147,600,000! That's a lot.

I hate to bring math into any equation, but it's actually logical to use math in this instance. In my mind, since the boycotters only made up 1.6% of Valve's gaming populace, then the boycott was already unsuccessful from a monetary standpoint.

I could also go on about how Valve actuall did support the game, but that should be obvious.

 

[Chunko]

innovation in the marketplace

Way to be a sheep. Are you completely ignoring the fact that valve is bringing tons of new innovations to left 4 dead 2 such as new melee weapons as well as flammable weapons. Also your WALL OF TEXT is evidence of incredibly poor writing skills. My english teachers have always told me that the best essay ever should contain 10 pages of Ideas to every one actual page. You have included about a quarter of a page in a WALL OF TEXT.

Of course all of this is merely constructive criticism .

 

[Captain_Caveman]

Big long pile of wrong.

L4D2 boycott worked. Valve was reluctant about making promises about the future of L4D. But after L4D2 boycott got to around 40,000 members they made a promise to support it just as long and just as much as they did TF2. They also promised to make L4D mod servers connectible to via L4D2 so that modders didn't have to stop their projects and port them.

VALVE did this before the game released, so the boycott ended. People will buy L4D2. and L4D players are happy. It WAS a SUCCESS

Oh baloney. They were promising that they'd be trying to do that the day after E3, before the boycott even existed. Nice try at retconning reality though.

false. Gabe didnt promise anything until after they boycott had peaked & the fans even flew him out to Aus to test a mod. He made the announcement IN Aus. Show me PROOF he made it at E3.

 

[zagazsano]

Great job on this post. I love it how those links in "The Titanic Beginnings" all pointed towards Wikipedia. xD
Poor saps fell for Valve's awesomeness and kindness. That kind of showed how they weren't very dedicated to their "boycott," or maybe Left4Dead2 will be super awesome...well we'll find out soon

 

[salbarragan]

I'm sorry but this sounds like someone on the LFTD2 PR machine. Only 19 posts? Really? Forget about it!

 

[salbarragan]

And to top it off, joined 2 days ago.

 

[salbarragan]

It just sounds to convenient and too well written to just be someone asking a simple question or comment. I'm not buying it.

 

[Jumplion]

I'm not trying to argue, I just want a discussion. Nothing wrong with that, I think, I'm open to your opinion and I want to hear it regardless of my opinion. Most likely, no, it wouldn't change my opinion, but I always like to hear the other side of the story.

Yes, but the arguement becomes circular. I could mention how 40,000 people really isn't that big of a number for a game that sold as many copies as L4D. I think for the boycott to be successful, it needed have more supporters. You mentioned the 200,000 people that signed a petition. Think of your example, but in a different context. You compared a petition that have 5 times the number of people to a boycott.

Yes, do the multiplication, the petition had 5 times the number of supporters as the boycott. If 2million people are playing a game, and 200,000 people quit then you've lost 10% of your population.
Now, let's for fun say only 2 million copies of L4D were sold, if 40,000 people boycott, then Valve would only lose about 2% of it's fan base... that's not a lot to a developer honestly.
If you start losing over 8-9% of your fan base, then you may have a problem.

Actually, that is exactly my point, and I fully agree with you.

In context of how much L4D2 will probably sell overall, 40,000 people isn't a lot. But for a solitary cause to get answers out of a company, that was literally bombarded with negative tones from the rest of the community, it's a miracle that they made it past 1000 "entitled brats", let alone 40,000!

And like I said, quintuple that, and you get 200,000 people all for the single cause of including an option for LAN play in Starcraft 2. Just quintuple that again, and you get a fraction of the people who hate DRM (and I know there are a lot of people who hate it).

We, as customers, should not take shit from anyone no matter how ridiculous it may sound. Sure, the L4D2 boycott may have been premature and a "waste of time", but it did bring up some interesting points. How much should a developer support their game before moving on to the next game, especially a developer as prodigious as VALVe (whom have supported their games decades after release)? How do they handle PR? Why exactly are they doing this? Etc... If 40k people will stand up against VALVe, a highly respected company, just imagine how many would stand up to Activision.

That's my thought process anyway, I tend to be an optimist at times.

