GamerDNA's Left 4 Dead stats reveal power of Steam sales, promotions

xbox cant do free play weekends for games, unless they hosted the full games online, for people to download and try (like a super large demo), but it doesnt really work that way.

They could do free online MP for certain games on a given weekend. I think they've done it before in fact, but I don't recall for certain. I'm surprised they don't do it more often to get people addicted to XBL.

Certain game developers sponsor the "gold weekends" when big games come out...Or when Halo is released.

The only problem I found with the free L4D weekend was the inability to find a server. I'm sure it surprised Valve how strong the demand was.

everyone on my PSN friends list has been playing rag doll kung-fu which was made free for 1 week since last thursday. so yeah, it works.

What are you, a Microsoft exec?

He was talking about making games free for a trial period.

@ Ihavepants: what are you, a valve suckup? All signs point to yes!

But since you like to hammer this FALSE point home, let me be clear that NO, I am just a person who likes GFWL titles, and like other GFWL gamers, our efforts are just that, OUR EFFORTS. You are probably the one who has to get paid to post here. Otherwise, you could not be bothered I'm sure...

See you online with Street Fighter IV. It uses GFWL, even with the versions from Steam.

GFWL - So I misread the statement. OH NOES! Happens to everyone.

"GFWL - So I misread the statement. OH NOES! Happens to everyone."
Lol, then don't respond. That's a terrible excuse.
Just, cry.

In all fairness, it's highly likely that the bump associated with the 50% off sale was mostly due to new players, as I can see no reason for older players to care more that weekend than any other (unless they really, really like pwning noobs).

More maps, new weapons, new charecters, new infected...

That's like having a graph showing the number of people watching a classic film per day in the years since it's cinema release, and concluding from the steep dropoffs after its cinema, dvd and special edition dvd release that it has no lasting appeal. xD
Where does it specify that individuals stopped playing it forever after buying it? It only describes players per day. It's reasonable to expect that people hyped up for a new release, a patch, a sale or a free weekend, will play the game a lot for a brief period, and then inevitably drop back into their regular routine. I played it for hours on end when it launched and when the new content was released - then it's time to do other things, and maybe play it on weekends. The typical daily rate doesn't mean a huge proportion of people stopped playing it altogether, let alone from a lack of interest, and the graph doesn't actually show that.
All it means is that nowhere near everyone that ever bought the game is playing it every single day - which you'll find with any game, or as I mentioned above, any film or book for that matter.

"Based on proprietary GamerDNA data pulled from 180,000+ active PC and Xbox users. Calculations based on equal percentages of PC and Xbox users."

Of course the actual numbers aren't that close, it's a typical adjusted sampling.