Eurogamer is reporting that Valve's Chet Faliszek has informed them that the upcoming expansion pack for Left 4 Dead was priced because Microsoft needs to make sure Xbox LIVE Marketplace holds it's economic value. Entitled "Crash Course," the latest DLC delivers new single-player, multiplayer and co-operative gameplay to both platforms. Targeted for release in September, "Crash Course" bridges the gap between the end of the "No Mercy" campaign and the beginning of "Death Toll" in the original game, expanding the game universe with new locations, new dialogue from the original cast, and an explosive finale.
Crash Course is being offered for free on the PC, but Microsoft is charging 560 Microsoft Points for it via Xbox Live. This left many gamers, including L4D fans, a little miffed that content that is free elsewhere requires payment from the Xbox Live Marketplace. Valve has been known as a developer who does not like to charge for additional content for their products that people have already purchased, but it seems that the decision to charge for the Crash Course DLC was out of their hands.
"We own our platform, Steam. Microsoft owns their platform. They wanted to make sure there's an economy of value there," Faliszek told Eurogamer. He continued to explain why he felt the first DLC was available for free while the upcoming pack is not. "Well, they helped us get the first one out for free. We had the one DLC out for free. And I think... they have to look and say, wow, we're kind of being unfair to everybody else if these guys can do that."
"It's not like we're [Valve is] looking at this as, 'Oh my god, we need some money, we're going to charge,' obviously, or we'd do it on the PC. So it's just kind of the way the system works right now." There's no question Valve stands behind their products and their beliefs, but it sounds like Microsoft put their foot down and made sure their second expansion pack for L4D was not going to be released for free. Check out the full article at Eurogamer for more details (link below).
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