A ratings board wouldn’t let Valve release a trailer. It “leaked” it instead.

评级机构不让 Valve 发布预告片，于是他们选择了“泄露”

Back in 2009, Ars wrote about what was being reported as a leaked trailer for the then-upcoming Left 4 Dead 2, saying the footage “looks like it’s straight from a high-gloss action movie.” Today, we need to offer an important update to this crucial, 17-year-old story: The trailer “leak” was orchestrated by Valve itself.

早在 2009 年，Ars 就曾报道过一段据称是当时即将推出的《求生之路 2》（Left 4 Dead 2）的泄露预告片，称其画面“看起来就像是直接从一部高水准动作电影中截取出来的”。今天，我们需要对这则 17 年前的重磅新闻进行一次重要更新：那次预告片的“泄露”其实是由 Valve 自己策划的。

That news comes courtesy of former Valve writer Chet Faliszek, who said in a newly posted video about cut lines in the game that “for Left 4 Dead 2 with the ESRB… we leaked our trailer ahead of time because they wouldn’t let us release the trailer.” Faliszek is referring to the Entertainment Software Rating Board, the self-regulating industry group that, since 1994, has offered sometimes questionable age-appropriateness ratings for thousands of games submitted to its purview.

这一消息来自 Valve 前编剧 Chet Faliszek。他在最近发布的一段关于游戏中被删减台词的视频中提到：“在《求生之路 2》与 ESRB 的交涉中……我们提前泄露了预告片，因为他们不让我们正式发布。” Faliszek 所指的 ESRB（娱乐软件分级委员会）是一个自律性行业组织，自 1994 年以来，该机构一直为提交给其审核的数千款游戏提供年龄适宜性评级，但其评级标准有时颇受争议。

While many smaller and/or online-focused game makers skip out on getting those ratings these days, at the time, any publisher that wanted space on major retailers’ shelves needed to submit to the ESRB’s standards. Those standards included restrictions on how companies could market their games as well. And looking back at the “leaked” Left 4 Dead 2 trailer on YouTube, you could argue that it falls afoul of guidelines that prohibited trailers with “graphic and/or excessive depictions” of “violence… the use of weapons… [and] blood and/or gore” as well as those with “crude and/or offensive language.”

虽然如今许多小型或专注于在线游戏的游戏开发商会选择跳过这些评级，但在当时，任何想要在大型零售商货架上占有一席之地的发行商都必须遵守 ESRB 的标准。这些标准还包括对公司如何营销游戏的限制。回顾 YouTube 上那段“泄露”的《求生之路 2》预告片，你可以认为它违反了当时的准则，即禁止预告片中出现“生动和/或过度的暴力描写”、“武器使用”、“血腥和/或残暴画面”，以及“粗俗和/或冒犯性语言”。

At the time, Valve had some recent firsthand experience with the ESRB’s sometimes onerous enforcement of its marketing standards. Earlier in 2009, the ESRB requested a change to a Left 4 Dead 2 promotional image featuring a hand with three gnawed-off fingers, leaving two intact digits indicating the number of the sequel. To pass the ESRB’s muster, Valve shot a new version with two of those fingers back in place (and simply curled down) that eventually appeared on the game’s box art. “Faliszek pointed out that this is a game where people are torn apart using a chainsaw,” we reported at the time. “But bitten off fingers on the logo? That’s crossing some line.”

当时，Valve 对 ESRB 有时严苛的营销标准执行力度有着切身体会。2009 年初，ESRB 要求修改《求生之路 2》的一张宣传图，图中是一只被啃掉三根手指的手，剩下的两根手指正好暗示了续作的代数。为了通过 ESRB 的审核，Valve 拍摄了一个新版本，将那两根手指放回原位（只是弯曲了下去），最终出现在了游戏的包装盒封面上。我们当时报道称：“Faliszek 指出，这是一款人们会被电锯撕碎的游戏，但标志上被咬掉的手指？那触碰到了某些底线。”

“Likely to cause serious offense to the average consumer” “可能对普通消费者造成严重冒犯”

The ESRB of nearly two decades ago could also be quite restrictive regarding game trailers in particular. In 2007, the ratings group requested the removal of trailers for D3’s Dark Sector and 2K’s The Darkness after they had already been shared across the web (behind age gates on most major news sites). In a statement at the time, the ESRB’s Patricia Vance said that “the mere presence of an age gate does not permit a publisher to simply put whatever content it wishes into the trailer. All trailers must still conform to [the Advertising Review Council]’s Principles and Guidelines, which prohibit the display of excessively violent content or any content likely to cause serious offense to the average consumer.”

