Eurogamer: Isn't Left 4 Dead a hard sell, because as a co-op game it doesn't have the either production values of a Half-Life or the obvious replay value of a Counter-Strike?

Eric Johnson: When we think of Left 4 Dead, we think about it like it's the next Counter-Strike. Counter-Strike still is quite successful and we think it's filling that gap. We don't think it's a hard sell.

Doug Lombardi: Counter-Strike was a harder sell. It had been a free mod for a year, we were not going to stop that happening, and that made retailers and our publisher at the time outrageously nervous and scared of doing it. It had two characters per side, seven maps and about five weapons when it first launched.

Eric Johnson: And it was a brutal game. And it was buggy. Everything about it was fighting against it, but there was this piece of Counter-Strike that people couldn't get away from. Over time it became a full-fledged product that continues to do well today. Left 4 Dead is way ahead of that. We feel pretty good about saying it's going to be the thing that finally beats Counter-Strike.