 

[Deleted]

I think it will make L4D2 online even better because we won't play with the whiners. And guys, really, think about it. The Sour Sallies that lead the group could easily increase the numbers in the group. 40000 isn't a true representation, looks like the kind of thing they'll do.

 

[Angelic-Dragon]

To me it seems that Valve are frightened to release any downloadable content that will cost the user, if it is on steam (Sorry for those that have L4D on 360). Maybe they should consider making larger downloadable content that is worth a price, rather than a few small things that can be made within a modding community.

well its not just that. with tf2 valve uses the updates to experiment with new things and see how they work and if need be, fix them with a patch not long after. the other thing is that valve believes in supporting their communities (which theyve done since cs and dod), so its not so much out of fear as it is out of their history and their high regard for the communities for their games, one of the reasons why i think valve is one of the best developers ever.

OK agree with you there, valve are good when it comes to community.

 

[Captain_Caveman]

That was interesting.

Big long pile of wrong.

L4D2 boycott worked. Valve was reluctant about making promises about the future of L4D. But after L4D2 boycott got to around 40,000 members they made a promise to support it just as long and just as much as they did TF2. They also promised to make L4D mod servers connectible to via L4D2 so that modders didn't have to stop their projects and port them.

VALVE did this before the game released, so the boycott ended. People will buy L4D2. and L4D players are happy. It WAS a SUCCESS

But assuming this is true, OP's points have been disproved.

exactly. thank you.

 

[DelphiSantano]

Big long pile of wrong.

L4D2 boycott worked. Valve was reluctant about making promises about the future of L4D. But after L4D2 boycott got to around 40,000 members they made a promise to support it just as long and just as much as they did TF2. They also promised to make L4D mod servers connectible to via L4D2 so that modders didn't have to stop their projects and port them.

VALVE did this before the game released, so the boycott ended. People will buy L4D2. and L4D players are happy. It WAS a SUCCESS

The boycott was a success? The boycott of L4D2 started well after Valve had already promised more content and continuing support of L4D. The boycott was started because people thought that all the L4D2 content should be free for L4D because Valve give big updates for free a lot of the time and that people think they deserve all this content for free because they bought the first game. They don't. Valve deserves to earn money out of all the work they do, especially when it results in the likes of HL2, Portal, TF2, L4D, etc.

The boycott just died because nobody with half a brain was paying attention to the boycotters bitching about getting free content they don't deserve. It WAS a FAILURE.

 

[Captain_Caveman]

Big long pile of wrong.

L4D2 boycott worked. Valve was reluctant about making promises about the future of L4D. But after L4D2 boycott got to around 40,000 members they made a promise to support it just as long and just as much as they did TF2. They also promised to make L4D mod servers connectible to via L4D2 so that modders didn't have to stop their projects and port them.

VALVE did this before the game released, so the boycott ended. People will buy L4D2. and L4D players are happy. It WAS a SUCCESS

The boycott was a success? The boycott of L4D2 started well after Valve had already promised more content and continuing support of L4D. The boycott was started because people thought that all the L4D2 content should be free for L4D because Valve give big updates for free a lot of the time and that people think they deserve all this content for free because they bought the first game. They don't. Valve deserves to earn money out of all the work they do, especially when it results in the likes of HL2, Portal, TF2, L4D, etc.

The boycott just died because nobody with half a brain was paying attention to the boycotters bitching about getting free content they don't deserve. It WAS a FAILURE.

SHOW Proof. The boycott NEVER said that all L4D2 content should be free. ONLY that L4D should continue to get content for as long as other VALVE games, mainly TF2. The reason it was started was because fans believed that L4D would stop getting updates, people would stop playing it & modders would abandon their mods.

BUT, like i already said. It WAS A SUCCESS because VALVE went from 'could go either way' to promising L4D mods would work on both games (to keep mod servers active) & promising that L4D would get as many updates for as long as TF2 has.

And VALVE DIDN'T promise that UNTIL the steam boycott group had grown very large & even flew Gabe out to australia to test a L4D mod. In an interview he gave at the hotel, that is the FIRST time he ever said that they're giving L4D at least the same amount of updates & support as they gave TF2.