More than 12 million gamers have purchased Valve's Left 4 Dead series, according to Valve writer Chet Faliszek, and a third installment in the zombie series may be on the way in the near future. In an interview with VG247, Faliszek elaborated on Valve doesn't tell gamers a game is great, but shows them it is great.
"Telling people a game is great will sell one extra copy," Faliszek said. "Letting people play the game--Left 4 Dead is a good example--is much better," he said. "All of our pre-release stuff is designed to just let people play it. We just let the game speak for itself because the Internet has made this thing where you can't pull the wool over people's eyes any more."
Faliszek added that consumers know when video game companies are hyping a product. According to him Valve's approach of pre-releasing titles lets gamers experience the title and see for themselves how good the game is.
"When a game does really well at pre-release, they're going to know that you're not just talking a bunch of PR crap," Faliszek said. "I mean, the Left 4 Dead series has now sold over 12 million copies. That's amazingly cool, and that wasn't because I was out there like, 'Oh my god! This game is amazing! Buy it!' Seeing Counter-Strike be the number one PSN title was awesome, and you know it's just because of people reacting to the game."
In another interview with Eurogamer, Faliszek said Left 4 Dead 3 is possible, but that all of Valve's game have a possibility of getting sequels.
"You know, some time down the road, Faliszek told Eurogamer. "Like anything, I would say that to all of our games. So that's not a promise of when or where. I really love working on that series. It's one of my favorite series. It's just so much fun with the characters and the world. I love zombies and I love horror."
Left 4 Dead is a 2008 cooperative first-person shooter video game that features a zombie outbreak. The game pits its four protagonists-dubbed the "Survivors"-against hordes of the infected. Left 4 Dead 2 was released a year later and introduced gamers to four new survivors.