Left 4 Dead Preorders Soar While Economy Dives

Newsflash: the economy’s in the toilet. I’ll give you a moment to come to terms with that. Now that you’re caught up, I’m sure you’re seeing signs of our monetary woes everywhere. People are traveling less, shopping less, and yes, that was an investment banker that just fell past your window. However, apparently there’s an oft-overlooked sect of society that didn’t get the memo about this being one of the worst financial crises of our time.

Zombies.

Well, virtual zombies to be precise. You can stop loading that shotgun now. Preorders for Valve’s upcoming zombie survival-action game Left 4 Dead are outdoing the numbers set by their epic Orange Box compilation by 65%. It would seem that, for the gaming community, the only cure for a financial downturn is pwning zombies. Or pwning your friends as zombies. Everybody wins!

Except that guy.

But wait, you cry! Do Valve’s statistics really say anything about the behavior of gamers in times of economic turmoil? Well, yes and no. First of all, keep in mind that in spite of being one of the greatest gaming compilations of all time, two of The Orange Box’s five games, Half-Life 2 and its first episodic addition, had been released previously, at least on the PC. I’m sure there are people out there who take exception to paying for games they already own, which may have hurt The Orange Box’s preorder numbers. Second, Valve is similar to some other companies like Blizzard and Bioware in that they rarely, if ever, make a bad game. When just about every game you release is hailed as one of the best ever, you can definitely build up some brand loyalty; some gamers may be strategically purchasing Left 4 Dead in lieu of other games (or food).

No matter how you slice it, though, a preorder is a purchase, and a gaming purchase means disposable income. Somehow, gamers are finding a way to soldier on through these difficult times in order to achieve truly important things. Like pretending to kill zombies.