In 30 days, the L4D2 boycott will be no more. Was it a victory for video game consumers?
No. The boycott was not only a failure, it will have destructive effects on future sales of video games. Video-game consumers are shown as opponents to innovation in the marketplace, and as blind to simple explotation methods while "nice guys" finish last, and (worst of all) as fickle consumers who can be easily manipulated if their cynical expectations are met.
The Titanic Beginnings
The demands of the boycott were doomed from the start. (You can read the original manifesto here on the Steam forums, but this link isn't safe for work [http://steamcommunity.com/groups/L4D2boycott].).
"The release of Left 4 Dead 2 as a stand-alone sequel will split the communities and decrease the quality of multiplayer gaming."
Within mere months after releasing L4D1, a co-operative zombie-slaying first-person shooter, Valve's Steam Network began distributing Killing Floor, a co-operative zombie-slaying first-person shooter. Both games used the Steam network for their community, but each game used incompatible systems. Even worse, Killing Floor had a price point $10USD less than Left 4 Dead. When Killing Floor's sales passed Left 4 Dead's, [http://kotaku.com/5261870/pc-sales-charts-killing-floor-wipes-the-killing-floor] Valve was already complicit in fragmenting its own marketplace, decreasing the quality of multiplayer gaming.
Killing Floor isn't usually associated with Left 4 Dead, though, because the two games are from different companies and have different names. The unaddressed point, however, is that both games target the same niche market, on the same platform, with the same distribution system. The boycotters' myopia is that only L4D competes for gamers' time, not all games, especially games in the same genre. More on this, later.
"The announced content of Left 4 Dead 2 does not warrant a stand-alone, full-priced sequel and should instead become updates (free or otherwise) for Left 4 Dead."
This demand is rather valid from a consumer standpoint. If it's just the same game, shouldn't it be an add-on? Why pay full price for what's just a snap-in to something bigger?
The boycotters show a lack of history when observing Valve. When The Orange Box was released, with three "new" games (Team Fortress 2, Portal, and Half-Life 2: Episode 2), the package also included two "old" games (Half Life 2, Half Life 2: Episode 1). There were two reasons for this: (1) that the old games were rapidly aging, and losing their shelf life, so they were reduced in value anyway; (2) that the executable files for the older games were required to run the newer games anyway, so as long as 90% of the work has to be there, one might as well throw in 10% more.
Valve then raised the price of their Orange Box from $40 to $50. This 20% increase in price just to give gamers old content did not elicit the vociferous boycott that L4D2 did. Yes, gamers complained, but the L4D2 boycott gets more media attention, which is a shame, since Orange Box set the precedent of making gamers "pay money for something they already own."
Left 4 Dead 1 & 2 use new technology fundamentally different from other "Gold-source" games. They are more properly derivatives of Counterstrike, not Half-Life 2, with their technology of penetration-modeling and zone-based bot navigation. Logically, it might've made more sense to package L4D with Counterstrike. The two games are very similar, after all - much more similar to each other than, say, Portal and Team Fortress 2. However, there was no consumer demand for such packaging, let alone a boycott.
"Left 4 Dead has not yet received the support and content which Valve has repeatedly stated will be delivered."
This demand would carry more weight if Valve had actually issued proper release dates for when the "support and content" would be delivered. After all, if there's no due date, it's not late.
In the post-boycott analysis, many have cited the release of "Crash Course" and "Last Stand", add-ons to L4D2, as a "victory" for the boycott. Since the DLC never had any announced release dates, exactly how the boycott influenced these releases is impossible to tell ... which makes declaring victory all too easy, since there's no way to confirm or deny. (That said, "Crash Course" is obviously a long out-take from the original game, and since it was released scant weeks before L4D2, it's a laughably weak victory to claim.)
"The release of Left 4 Dead 2 will make Left 4 Dead an obsolete purchase and inferior piece of software after only one year since release."
This demand is the crux of the boycott. When someone buys software for $50USD, they want to feel as if they got their value out of it. The unspoken demand is that the L4D1 purchasers expect more than one year of longevity from their software. How much isn't made clear, though. Twelve years [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-Life_2:_Episode_One]?
The L4D2 Boycott Fails to Get Results
The boycotters had specific results they wanted to achieve, presumably before L4D2's scheduled release date of November 18. How successful was the boycott? Again, quotes from the manifesto:
"That Valve honor its commitment to release ongoing periodic content for Left 4 Dead."
Was this request granted, or wasn't it? During the boycott's period of effect, there was new content: two new "versus" levels a new play mode called "Survival", and one new campaign, "Crash Course". The problem with this boycott request is that it's not very specific. Was that enough content? Was it good enough? There are many who did not think it was, and if one sides with the "not enough", that means the boycott was ineffective.
