Well if you haven’t heard about it yet, there’s a massive boycott underway regarding Left 4 Dead. Steam has even devoted a channel to it on their message boards, which is in some way admirable, as they are letting the gamers voice their opinions. You can check it out here: Steam Community :: Community Groups :: L4D2 Boycott.

If you’re not aware, the main reason for the boycott was due to the sudden announcement of Left 4 Dead 2 shortly after Left 4 Dead was released. Instantly, more than 10,000 protesters formed a petition to vote against the new game release. A month after, almost 40,000 protesters joined the boycott. It was evident that the timing of the sequel was in question, and that much of the downloadable content and add-ons promised by Valve would never be released. To oppose the opposition, Valve lived up to some of it’s promise and announced the Crash Course campaign addition on August 4th, set to be released sometime in September.

Other critics argue that gamers should be happy of the sudden announcement of the new Left 4 Dead, due to its’ immense popularity and cult following. Many hardcore gamers just felt demoralized due to the fact that a heavy amount of additional content was promised, and it seemed that Valve would rather work on their new release, instead of releasing small patches of game work.

If you go to the message boards and read the ultimatium, the gamers obviously recognize the financial needs of Valve as a company, and the need to earn income. However, with that said, Left 4 Dead gamers will continue to require support and patches. Gamers recognize the value of keeping the Left 4 Dead community together. Valve will need to live up to their promise here, or at least some of it, to keep all these gamers happy, and to keep the dollars floating in their direction. The invocation ends by stating that all petitioners will abstain from purchasing the new Left 4 Dead 2 until Valve adheres to its’ original promises.

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It is yet to be determined how large of an effect this boycott will actually product. One thing for certain is that it is definitely garnering a lot of attention from the media and the press. On a side note, Left 4 Dead was recently banned in Australia after being refused classification by the Australian Government’s Classification Board. Valve was unable to adhere to the rubric for MA15+ video games, as it is now illegal to buy, sell, or trade this video game in Australia. To what event the Australian government will prosecute Left 4 Dead users we will just need to wait and see. One thing for sure is that Valve needs to get its’ act together, and continue to lead the way in PC games as it has done for the past number of years.