Left 4 Dead to launch with a Free Weekend?

[Operational]

Eurogamer: It'd be a pretty impressive way to launch it - to start with a free weekend.

Chet Faliszek: Yeah. All that's been talked about and bandied about, and I can't say if we're going to do one thing or the other yet. But definitely Steam allows us to do things on the PC side that no other developer can do, and we definitely don't ignore that. We're going to capitalise on that.

Link (on page 2)

I'm planning on buying this game but I reckon it would be a great way to launch a "play with your friends" game like this. I'm already thinking a small LAN with some friends would be the perfect way to try and get them to buy it.

The thing with this idea is that you have to have faith that your product lives up the hype because you risk losing sales from people who would have bought it but have now played it for free and don't like it. However if you read the rest of the interview Valve and Turtle Rock are very confident that they have a fantastic game on their hands.

 

[Lucid]

Wow, that's awesome.

And a very smart move imo, since the gameplay of L4D is pretty different than your average shooter... it might turn some people away while it might also attract some.

Edit : Aww... just read that the release is in early 08. D:
Oh well, plenty of other stuff to occupy my time.

 

[G-Dub]

That would be a great idea!

 

[DESSTROYER]

Wow, that's awesome.

And a very smart move imo, since the gameplay of L4D is pretty different than your average shooter... it might turn some people away while it might also attract some.

Edit : Aww... just read that the release is in early 08. D:
Oh well, plenty of other stuff to occupy my time.

like the orange box in 9 days

 

[hool10]

The l4d411 guys were talking with Mike Booth in the chat room. Well most of the time anyways just talking casually because they pop in so much lol. Anwyays Mike Booth said that they will most likely do a beta thing. So a free weekend, beta will most likely happen. The only reason that it is'nt in a public beta stage is that there are many placeholders and the infected side is'nt fully done yet. There are other maps too that need to be heavily worked on. The hospital map is like their de_dust.

 

[Ennui]

That would be awesome. Can't wait for L4D, Sui and I are co-writing the review on it together.

 

[Dr. G. Freeman]

This game is going to kick so much butt!! I can't wait to play this game. It would be neat to have a free beta test for it.

 

[Deleted member 56031]

It would be a great idea as i am not sure about getting this yet anyway.