What's worse is that since there was never any time-table for the DLC, there's absolutely no way to know of the boycott had any effect on speeding it up.
"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."
On this point, the boycott was completely ineffective.
"That Left 4 Dead owners be given discounts for Left 4 Dead 2, should it be released as premium content."
On this point, the boycott was completely ineffective. There is no discount for owners of L4D1.
What did the boycott accomplish, if anything?
For the price of a few plane tickets and hotel rooms, Valve Software flew the heads of the Steam-forum out to their headquarters to personally demonstrate the game. The boycotters praised $25 million ad campaign [http://steamcommunity.com/groups/L4D2boycott/announcements/detail/90227062007438947]. This quick roll-over of demonstrated not only how ineffective their efforts were, but how the L4D2 boycott had the reverse effect: awareness of the game is greater than ever, and sales weren't adversely affected at all. Future "boycotts" of any software are now ridiculously compromised; video-game advertising, notorious for its "hip" and "edgy" qualities, will be sure to run campaigns about fake boycotts.
Gabe Newell, director of Valve, made an off-hand joke about "boycotting a L4D mod". The incident grew into a donated the money to charity [http://www.joystiq.com/2009/09/14/dude-actually-collects-3-000-to-fly-gabe-newell-to-australia/]. Once again, truth is stranger than fiction - if it weren't for the boycott, that money wouldn't have been donated. So the most positive aspect of the L4D2 boycott ... was to give games to sick children. None of which will be L4D or L4D2, by the way, since those games aren't for children. At least some good came out of all this.
The "angry gamer", portrayed as a cynic with a sense of entitlement about their power-fantasy entertainment, has never been more of a laughable figure. Sony recently launched a PS3 ad campaign [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cV8QM04Cg_U] that specifically makes fun of this type of character.
Fewer Games Means Less Fun For Everyone
Back in 1993, the game Doom pioneered many innovations that modern gamers take for granted: the first-person shooter genre with stunning "realistic" graphics such as lighting, textures, and three dimensions of movement; digital distribution, where the first part of the game could be downloaded at zero cost to the user; the "mod community", where gamers make their own levels or even changes to computer code (which would even work with the freeware version of the game!); and multi-player combat, where gamers could shoot at one another from their own computers. Doom was hailed as the future of gaming.
Doom broke all sales records and was quickly followed up with Doom II - a mere one year later. To handle new bad guys and new environments, Doom II used all new computer code. There was no discount for owners of the previous game. Mods written for the previous game wouldn't work. Users of Doom II couldn't play against owners of Doom I, which at the time was the most popular computer game.
But there was no outcry that Doom II was "too soon". Gamers used to expect incremental upgrades to their games within 12-18 months. A few years later, John Romero, one of the chief designers of Doom, would be mocked for taking over four years to develop Daikatana ... because at the time, four years was considered an unreasonably long time to develop a video game.
The L4D2 boycott shows how much gamer expectations have changed. Consumer demand is so keenly managed that "hard core gamers" expect their franchises to only release a game every three years or so.
Fewer games, with higher production cost, are ultimately bad for the consumer. The more a game costs, and the fewer titles that are released, the more sales the game has to make to be profitable. Companies thus take less risks, ensuring blander products with easy cheats like quick-time events and bloviating cut-scenes, in the hopes that they might create a 10-year franchise ... that consists of a mere three games.
Nice Guys Finish Last
Valve Software is a victim of their own friendliness to the developer community. By announcing free DLC content after the purchase of their software, they are effectively reducing their revenue. The L4D2 boycott might not have existed if Valve hadn't built up this good will in the first place ... which is a shame, as the boycott sets the precedent for other companies not to be as generous as Valve, if it might cause a consumer backlash.
The marketplace has already shown that gaming consumers will happily make micro-payments for more DLC. Guitar Hero and Rock Band dominate sales charts by announcing new expansion packs every month or so - songs that cost $5 a pop. Elder Scrolls: Oblivion added extra clothes and equipment costing $1-$3 each ... and despite some noise, the add-ons proved a significant generator of revenue. If consumer expectation remains "fewer games with DLC add-ons", then there will be less games to play, but they will cost more, and they will have that cost spread out over time, dribbled in nickels and dimes.
Where the hell is Half-Life 2: Episode 3? A real boycott would be a refusal to buy anything Valve makes until HL2:E3 shows up, since every sale of a Valve game that's not HL2:E3 is a distraction from the demand, whether it's Left 4 Dead or Left 4 Dead 2.
In a year, the L4D2 boycott will be a footnote in the viral-marketing books, forgotten as some new shiny game comes out. As I write this, new sports games are already hitting the shelves, with sales that will make any significance this boycott had disappear in their shadow. I continue to hope for a world where there's more choice, more innovation, and more things to try, even if my "community" might be against it.
