The "Dude, Where's My Thumb?" contest is officially closed. Congratulations to contest winner Roland Nagy, who just won himself an extremely limited edition (i.e. one) customized "infected" Xbox 360 for his entry below:

During the production of a game, a lot of concept art gets drawn up, redrawn, thrown away, cursed at, and, occasionally, even used. There's a mountain of this stuff fluttering around the Valve offices, and while the non-artists among us might not know much (anything) about art, we hope we're not embarrassing our artists by saying it looks pretty kickass. So we grabbed some of it off the nearest pile and made it into desktop wallpaper:

For our Left 4 Dead 1 contest giveaway, we gave all you gamers a simple proposition: take a picture of yourself or a friend doing something creative in front of a L4D ad. We were blown away by the inventiveness, humor, and photoshop mastery of some of the replies.

Starting today, L4D2's second television spot (watch the first here)—drops on TV channels across North America. It's packed with explosions, jets, the song "Electric Worry" by Clutch, and hard-hitting action courtesy of our four Survivors Coach, Rochelle, Nick and Ellis.

Oh, and zombies.

The Left 4 Dead 2 demo is live and available for download on Xbox 360 and PC. Featuring gameplay from the first two (of five) chapters from "The Parish" campaign, the demo is set in the New Orleans French Quarter and is playable in Campaign mode. Keep an eye out for all-new guns, melee weapons, items, Special Infected and "Uncommon Common," a new campaign-specific set of zombies with unique abilities.

Those of you who pre-ordered Left 4 Dead 2 (for PC on Steam or at participating retailers) now have exclusive access to the momentous event they said would never happen. For the first time in history, two separate Valve universes collide. That's right: it's a Left 4 Dead/Team Fortress crossover! This is not fan fiction! This is not a dream sequence! The characters from Team Fortress 2 will team-up with Bill's hat from Left 4 Dead 1!

As many of you might have heard, Gabe and I went to Australia last week to try out the Source MOD made by Joe W-A, after he was able to raise the funds for the $3000 plane ticket in less than 48 hours.

We just had a great showing at the Tokyo Game Show. One of Left 4 Dead 2’s level designers, Kim Swift made the trip. You can check out her multi-language interview here.

Next public showing will be at the London Game Show where we will be showing the as of yet unannounced new game mode. We really should announce that soon… We can give you one hint, the game is 4 v 4. So get your team together and join us in London on October 29th or 30th.