Valve has confirmed that popular multiplayer hat simulator Team Fortress 2 is going free-to-play with the introduction of the Uber Update, but are relunctant to speculate with regards to their other core franchises.
In an interview with Develop, Valve’s resident Australian and TF2 overlord Robin Walker assured fans that Valve had no plans to implement in-game advertising, premium subscriptions, or ‘pay-to-win’ options. Instead, Valve’s only direct source of profit will be through the Mann Co. storefront, their online microtransaction marketplace.
As Robin notes, this is clearly another step along the path of Valve’s ‘games as a service’ philosophy. He predicts that this move will attract more players to the game, increasing the value of the game to every single player – providing more available servers, a wider variety of different players, and so on, as well as promoting the Steam platform itself, the microtransaction system known as the Steam Wallet, and community-created items.
Though in general this seems like a good thing, or at least an interesting idea, fears have already been raised about the removal of the barrier to entry for hackers and idlers; namely, the cost of buying a new game every time they get caught, something which Valve has previously identified as a primary method of hacker prevention. What this will mean for the in-game trade economy (such as it is) remains to be seen.
In a hilarious fit of irony, part of the current userbase is also already speculating that going free-to-play will attracts hordes of immature idiots ‘like in CoD’ and proclaiming yet again that the game has been ruined forever.
Oh, and Meet the Medic is out.
(via Develop)
UPDATE: The Free-to-Play FAQ is now live, detailing the differences between free players and ‘premium account’ holders, or those who paid to play. Interestingly, free account holders cannot trade items or wear hats, which may perhaps provide some incentive to upgrade to premium and deter idle farming for items.
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