No. The boycott was not only a failure, it will have destructive effects on future sales of video games. Video-game consumers are shown as opponents to innovation in the marketplace, and as blind to simple explotation methods while "nice guys" finish last, and (worst of all) as fickle consumers who can be easily manipulated if their cynical expectations are met.
The Titanic Beginnings
The demands of the boycott were doomed from the start. (You can read the original manifesto here on the Steam forums, but this link isn't safe for work [http://steamcommunity.com/groups/L4D2boycott].).
"The release of Left 4 Dead 2 as a stand-alone sequel will split the communities and decrease the quality of multiplayer gaming."
Within mere months after releasing L4D1, a co-operative zombie-slaying first-person shooter, Valve's Steam Network began distributing Killing Floor, a co-operative zombie-slaying first-person shooter. Both games used the Steam network for their community, but each game used incompatible systems. Even worse, Killing Floor had a price point $10USD less than Left 4 Dead. When Killing Floor's sales passed Left 4 Dead's, [http://kotaku.com/5261870/pc-sales-charts-killing-floor-wipes-the-killing-floor] Valve was already complicit in fragmenting its own marketplace, decreasing the quality of multiplayer gaming.
Killing Floor isn't usually associated with Left 4 Dead, though, because the two games are from different companies and have different names. The unaddressed point, however, is that both games target the same niche market, on the same platform, with the same distribution system. The boycotters' myopia is that only L4D competes for gamers' time, not all games, especially games in the same genre. More on this, later.
"The announced content of Left 4 Dead 2 does not warrant a stand-alone, full-priced sequel and should instead become updates (free or otherwise) for Left 4 Dead."
This demand is rather valid from a consumer standpoint. If it's just the same game, shouldn't it be an add-on? Why pay full price for what's just a snap-in to something bigger?
The boycotters show a lack of history when observing Valve. When The Orange Box was released, with three "new" games (Team Fortress 2, Portal, and Half-Life 2: Episode 2), the package also included two "old" games (Half Life 2, Half Life 2: Episode 1). There were two reasons for this: (1) that the old games were rapidly aging, and losing their shelf life, so they were reduced in value anyway; (2) that the executable files for the older games were required to run the newer games anyway, so as long as 90% of the work has to be there, one might as well throw in 10% more.
Valve then raised the price of their Orange Box from $40 to $50. This 20% increase in price just to give gamers old content did not elicit the vociferous boycott that L4D2 did. Yes, gamers complained, but the L4D2 boycott gets more media attention, which is a shame, since Orange Box set the precedent of making gamers "pay money for something they already own."
Left 4 Dead 1 & 2 use new technology fundamentally different from other "Gold-source" games. They are more properly derivatives of Counterstrike, not Half-Life 2, with their technology of penetration-modeling and zone-based bot navigation. Logically, it might've made more sense to package L4D with Counterstrike. The two games are very similar, after all - much more similar to each other than, say, Portal and Team Fortress 2. However, there was no consumer demand for such packaging, let alone a boycott.
"Left 4 Dead has not yet received the support and content which Valve has repeatedly stated will be delivered."
This demand would carry more weight if Valve had actually issued proper release dates for when the "support and content" would be delivered. After all, if there's no due date, it's not late.
In the post-boycott analysis, many have cited the release of "Crash Course" and "Last Stand", add-ons to L4D2, as a "victory" for the boycott. Since the DLC never had any announced release dates, exactly how the boycott influenced these releases is impossible to tell ... which makes declaring victory all too easy, since there's no way to confirm or deny. (That said, "Crash Course" is obviously a long out-take from the original game, and since it was released scant weeks before L4D2, it's a laughably weak victory to claim.)
"The release of Left 4 Dead 2 will make Left 4 Dead an obsolete purchase and inferior piece of software after only one year since release."
This demand is the crux of the boycott. When someone buys software for $50USD, they want to feel as if they got their value out of it. The unspoken demand is that the L4D1 purchasers expect more than one year of longevity from their software. How much isn't made clear, though. Twelve years [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-Life_2:_Episode_One]?
The L4D2 Boycott Fails to Get Results
The boycotters had specific results they wanted to achieve, presumably before L4D2's scheduled release date of November 18. How successful was the boycott? Again, quotes from the manifesto:
"That Valve honor its commitment to release ongoing periodic content for Left 4 Dead."
Was this request granted, or wasn't it? During the boycott's period of effect, there was new content: two new "versus" levels a new play mode called "Survival", and one new campaign, "Crash Course". The problem with this boycott request is that it's not very specific. Was that enough content? Was it good enough? There are many who did not think it was, and if one sides with the "not enough", that means the boycott was ineffective.
