So today the idiotic admins of the L4D2 Boycott group announced that they would be closing the group down on October 21st. That seems a little strange to me because the only way a group could be closed is if Valve was actually.. ah.. running it. Oh wait, I forgot.

They also said something about the group had accomplished it’s goal, but the only goal they have accomplished was Valve’s goal to shut it down. And what exactly happens to all the people still boycotting the game? Should they not just hand it over to someone else?

They probably don’t want someone else taking all that power from them, being the ego bloated bastards that they are, but unless Valve is actually running this thing, I don’t think they can stop the group from continuing to exist without them.

Left 4 Dead was a ground breaking achievement in the co-op horror survival genre. Successfully fusing together some of the best elements of both single player and multiplayer games together. Creating one fantastic experience that was only dampened by the games lack of content, many bugs, and overpriced tag upon release.

However, most everyone who bought the game believed that a ton more content and fixes would be added to the game through free updates, justifying the purchase price. There was no reason to think otherwise. Valve had always been known for supporting their games far past the release date. Team Fortress 2 had become a prime example of this.

Gabe Newell even confirmed this in an interview with videogamer.com saying “So 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.”

It was also obvious that there where a lot of problems that Valve needed to address in the game. Like matchmaking, server mods, and exploits just to name a very few. So it is a bit of an understatement to say we were all shocked when Valve revealed the news that a sequel was coming out only one year after the original’s release, and before all the current problems with L4D where even fixed. This made a lot of people feel greatly betrayed.

Even if you waited like me to buy the game when it was on sale. Which apparently most everyone did. You still know that a sequel so soon after, will make the original obsolete, and split the community up. It also feels extremely dishonest to me, to have discount sale events that are not (like with TF2) designed to breathe new life into a game, but instead (like with L4D) designed to suck what money left you can get out of a dieing product.

I love Left 4 Dead, but like with TF2, all the problems that exist in the game ruin the experience for me. Why would I want to pay for a new one that will force me to stop playing just like the others? I don’t know what is worse, a game that is terrible from the start, or a great one that gets butchered or abandoned.