Left 4 Dead 2 Boycott Ending Next Week

It has been a trying few months for a series of brave and levelheaded gamers who took it upon themselves to shun a highly anticipated title from one of the most revered developers in the industry, based on an in no way absurd sense of entitlement with regards to Left 4 Dead support. But as of October 21st, boycotters of Valve’s Left 4 Dead 2 will stop fighting the good fight, GamePolitics reports.

Given how reasonable the group’s arguments were for boycotting L4D2, it’s hardly surprising that in the disbandment announcement letter posted over at Steam, two of the group’s leaders (Agent of Chaos and Walking_Target) address their fellow boycotters with a tone that suggests some serious delusions of grandeur in terms of their effectiveness and relevance concerning Valve’s commitment to future L4D support. As Agent of Chaos explains:

“We have accomplished everything we can on our manifesto. We’ve been dealing with Valve ever since our group started, then we met them in-person and now we’re at the point of concluding our discussions. Our goal wasn’t to steer people away from L4D2, it was to get Valve’s attention and have them support original L4D. We succeeded and that’s where our mission ends; nothing more or less.”

There are several things worth noting about these statements. First off, take a look at the boycotters’ original demands:

• That Valve honor its commitment to release ongoing periodic content for Left 4 Dead.
• 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.
• That Left 4 Dead owners be given discounts for Left 4 Dead 2, should it be released as premium content.

As you can see, the only one of these that will end up happening is the first one, and that was something Valve was planning to do all along; it hadn’t provided any details on the recently released Crash Course (or future DLC for that matter), because it wasn’t ready to discuss it. So for the boycotters to suggest that they had anything to do with Valve “deciding” to continue supporting L4D is utter nonsense, and claiming victory for it is even more so.

What’s interesting about the other two requests is that if you go to the group’s original manifesto announcement, those requests are no longer listed. The page says it was “updated 10.10.09 for relevance,” which I guess is code for, “Now that Valve has released a fresh batch of L4D DLC as well as info about its plans for future content (which it has been planning all along), and considering the company was gracious enough to invite us for a studio tour despite our insulting criticisms of Valve’s design approach for L4D2, let's make it seem like we ‘won’ even though we clearly didn’t.”

The other funny part about the aforementioned quote is that the original manifesto clearly states, “Therefore, we - the members of this Left 4 Dead 2 Boycott - promise to abstain from the purchase of Left 4 Dead 2 until our requests are addressed.” Yet now, the group claims, “Our goal wasn’t to steer people away from L4D2, it was to get Valve’s attention and have them support original L4D.” Backtracking and delusion don’t really get any more hilarious than that…Oh, except they do, thanks to the following comments from Walking_Target:

“As a collective we have done more than achieve a few goals, we have paved the way for Developer-Community relations in the future. No matter what the press or other gamers say, we have made an indelible mark upon the future of this industry. You should all be proud, we certainly are.”

I could spend the next few minutes pointing out just how bat-s#*& crazy these statements are, but I think they pretty much speak for themselves. I mean…wow.

Any last thoughts on the L4D2 boycott? Am I totally out of line in thinking that these people are giving themselves way too much credit for something they had no influence on in the first place?

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