What's worse is that since there was never any time-table for the DLC, there's absolutely no way to know of the boycott had any effect on speeding it up.
"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."
On this point, the boycott was completely ineffective.
"That Left 4 Dead owners be given discounts for Left 4 Dead 2, should it be released as premium content."
On this point, the boycott was completely ineffective. There is no discount for owners of L4D1.
What did the boycott accomplish, if anything?
For the price of a few plane tickets and hotel rooms, Valve Software flew the heads of the Steam-forum out to their headquarters to personally demonstrate the game. The boycotters praised $25 million ad campaign [http://steamcommunity.com/groups/L4D2boycott/announcements/detail/90227062007438947]. This quick roll-over of demonstrated not only how ineffective their efforts were, but how the L4D2 boycott had the reverse effect: awareness of the game is greater than ever, and sales weren't adversely affected at all. Future "boycotts" of any software are now ridiculously compromised; video-game advertising, notorious for its "hip" and "edgy" qualities, will be sure to run campaigns about fake boycotts.
Gabe Newell, director of Valve, made an off-hand joke about "boycotting a L4D mod". The incident grew into a donated the money to charity [http://www.joystiq.com/2009/09/14/dude-actually-collects-3-000-to-fly-gabe-newell-to-australia/]. Once again, truth is stranger than fiction - if it weren't for the boycott, that money wouldn't have been donated. So the most positive aspect of the L4D2 boycott ... was to give games to sick children. None of which will be L4D or L4D2, by the way, since those games aren't for children. At least some good came out of all this.
The "angry gamer", portrayed as a cynic with a sense of entitlement about their power-fantasy entertainment, has never been more of a laughable figure. Sony recently launched a PS3 ad campaign [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cV8QM04Cg_U] that specifically makes fun of this type of character.
Fewer Games Means Less Fun For Everyone
Back in 1993, the game Doom pioneered many innovations that modern gamers take for granted: the first-person shooter genre with stunning "realistic" graphics such as lighting, textures, and three dimensions of movement; digital distribution, where the first part of the game could be downloaded at zero cost to the user; the "mod community", where gamers make their own levels or even changes to computer code (which would even work with the freeware version of the game!); and multi-player combat, where gamers could shoot at one another from their own computers. Doom was hailed as the future of gaming.
Doom broke all sales records and was quickly followed up with Doom II - a mere one year later. To handle new bad guys and new environments, Doom II used all new computer code. There was no discount for owners of the previous game. Mods written for the previous game wouldn't work. Users of Doom II couldn't play against owners of Doom I, which at the time was the most popular computer game.
But there was no outcry that Doom II was "too soon". Gamers used to expect incremental upgrades to their games within 12-18 months. A few years later, John Romero, one of the chief designers of Doom, would be mocked for taking over four years to develop Daikatana ... because at the time, four years was considered an unreasonably long time to develop a video game.
The L4D2 boycott shows how much gamer expectations have changed. Consumer demand is so keenly managed that "hard core gamers" expect their franchises to only release a game every three years or so.
Fewer games, with higher production cost, are ultimately bad for the consumer. The more a game costs, and the fewer titles that are released, the more sales the game has to make to be profitable. Companies thus take less risks, ensuring blander products with easy cheats like quick-time events and bloviating cut-scenes, in the hopes that they might create a 10-year franchise ... that consists of a mere three games.
Nice Guys Finish Last
Valve Software is a victim of their own friendliness to the developer community. By announcing free DLC content after the purchase of their software, they are effectively reducing their revenue. The L4D2 boycott might not have existed if Valve hadn't built up this good will in the first place ... which is a shame, as the boycott sets the precedent for other companies not to be as generous as Valve, if it might cause a consumer backlash.
The marketplace has already shown that gaming consumers will happily make micro-payments for more DLC. Guitar Hero and Rock Band dominate sales charts by announcing new expansion packs every month or so - songs that cost $5 a pop. Elder Scrolls: Oblivion added extra clothes and equipment costing $1-$3 each ... and despite some noise, the add-ons proved a significant generator of revenue. If consumer expectation remains "fewer games with DLC add-ons", then there will be less games to play, but they will cost more, and they will have that cost spread out over time, dribbled in nickels and dimes.
Where the hell is Half-Life 2: Episode 3? A real boycott would be a refusal to buy anything Valve makes until HL2:E3 shows up, since every sale of a Valve game that's not HL2:E3 is a distraction from the demand, whether it's Left 4 Dead or Left 4 Dead 2.
In a year, the L4D2 boycott will be a footnote in the viral-marketing books, forgotten as some new shiny game comes out. As I write this, new sports games are already hitting the shelves, with sales that will make any significance this boycott had disappear in their shadow. I continue to hope for a world where there's more choice, more innovation, and more things to try, even if my "community" might be against it.
