The case for a L4D2
Is the sequel to Valve's zombie shooter hinting to a new direction their taking?
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Recently, there's been a controversy surrounding a popular online game's annouced sequel, which has been brewing around in gaming sites and forum communities alike. This controversy is regarding the recent annoucement by Valve Software, the makers of games like Half life and game mods such as CounterStrike and Team Fortress 2, of a planned sequel to last year's popular title Left 4 Dead. Regardless of your opinion in this argument, this controversy is interesting not only because of its relation to this particular game, but to it's possible indication of the direction game companies like Valve might be taking in the future.
Announced at E3, Left4Dead 2 will featured five new campaign, brand new characters and weapons, and many other yet unannouced features when it's released late 2009. The annoucement came as a surprise, not only because of a lack of rumours about it, but because of Valve's past records on sequels. Having required 6 years before releasing the sequel to Half Life, and almost a decade to ship the much anticipated sequel to Team Fortress, Valve is known for their long development cycles, and longer periods of time in between games and their sequels. That's why when they suddenly announced a sequel for one of their games, which will come almost a year after the original game shipped, everyone was caught off guard. The surprise quickly gave way to controversy, nonetheless, as many questioned Valve's motives for such an early sequel. Rumors, speculations and all sort of arguments began to invade online gaming boards, including Steam's very own, where every side of the controversy poured in. Both arguing Valve's need to continually produce and ship titles to continue to stay in business and those citing greed and Valve's departure to fully supporting their exisiting products before shipping new ones.
The controversy didn't stop at forums threads, sparked its very own community group called Left4Dead2 Boycott on Steam's boards. Composed of mostly owners of the original game, this group crafted a manifesto, where they explain their reasons for not buying the new game when it's released, and calling for others to do the same. In their manifesto, they mention that the new game will divide the community into two, those who buy the new game and those who are still playing the old one. They are also worried about Valve's so far unfullfilled promises they made about the original game, such as releasing more content for the campaigns, as well as the final version of the SDK. With the new game in the works, they say, Valve's resources and efforts will be focused on the sequel, leaving the original game as a lesser priority. According to them, if the old game is made compatible with the new content, then there wouldnt be any incentive to buyt the new game, so the new game and its features won't be backwards compatible. And since the old game won't work in the new game's servers, will it be treated with the same amount of updates and patching as the new one will?
The controversy reached Valve, and they themselves have responded, somewhat, in the comments by Left4Dead's main writer Chet Faliszek, in an interview he made recently. He argues that all the new ideas for features and new content for Left4Dead they wanted to put together were too big for simple for a simple update of patch, and required a full brand new standalone sequel to be implemented. This nonehtless, gives way to many speculations of whether this new features will make it to the sequel's ship date. Many of those who bought the original game now believe paid for a half-finished product, under the promises by Valve that many updates and additional content would be added to it. As these updates havent yet arrived and with the sequel in full speed ahead, many are thinking they paid to beta test a protoype of a game, whose real final version will come late '09.
There's many uncertainty regarding why the need for a full sequel as well. Valve hasn't detailed all the reasons for this. Many are believing they are less related to technical constrains of the original game's capabilities and more about finances. This bears a liking with the explanations Microsoft gave for their decision to make the next release of DirectX, DX10, not compatible with Windows XP. Why the need to make a new game? Some players ask themselves, why can't Valve adopt an update model similar to the one from another of their popular games, Team Fortress 2. Being a similarly online team-based game like Left 4 Dead, TF2 now has a system of frequent updates, both for the game's executable itself as well as for its content. The updates are the form of new items, weapons and upgrades for the many different player characters in the game, in a MMO-like upgrade system. Why can't Valve implement a similar system for Left4Dead? Such a system would be ideal as a way to deliver the much touted upgrades.
As the release date approaches, and as Valve remains unclear about the reasons for the need to shell out the old plastic again for Left4Dead, the controversy will be guaranteed to continue. And most likely it won't contibute to Valve's own digital download system Steam's already diminished popularity among a big part of their customer base, specially the one based in European countries. And the questioning will continue. Will all the so-called brand new features, which required a complete new sequel, make it to the final release? If that's not the case, will they be implemented in future updates, like it was in the case of the old game? This controversy also extends beyond this particular game, and into Valve's very own future business model. Will this sequel signal a change in Valve's direction, hinting to a more frequent churning out of sequels to their products, before fullfilling all the updates and bug fixes to their existing products before the new ones are on virtual shelves everywhere? Only time will tell.
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