Valve to continue with EA

By Tom Bramwell Published 28 August, 2007

Left 4 Dead retail deal likely.

Valve Corporation expects to continue working with Electronic Arts once it's shipped The Orange Box in October.

"Everybody always tells us what a horrible monster EA is supposed to be and we keep waiting for the hair to sprout out and the fangs to grow," Valve MD Gabe Newell jokes in an interview with Eurogamer.

"We've had a great relationship with them so far, and bringing more titles to that like Left 4 Dead seems to be a natural consequence of that."

Asked if he was confident that Left 4 Dead - a Valve collaboration with Turtle Rock - would be published by EA, he said yes.

We also asked Newell if a free launch weekend was a "strong possibility" for Left 4 Dead, after Valve's Chet Faliszek agreed it was a good idea during QuakeCon.

"Absolutely. What we're finding is any time that we remind ourselves that we're in collaboration with the community, we benefit, whether it's guest passes to help introduce new people to our franchises, or free weekends or whatever, it's easily the best way we have of getting people to be excited about the games that we have, so we're going to pull out all the stops with Left 4 Dead," he told us.

"It's definitely a game that requires you to play it - you can describe it until you're blue in the face, but five minutes of playing it is definitely better than watching a 30-second spot on MTV to try to get you to understand why Left 4 Dead is going to be worth your time and money."

For more from Newell, check out our full interview - taking in Orange Box, Steam, Wii, next-gen consoles and all the rest of it - when we publish it on the Internet or something.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (15) Latest comment 5 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • bengray66 #1 5 years ago

    Left 4 Dead looks Ace.

  • JP #2 5 years ago

    Gabe if you let EA acquire Valve and it slowly succumbs to the mummy's smothering embrace like every studio they've acquired I will fly out to Seattle and PUNCH YOU.

    Not that I think there's much danger of that, but... keep it a pub/distribution deal please.

  • RexRunti #3 5 years ago

    Why can't they call it "Left for Dead" it's not like they're texting or if they really want cut the number of characters how about "<- 4 ded"

    Edit: getting the < to show
    Edited by 2 at 28/08/07 @ 16:51

  • XdarXideX #4 5 years ago

    Because it's a 4 player co-op game. I agree the name sucks but hey.

  • zoidberg #5 5 years ago

    so... what they're sayin' is EA is way better than Vivendi ?

  • skillian #6 5 years ago

    At least it's better than L.E.F.T.4.D.E.A.D.

    And there are 4 playable characters (well, good guys anyway) in the game, so there is some kind of link, however tenuous.

    edit: so... what they're sayin' is EA is way better than Vivendi ?

    Valve and Vivendi are not exactly best buddies. After the HL2 mess there's no way they'd use Vivendi again.
    Edited by 1 at 28/08/07 @ 17:00

  • polymorph #7 5 years ago

    EG, why cant you just "podcast" some of this?

  • Ryuken #8 5 years ago

    Still wondering whether it was EA that made(/forced) the decision to only release the Orange Box on PC and not the Black Box as well. I can see the fangs growing already...

  • Turambar #9 5 years ago

    I'm sure EA are very accomodating if you're guarenteed to make money for them. Things are probably different if they view you as a "risk".

  • Kostabi #10 5 years ago

    Still wondering whether it was EA that made(/forced) the decision to only release the Orange Box on PC and not the Black Box as well. I can see the fangs growing already...

    If I remember right it was the US retail stores that forced Valve's hand with the Black Box package being Steam only.

    Something along the lines of places like Walmart and Best Buy being reluctant to stock a title that is being heavily undercut online by the publisher (which is Valve via Steam, not EA). By having two seperate packages and one not being available at retail they circumvent the problem.

    It's all a little garbled in my head but I'm sure someone will be along with a comprehensive answer.

  • Pablo2k5 #11 5 years ago

    polymorph said... "EG, why cant you just "podcast" some of this?"

    Not sure what you mean but I guess the answer might be because most people would rather read it??? *confuzzled*

  • ZuluHero #12 5 years ago

    the name "Left 4 dead" works on so many levels though. Mainly because its four player, but it implies "Left for dead" or even "Left four dead" (as in left four people for dead) - see what i mean?

    i like the name - its kinda catchy :)

  • Nithron #13 5 years ago

    And it looks cool.

  • zoidberg #14 5 years ago

    ? what's all this business about the name?

    it's not such a problem? it's a good choice... ok, it's not GTA or, I know know, Half Life... it won't POP thoughts in your head, more than the normal "just another game", but still... not THAT bad.

  • Ryuken #15 5 years ago

    @Kostabi: hmm, that might be plausible as well.:)