MS forces Valve to charge for L4D DLC

Written by Joe Martin

September 9, 2009 | 11:17

Tags: #crash-course #dlc #l4d #left-4-dead #xbox-360

Companies: #microsoft #valve

While the upcoming Crash Course add-on campaign for Left 4 Dead will be free on the PC, Valve is going to be charging Xbox 360 users 560 MS points to download the extra levels - something which the developer was apparently forced into by Microsoft.

The Crash Course campaign will be just two levels long and will bridge the gap between the No Mercy and Death Toll campaign. The short length of the campaign is apparently due to a decision to focus on the Versus mode. It's the second DLC released for the game, with the first one adding in the Survival Mode and being released for free. That won't be the case this time though.

"We own our platform, Steam. Microsoft owns their platform. They wanted to make sure there's an economy of value there," said Faliszek to Eurogamer.

"Microsoft helped us get the first one out for free," explained Faliszek. "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 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 too. So it's just kind of the way the system works right now."

Valve has revealed it will also be forced to charge for the upcoming DLC for Team Fortress 2 on the Xbox 360.

"On the consoles, they want us to charge money for [DLC], because that's in their model, and our model is very much more to grow the community by giving out free updates," said Valve president Gabe Newell last year.

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