近二十年前的 ESRB 在游戏预告片方面也可能非常严苛。2007 年，该评级机构要求撤下 D3 的《黑暗地带》（Dark Sector）和 2K 的《黑暗》（The Darkness）的预告片，尽管这些预告片当时已经在网上流传（在大多数主流新闻网站上设有年龄限制）。ESRB 的 Patricia Vance 在当时的一份声明中表示：“仅仅设置年龄门槛并不意味着发行商可以随意在预告片中放入任何内容。所有预告片仍必须符合（广告审查委员会）的原则和准则，该准则禁止展示过度暴力内容，或任何可能对普通消费者造成严重冒犯的内容。”

According to Faliszek, Valve decided to get around this potential enforcement action for the Left 4 Dead 2 trailer by simply seeding it as a “leaked” version that it knew would quickly spread around the Internet to effectively market the game (even to those who were loudly planning to boycott its release). At the time, though, some people doubted the purported “unofficial” nature of the trailer’s release, as evidenced by this contemporaneous Reddit thread.

据 Faliszek 称，Valve 决定通过将其作为“泄露”版本发布来规避这一潜在的执法行动。他们知道这会迅速在互联网上传播，从而有效地推广游戏（即使是对那些大声疾呼要抵制该游戏的人也是如此）。不过，当时确实有人怀疑该预告片所谓的“非官方”发布性质，正如当时 Reddit 上的这个帖子所显示的那样。

“You have to remember… Valve was in fights with the ESRB, with Australia, with Germany, with a bunch of countries about the profanity in the game, the violence,” Faliszek said in his recent video. “I’ll just admit that [we leaked the trailer]. I think we can’t get in trouble for that now. It’s like 20 years ago.”

“你必须记住……Valve 当时正与 ESRB、澳大利亚、德国以及许多国家就游戏中的脏话和暴力问题进行斗争，” Faliszek 在他最近的视频中说道。“我承认（是我们泄露了预告片）。我想我们现在不会因此惹上麻烦了，毕竟那是 20 年前的事了。”

Despite Valve’s marketing subterfuge at the time, the Left 4 Dead 2 trailer footage seems downright tame compared to the kind of blood and gore that’s almost standard in game trailers released these days. And that same “leaked” footage was eventually used as the intro cinematic in the game itself just months later, when it merely got an “M for Mature” rating from the ESRB. If the violence or language in that trailer was really “excessively violent” or “likely to cause serious offense,” the group could have given the game a much more restrictive AO (Adults Only) rating, as it initially did for Manhunt 2 just two years before.

尽管 Valve 当时采取了营销诡计，但与如今游戏预告片中几乎成为标配的血腥暴力相比，《求生之路 2》的预告片画面看起来简直温和得多。而那段“泄露”的视频在几个月后最终被用作了游戏本身的开场动画，当时它仅仅被 ESRB 评为“M（成熟级）”。如果预告片中的暴力或语言真的属于“过度暴力”或“可能造成严重冒犯”，该机构本可以给游戏一个限制性更强的 AO（仅限成人）评级，就像他们在两年前对《侠盗猎魔 2》（Manhunt 2）所做的那样。

Today, Valve and other game publishers don’t have to worry about a repeat of this kind of marketing scenario. The ESRB’s updated advertising principles now explicitly allow trailers to include “any content from the game or live-action or pre-rendered sequences… provided that such content reflects the game’s true nature and does not supplement or exceed the Pertinent Content in the game.” Seventeen years ago, though, Valve had to lie to the ESRB, and the Internet at large, to get its Left 4 Dead 2 trailer footage into the world.

如今，Valve 和其他游戏发行商不必再担心这种营销困境重演。ESRB 更新后的广告原则现在明确允许预告片包含“来自游戏的任何内容，或真人实拍、预渲染序列……前提是这些内容反映了游戏的真实本质，且没有补充或超出游戏中的相关内容”。然而在 17 年前，Valve 不得不对 ESRB 和整个互联网撒谎，才能让《求生之路 2》的预告片面世。