Steam ventures into free-to-play with five titles

Ryan Wilsey 14 Jun, 2011 at 3:46pm ET Article published in Gaming

Tomorrow, Valve is again breaking ground by adding support for free-to-play (F2P) gaming on their Steam platform. To kick everything off, five F2P titles are lined up for the launch, including Spiral Knights, Forsaken Worlds, Champions Online: Free for All, Global Agenda: Free Agent, and Alliance of Valliant Arms (AVA).

Starting Wednesday with Spiral Knights, steam will offer a “F2P game of the day” to introduce a title, and players will be rewarded with exclusive in-game content for trying the game when it’s featured.

This will be the first foray into F2P titles for many gamers, and offering a curated experience should help players avoid becoming overwhelmed. And since the five titles are free anyways, there’s no reason not to download them all, and enjoy the bonus content for being an early adopter.

As a reminder, these are F2P games, which means they are supported by in-game microtransactions. Whether you love or hate the concept, the transactions will be handled by Steam’s official backend system–the same used for Valve’s Team Fortress 2.

“The introduction of Free to Play games is another example of the constant evolution of Steam,” said Jason Holtman, Valve’s Director of Business Development. “Free to Play games offer new game genres and game experiences for customers, while offering developers and publishers new revenue opportunities and the ability to reach customers in areas of the world where the traditional packaged goods model is less popular than F2P.”

This is quite a step for Valve, as Steam has long adhered to the classic model of selling retail games. Gamers that wanted a F2P title would have to leave Steam and install it from another distributor. Now gamers can begin to enjoy a relatively infant genre with all the benefits of Steam, including automatic updates, friend lists, voice chat and more.

Users who want to get a head start on the F2P action can begin downloading the free-to-play titles today.

Comments

14 Jun 2011 ~ 3:48pm Thrax I'm going to try Forsaken World.
14 Jun 2011 ~ 4:02pm TiberiusLazarus

Free To Play

Thrax wrote:

I'm going to try Forsaken World.

Waht.
14 Jun 2011 ~ 4:12pm Thrax Just for lolz. I think F2P sucks, but I was dazzled by the bling. I also have nothing better to do, and I'm procrastinating on DA2.
14 Jun 2011 ~ 4:40pm Snarkasm

Thrax wrote:

Just for lolz. I think F2P sucks, but I was dazzled by the bling. I also have nothing better to do, and I'm procrastinating on DA2.

What why what

I think I've played it 4 times in the time it's taken you to play it once and procrastinate. God damn I love me some BioWare RPGs.
14 Jun 2011 ~ 4:47pm TiberiusLazarus Maybe if the game were any good, he might have finished it by now.
14 Jun 2011 ~ 4:59pm Thrax

Snarkasm wrote:

What why what

I think I've played it 4 times in the time it's taken you to play it once and procrastinate. God damn I love me some BioWare RPGs.

Too many sidequests, too little variation in environments, consolified inventory/controls, weak party character interaction, strong sense of repetitive content (omg brigands, spiders, demons and deeproads!)
14 Jun 2011 ~ 5:02pm Snarkasm All fair. Don't have to do all the sidequests, of course... But nobody can argue about the lack of variety. I was just a fan of the story.
14 Jun 2011 ~ 6:23pm Cliff_Forster No thanks, if a game was not good enough to demand $50 retail, or a monthly subscription fee from a dedicated fan base, its probably not very good. Please, if anyone finds something truly worth playing in these five titles, post back with your observations.
14 Jun 2011 ~ 7:36pm Garg The games that demand $50 retail and a monthly subscription fee aren't good enough for me to pay for them, either. If a free game can replicate the mindless grinding of popular MMOs, then it will probably be successful.
14 Jun 2011 ~ 8:47pm Bandrik

Cliff_Forster wrote:

No thanks, if a game was not good enough to demand $50 retail, or a monthly subscription fee from a dedicated fan base, its probably not very good.

While it's good that you're open enough to invite others to find a good example of a F2P game, that's just not being fair. Just because a game decides to follow a F2P model does not make it automatically inferior. It may not get the limelight like WoW or Call of Duty, but that doesn't make them bad games by definition. It's just a different business model, and quite frankly, I love the idea of a game that lets anyone come in to play, while still skimming profits off the top from the 5% or so that actually do buy things.

I don't play a lot of F2P games myself, but I know of at least two that are stellar: Dungeon Fighter Online and League of Legends. They're fun, they're pretty, they're well executed, and are constantly getting new content. They aren't for everyone, but for those that like them, they're a blast.
14 Jun 2011 ~ 11:47pm Canti Cliff this is the only thing I've ever read from you that I don't agree with. Just because they're free to play doesn't make them instant crap. They may very well be but I haven't tried them yet so I can't say but the instant rejection is odd. Global Agenda looks like some fun and regardless of how crappy they might actually be, they don't cost anything so there is no reason NOT to give them a try. If they suck, there was nothing lost but some time.
14 Jun 2011 ~ 11:47pm Canti

Thrax wrote:

(deeproads!)

also, EFF THE DEEPROADS
15 Jun 2011 ~ 1:28pm MrTRiot I've played Global Agenda since it was in beta. It's pretty good, especially if you like sci-fi and shooters. It was already on Steam so this is just a relaunch...

Alliance of Valiant Arms is a mix between Crossfire and Combat Arms. More polished for sure and a good all around f2p military shooter..
15 Jun 2011 ~ 3:26pm cola I actually have the full version of Global Agenda, I'd definitely say give it a try.
17 Jun 2011 ~ 3:25pm CB I can't find a way to move my existing Spiral Knights character over to my Steam account. If I want to take advantage of the Steam features, I have to make a new character. :/

Edit: Searching their forum, I found a note that they will be implementing this functionality next week sometime, due to strong demand.
23 Jun 2011 ~ 11:05pm Garg Wait, TF2 is FTP now? I guess more people were buying $10 hats than I thought.
23 Jun 2011 ~ 11:07pm primesuspect Yep, TF2 is now forever F2P
24 Jun 2011 ~ 1:09am Butters TF2, FTP = Keeping existing users exposed to constantly updated STEAM products instead of other services.
24 Jun 2011 ~ 3:50am MrTRiot

CB wrote:

I can't find a way to move my existing Spiral Knights character over to my Steam account. If I want to take advantage of the Steam features, I have to make a new character. :/

Edit: Searching their forum, I found a note that they will be implementing this functionality next week sometime, due to strong demand.

You play spiral knights? Add me to steam and lets team up!