The Infection’s Spreading: Left 4 Dead Sale Increases Purchases 3000%

If undead-centric films and games have taught me anything, it’s that it takes more than a few headshots to keep a good zombie plague down. Resident Evil, George Romero… the undead always come back bigger and badder for a second helping of the helpless.

Left 4 Dead experienced a similar resurgence last weekend, when a 50%-off sale on Steam increased game purchases by a mind-munching 3000% when compared to sales figures from two weeks prior, according to a Joystiq article.

Yeah, you read that right. 3000%. Or at least that’s what co-founder Gabe Newell claimed during his keynote at Wednesday’s DICE Summit.

Valve sold more copies of the game last weekend than it did back in November when the game launched, according to G4. Steam memberships also skyrocketed a whopping 1600%, while retail sales remained stagnant.

So how did Valve pull it off? (Aside from tapping into everybody’s innermost desire to immerse themselves in the throes of the zombie apocalypse with three of their friends, of course.) Well, among other things, the company hired an experimental psychologist to work consumers into a frenzy, according to Shack News.

For starters, the expert recommended handing out a free copy of the game to every 25th purchaser. (Why it took a paid consultation for Valve to figure out Zombies + Free = Sign Me The Hell Up!, I’ll never know.)

This isn’t the first time Valve has cleared out Steam’s virtual shelves at rock-bottom prices. Fellow GotGame writer Hank Richardson reported on Ghost Recon Weekend, and Valve’s holiday sale had games going for a quarter of their value.

Even in that second example, Valve still came out on top. Enough gamers took advantage of the digital distribution deal (because really, who wants to leave the house?) that the company raked in 15% more dough than if sales had continued steadily at full-retail, according to Gamezine.

Hopefully, L4D’s success is an indication the only thing dead about PC Gaming is the zombies.