The L4D Boycott Is A Showing Of Disrespect news

We've all had that moment in our lives. Well, if you've got a mod or a game here, you've definatly had this moment in your life. You know that moment, when you've finally released, anounced, or showed some progress of your game or mod, but you look at your comments, and guess what you see? This person who thinks he's something, saying how much your mod/game is bad, and how it doesn't deserve a page, or whatever.

We've all had that feeling, we've all felt the emotions, maybe it's anger, annoyance, or you don't care (unlikely.) Either way, it's left something on you, this person doesn't apreciate what you've done.

Now, imagine that feeling, multiplied by ten, and that's how Valve developers are feeling as the L4D2 Boycott carries on. There are close to no devlopers in this universe that are as dedicated to their fans as the ones at Valve, they've given so much to their community, and have asked for so little in return. They gave five full games for a price of $50 in the Orange Box, they allow a ton of publishing opprutunities for MODS, not even games, MODS that profitise off of their engines that they've worked so hard on, and they don't ask for that much of a cut in the profit in return. They are the most supportive of the Modding community, too, they have created their own Mod developement wiki, several programs and tutorials, and a ton of updates, and full access to their Source engine, in all its glory, they've given you everything they have, for free. If you want proof of how many mods use their engines and programs, look at the front Page of Mod DB and count how many Half Life 2 or Source based mods you see, I'm sure that you see quite a bit, not even a bit, a LOT.
Valve's also proved it's dedication to the gamers, the ones who've never touched a modding program, through countless game updates. Game's that are as old as Half Life, yeah, not Half Life 2, but HALF LIFE, still get updates, and that prooves something. You may say "But Blizzard's patched Star Craft about 1,000 times," but people are still buying Star Craft, and Blizzard's still profiting off of Star Craft tournaments.

Nobody still buys Half Life.
There are no such things anymore as Half Life tournaments.
And Half Life 2 was released 5 years ago.

Valve's money all comes from pure game sales, they do NOT make money off of anything else (aside for, if you want to sell your mod, but that's not that much profit anyways,) those constant Team Fortress 2 upgrades come to you for FREE, you are never charged, never have you been playing a game and you've gotten this message "A new weapon has been released for Team Fortress 2, do you want to pay up for it?" It HASN'T happened, and it WON'T HAPPEN.

But it has happened, that while playing, lets say, Battlefeild 2, you HAVE gotten a notice saying "A new weapon pack's been released for BF2, do you want to fork over some cash to get them?" This seperates Valve from a lot of developers, their production costs DO NOT match their income. Their weapons designers do NOT work for free, you know, but yet, they give you their work for free.

Production costs - no income = loss in money

I don't think a SINGLE one of you would be willing to do the same thing, unless you haven't finished a mod before. Those who have, have told stories of it being a personal hell, I've made a few games for Flash, and it IS a personal hell. People don't just snap their fingers and a game just becomes. And I'm SURE that if it wasn't for most mods on this site being, well, mods, they would charge for it. And even look at all the games on this site, about 5 of them are free, and those are the small ones, all the big ones will cost you.

Now, why would Valve be so different? Because Valve is something different, Valve likes to see the happiness of their fans more then their pay checks. Of course, they like their pay checks more, but they've proven multiple times that they will gladly reduce it. Just THINK about how much cash Valve would be rolling in if they DID charge you for those new weapons in TF2? If they put it all into an expansion pack, and gave you a $40 price tag? Yes, I need to bring this point up, the amount of content delivered to most Valve games is the equivelent of an expansion pack. It IS worthy of a $40 price tag, but there isn't one. There's a $0 price tag.

So, you'd think such a company would be economic troubles, well, the truth is, they ARE. Well, they aren't really on the verge of collapsing, but they need more money so that they don't end up like Free Radical, or Westwood, or some other company that doesn't exist anymore since it couldn't meet it's target profit.

So, you know what they decided to do? They decided to, for once, ask for money for their work. And you know what that's called? Left For Dead 2, it's funny, Left For Dead 2 is called Left For Dead 2 for a reason, it's WAY bigger then any update. It's HUGE, I mean, yeah, it's a whole new game for a reason.

But for some reason, the first thing most users saw when they came on this site one day was news of A BOYCOTT. Talk about disrespect? Valve? Honestly? The most generous group of developers ever? A BOYCOTT?

Suddenly, up was down, left was right, it didn't make sense. Valve's been shoveling so much free food into these pigs that they get annoyed when they are denied the right to free load. It's like complaining to your friend that he used to allow you to come into his house naked every day, but now that his Mom's moved in, he's not allowing you to. Now, that doesn't make sense, does it? But it's true, it's what's going on right here, as we speak. Valve, the friend who allows you to do anything in his house (well if he's allowing you to walk in stripped then he'll allow you to probably do anything) is getting yelled at because his Mother (financial troubles) moved in, and he doesn't want to look bad (close down for good) in front of his mother, or else she'll pull a pistol out of her purse and shoot him dead for good.

Valve can close down for good if this goes on, Valve NEEDS to survive, they DESERVE to survive, they are the perfect example of a group of developers who just simply LOVE their fans, and will do ANYTHING for their loyalty.

It would be a real shame if their down fall came from their own fans not appreciating their generosity.

A real shame.

If you agree, join the Anti Fan Idiocy group, we need to SHOW something to this world, we need to be living proof that we appreciate those who need to be appreciated!

Come on, guys, if they succeed, we'll loose Valve forever, lets not have the saying "You don't know what you've got until it's gone" apply to us!