The Olympics are going on right now. Phelps is winning gold metals like there’s no tomorrow, China and the USA are duking it out on the uneven bars, and it’s all very intense to watch—but so is Flash versus Jaedong.

I’m talking about the Averatech-Intel Classic finals I stayed up until 4am to catch with some of my former guildmates last Saturday. For a forty thousand dollar prize, hundreds of Starcraft players climbed a ladder and the final rung gave way to two players: Flash (Terran) and Jaedong (Zerg).

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The biggest conundrum of the gaming world isn’t whether video games inspire real life violence or the ongoing console wars. It’s not controversy about Fat Princess being, well, fat either. Honestly, gaming has always been about the relationship between fans and developers—the semantics of when a company should listen and when they shouldn’t.

It’s about the acknowledgment that a company can be right and wrong; the realization that change isn’t always a bad thing, but isn’t always good either. And the simple fact that the angry lynch mobs of gaming should not always be heard.

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“Listen. You are not your Redemption, Cryptstalker, Bonescythe, Frostfire, Dreadnaught, Plagueheart, Faith or Dreamwalker. You are not your Thunderfury, your Ashkandi, or your Scepter of the False Prophet.”

Two years ago, when I quit Death & Taxes, I wrote a rant titled that. I was angry and childish. I felt like I’d spent over a year in one of World of Warcraft’s top guilds, and all I had to show for it was a Redemption Ring—and one of the best geared characters in the world.

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I don’t like console to PC ports of video games.

You’ve probably played one or two, maybe even lived to tell the tale. You probably dislike them, too. Recently, Resident Evil 4 had a port by Ubisoft that was so horrible players couldn’t even play the purchased game without downloading mouse hacks to straighten up the awkward aim and messy controls. I don’t know about you, but I like to be able to play the games I buy right out of the package after a short install—not after hours scouring the internet for fixes upon finding Ubisoft’s homepage link to the hot fix dead. I also like to be able to use my mouse when playing a game involving shooting in real time. Somehow, while transferring it from the Gamecube and PS2 to the computer, Ubisoft managed to completely deface one of the best games of this decade almost two years after its initial release.

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Left 4 Dead. I’ve been following it for over a year, and I can tell you it is going to be good. Great, even. Something about zombies and Valve generally speaks favorably in my mind. It’s a pairing as epic as Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet and Ophelia. There’s really nothing to complain about here–except for the delays.

Instead of talking about that, though, let’s talk about the game. The brains behind it, the blood it promises, and the Molotov cocktails it’s going to bring this November.

Let’s talk about why you should be talking about it now.

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It’s such a tease when games are scrapped as they near completion—kings and queens of delays and ill-fated cancellations. So many games are completely different than their alphas and betas; other games never even hit the shelf in one piece. There are a lot of regrets as a gamer when this happens, though who can say if it’s mourning the game or just our lack of control and input into the industry.

I can say, however, that if we had our way, we’d all have played Starcraft: Ghost four years ago and Parasite Eve 3 wouldn’t be released as a cellphone game.

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