My only experience of Left 4 Dead 2 is a handful of sessions in my youth where a friend handed me a controller (me, a person whose shooting experience extended to Ratchet and Clank at the time), said nothing to me, and let the chaos unfold. I didn’t do a good job. But it left a lasting impression! But maybe that impression would have changed if I had seen its cinematic trailer as soon as Valve wanted to release it. The problem was that the Entertainment Software Ratings Board wasn’t all that enthusiastic about the game, including its marketing materials, which left Valve with only one option: leak the trailer itself.
This comes from Left 4 Dead designer and former Valve writer Chet Faliszek, who recently gave some details about the game’s cut lines (ta, Ars Technica). Part of the reason some of the cuts were made was due to the use of foul language in the game in particular. “You have to remember that, especially around the time of Left 4 Dead 1 and Left 4 Dead 2, Valve was fighting with the ESRB, with Australia, with Germany, with a number of countries over profanity in the game or violence,” Faliszek explained.
“One of (Valve’s) lawyers stepped in and said that we writers had to babysit this topic. And so (the) first thing we did was, well, we made sure there were no profanities in there that crossed the line; basically F-bombs.” From Faliszek’s perspective, it made more sense to oppose what the ESRB wanted, but “the lawyer had different opinions. He’s a nice guy. I fought a lot with him on this.”
However, it wasn’t just the game that was the problem, as the ESRB was also strict when it came to trailers, meaning Valve couldn’t easily release the cinematic trailer for Left 4 Dead 2. And so with the sequel, Faliszek says they leaked their trailer “in advance, because they wouldn’t let us release the trailer. I’ll just admit, I don’t think we could get in trouble for that Now it was like 20 years ago.” I sure hope you can’t, Chet! A funny story to go to jail for (you go to jail for leaks, right?).
