Andy "Gandysampras"
News Monday, September 14th 2009

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You may have heard us talking on the latest NGCast about Valve flying out of the heads of the L4D2 Boycott group to play the game and get them to shut their stupid pie-holes. (As a quick aside wasn’t it fantastic to see the boycotters eat their words?) One intrepid modder named Joe emailed Gabe after seeing that Valve were flying out trolls and asked why he hadn’t been flown out so Valve could play his campaign for the original L4D.

Of course this is all in good fun, as Joe is a huge Valve supporter and seems to even be on rather close terms, perhaps even closer than The GHost, with Gabe Newell. As Valve are hilarious and do lots of cool things, Gabe decided he would reply to Joe, stating that they are boycotting his mod.

Once the gauntlet had been thrown of course Joe had to raise the money somehow. As he couldn’t afford to fly to Australia himself, for obvious reasons Fly Gabe Newell was born. To Joe’s surprise donations began arriving and after receiving in excess of $500, he inquired how much it would cost to fly not only Gabe but also Erik Johnson out to Kangarooland.

Newell played what I assume he believed was his trump card and sent the modder a quote for the price of a flight from the USA to Brisbane, Australia ($1,211). Now thanks to several generous donations (including co-workers and you filthy internet types), the “Fly Gabe Newell” fund has broken the $3000 barrier which is more than enough to get both Gabe and Erik to Brisbane and also give a sizeable donation to Child’s Play.

Donations are still open and will go straight to Child’s Play but it seems like all Joe needs now is for Newell to step up to the plate and fly out, which judging from the e-mails the two have exchanged in the past is actually a distinct possibility.

Via: Kotaku