Valve is very similar to Rockstar Games in the way that it tends to promote its games in a very understated way. Unlike many other AAA game developers, Valve tends to not talk much about their games until it’s in a mostly complete form, and Valve’s Chet Faliszek says there’s a reason for that.
“Telling people a game is great will sell one extra copy. Letting people play the game — Left 4 Dead is a good example — is much better. All of our pre-release stuff is designed to just let people play it,” said Faliszek. “We just let the game speak for itself because the internet has made this thing where, you can’t pull the wool over people’s eyes any more. They’re going to know you’re hyping.”
“But when a game does really well at pre-release, they’re going to know that you’re not just talking a bunch of PR crap. I mean, the Left 4 Dead series has now sold over 12 million copies,” he added. “That’s amazingly cool, and that wasn’t because I was out there like, ‘Oh my god! This game is amazing! Buy it!’ Seeing Counter-Strike be the number one PSN title was awesome, and you know it’s just because of people reacting to the game.”
Source: VG247
