Final Thoughts
This has been a long and very strange experience. At the end of it though, it can be said that all of us who have had a hand in running the group have put forth the best possible effort. Has this group made a difference? Only time will tell.
Valve has done something unprecedented because of this group. They took our concerns seriously enough that they have dealt with us directly. They could have been like most every other publisher out there and ignored our criticism, but they didn’t. It is this more than anything else that that should make people willing to see what they have coming for us instead of damning them.
I am also disappointed in some members of this group. Neither I, nor Agent of Chaos has done anything that you would not have. There is not one among you who would have refused a chance to go to Valve and talk to them directly about our concerns. If we had refused to go and talk to them, then the whole lot of you would have demanded we step down because we had wasted an opportunity to talk to Valve. However, we went so the lot of you demanded we step down because we were ‘bought out’. You wonder why the media calls us spoilt children? It is because of things like this.
While going to Valve was enjoyable, it was not a vacation; I treated it like a business trip. We prepped for meeting with them so we could present concerns and have them addressed. Surprise, surprise.... they did address everything we asked. We just did not get the answers we had hoped for. You wonder at the change in attitude after having visited Valve? It is because they had addressed all of our concerns to one degree or another. We didn’t get all of what we wanted, but we got something at least. DLC is continuing and they have plans for patches in the future.
Now, as for being “bought out”, does anybody have any proof?
You point to the closure of the group as proof yet you ignore the reasons, the real reasons, why it is happening. We’ve talked with Valve, they have addressed our concerns and they are in the process of following through on one of them. The purpose of an organized group has passed and it is quite apparently so. People only come here to troll, phish, or try and gain members for their own groups.
Does the closure mean that you should go out and buy L4D2? No, it certainly does not.
The closure only means that we’ve done what we have set out to do and that we’re done playing host to trolls, phishers and their ilk. So far, neither of us have made any monetary gains from running this group; with Agent already gone and myself leaving in about an hour, we won’t be making any gains either. If you check our profiles, you’ll note that neither of us owns L4D2, nor have any new games mysteriously appeared on our lists. So continue to rage and hate if you will. Without anything to back it up, it is only so much white noise.
Good luck to you all, may we meet in better times.
-Walking_Target