Marketing


To give Left 4 Dead significant exposure, Valve (the Independent game company) financed a $10-million marketing campaign for the game in the United States and Europe, with advertisements appearing on television, print, websites and outdoor placements in many cities. Valve also hosted photo contests called, "Dude, where's my thumb?" offering copies of Left 4 Dead to people who submitted the best picture involving zombies or the outdoor advertising.


Left 4 dead have used facebook as a connection to the outside world and focus their marketing on a wide target audience. On the 'Left 4 Dead' facebook page they engage the viewer with various marketing strategies; one of which is the promotion of new characters. They have a range of photos with the in game graphics and also models of the characters within the game. This gives people an insight to what the game is like and the kind of graphics/characters that feature in the game, intriguing the viewers and making them want to buy the game to play with/against. 


To promote the game and provide basic training to players before starting the game, Valve chose to develop a pre-rendered intro movie. This movie was released on Halloween and shows events prior to the beginning of the "No Mercy" campaign. Valve chose an intro movie over in-game training mechanics because they wanted the players to be immediately dropped into a zombie apocalypse. The movie aimed to make the game seem more meaningful and realistic when playing it as the trailer shows how the game would look in real life, adding another dimension to Left4Dead. This engages the the players of the game, but also promotes it to those who have never played it.

The product is also promoted in such a way that makes the consumer believe that they are getting the most out of their money buy including free items within the game if it is purchased before a certain date. This makes the consumer happy when they have bought the game as they receive 'free' products.

Production
The development of Left4Dead started in 2005 by Turtle Rock Studios which was then purchased by Valve Corporation during the development. The latest version of the Valve source engine was used with improvements such as multi-core processor support and physics-based animation to more realistically portray hair and clothing, and to improve physics interaction with enemies when shot or shoved in different body parts.Turtle Rock Studios aimed to create a horror film-inspired game that merges single player games' character-driven narrative structure with multiplayer games' social interaction and high re playability.

Distribution
Development of the game was completed in 2008 and two versions were released digitally: A downloadable digital version, which was available online, and a digital retail disc version. Left 4 Dead is available for PC and Xbox 360, as Xbox bought the rights to the game. The product is available in stores and online via websites such as play.com which promote the sales of the game. Althought the game cannot be purchased on xbox live, there is alot of downloadable content available for purchase.

Consumption

The consumer is able to play single player campaign, split screen and interact with on line game play. There are also available free downloadable packages online which brings a variety of maps and items. This ensures that the consumers do not get bored, and always have something new and different to look forward to.