You don't get many opportunities to pitch a game mod directly to the developers themselves. But next week, Valve president Gabe Newell will be travelling from Seattle to Brisbane, Australia to meet with Joe W-A personally - all on money fund-raised by the Left 4 Dead and Valve fan community.

Joe raised over $3,000 from the gaming community in less than 48 hours, to fund a plane for Newell after he playfully refused to fly Joe to Seattle. Newell stated he was "boycotting" Joe's mod. The comment was an in-joke referencing gamers' apparent distaste to the announcement of Left 4 Dead 2, with members of the online community claiming to boycott the developer for jumping on a sequel so soon after the first game's release.

Gabe's pretty impressed with the result, and is more than happy to put fund-raised money where his mouth is. "The power of the gaming community and their ability to rally around a cause - be it serious or fun in nature - is amazing... the community is putting me on a plane to the other side of the world to meet Joe W-A and see his MOD. It's going to be a fun trip."

The Valve community has rallied together in the past, to aid the FBI and European law enforcement officials in tracking down the culprit behind a stolen Half-Life 2 source code. When people get together for a noble cause like this, why it just brings a tear to this old soak's eye.