Ever since Left 4 Dead 2 was announced, there’s been a sector within the gaming community that’s vowed to boycott it.  As you may have heard, Valve recently flew a few of these naysayers into their headquarters in Seattle to test out the game and see if their minds couldn’t be changed.  When Joe W-A, a game designer in Australia, caught wind of this, he e-mailed Valve’s President Gabe Newell with an interesting proposal.  Joe asked if Newell would fly him into Valve because he had a mod that he wanted to show Newell and the Left 4 Dead team.  Newell playfully replied that he wouldn’t because he was “boycotting” Joe’s mod.

Then, Joe had a brilliant idea.  If he couldn’t go to Valve, maybe he could bring Valve to him.  Joe reached out to the gaming community and challenged them to help him raise $3,000 – the requisite funds to fly Newell to Australia.  Astoundingly, it took them less than 48 hours to raise it.  Newell will be making the trek next week.  If you want to follow the progress of the trip, there will be reports and updates on L4D.com’s Blog page.

So, what’s the moral of the story?  The gaming community can be incredibly influential and impactful.  When we rally around a cause, we can do some pretty amazing things.  Well done everyone, and keep it up.