@believer258: @bisonhero: @rowr: You really can't see anything objectionable about the way valve has been handling their current business model? For some, the F2P system might be a kind of tip jar to support a game they love. This is not the way it was designed or the reason Valve seems so interested in F2P. No, the random loot, the marketplace and other clever features of Valve's games are geared towards bringing the worst out of certain people. In short, their games are designed to breed whales and that's why they make so much money.

The fact that the games are good doesn't make the whole thing ok. Great games, particularly great games that demand an high level of commitment only insure you spend more time in contact with the part of the game designed to create a need for meaningless crap. TF2, Dota 2 and CS all fall in that category. And as much as you might think you're not being manipulated, you are. It's not magic or jedi mind tricks, it's just exploiting basic human psychology.

But hey, I'm fine with people enjoying those games. I just hope the trend doesn't go farther than it already has. It already has taken too much away from games I actually want to play.

I can't figure out where pyrodactyl's hate is coming from beyond "Valve isn't making games I like" with a twinge of "I wish Valve would make something else". If these evil games themselves were not very good, why would people bother buying ineffectual cosmetic items? Beyond that, why is anyone bothered by someone wanting to spend money on a game they like? It is definitely not effecting you especially if you never touch their games where if you believe that if Valve wasn't so successful with these games they'd do something else like Half-Life 3 then you are sorely mistaken.

Stepping back for a moment, the issue seems misguided. To use the classic example, "Oblivion Horse Armor" is not a good deal but acting like Bethesda was evil seems incorrect.

I already addressed all that in my previous post. I could expend by saying this goes far beyond Valve. F2P is gaining market share by the day. Valve use to make awesome games I enjoyed immensely. One could envision a future where other companies that made games I love start focusing on F2P games.

Aah so you want to use a "slippery slope argument" which is "meh". You can envision whatever future your imagination can take you but looking at the now what Valve is doing with TF2, CS:GO, and Dota 2 is not "evil" and seems pretty valid and fair.

Do you know what is kind of an icky F2P? Take a look at what happened with Mass Effect. You are locked out of single player and multiplayer features if you don't spend money. I will not be surprised at all if EA will offer some "bonus pack" for Dragon Age Inquisition for $9.99 and supply creates starting at $1.99.

With a still mute main character -- I think absolutely nowhere. I seriously believe they reached the limit of suspension of disbelief with Freeman. If you really think about how the ending of E2 played out, it is rather silly how Alyx cries way into the credit sequence while Freeman apparently just stares at her, twirling his useless vocal chords.

I really don't envy the writers of HL2:E3 and/or HL3 if they still have to work around Freeman's speech impediment.

@extomar: The future I'm describing isn't far fetched at all. F2P is growing like crazy and it might replace some parts of the industry I enjoyed quite a bit.

And yes, putting Mass effect 3's prothean character behind a pay wall was shitty but I played the game without it and loved it. That multiplayer slot machine system was also gross. But the base game was awesome (except the ending) and trying to sell me more stuff wasn't part of the core design. Same thing for dragon age. They might offer bonus packs and sell you cheats or something but people at bioware didn't spend any time bending the systems, the UI and the presentation of the game to act as some sort of passive marketing for said bonus packs and cheats.

To sum up, the fact that there is worst stuff out there (ME3 multiplayer random loot) doesn't make me feel any less grossed out by what valve is doing. Your example on F2P seeping into singleplayer bioware games illustrates my slippery slope argument quite well. I still think most of what EA is pushing into its singleplayer games is better than almost all F2P.

@pyrodactyl said:

I think anyone who chooses a F2P Valve game to get into specifically because it's completely free probably isn't going to spend all that much money on it. It's not like they're hiding that things can cost money, they're just making sure you can enjoy the game fully without needing to spend money.

Trust me, if the games were garbage they wouldn't have made any money at all. They are still a company that needs to make money to make more cool things so there has to be business somewhere, but at least that business is in no way restricting your access to the cool things they make. There are much worse ways they could go about doing this, including most of the ways other companies go about doing this.

I'm not seeing it, sorry.

As far as i'm concerned, this is the only way f2p should be done. Absolutely no bearing on the gameplay, never forced to pay anything.

Given i've spent somewhere around a thousand hours with this game, i've put some money in here and there on some cosmetics and I don't regret a cent.

You could say they have tricked me into spending money by creating a fantastic game and putting out fantastic content for it.........................................................................

I wasted approximately 90 Aus dollars on watchdogs and got virtually nothing out of it. By your logic ubisofts business practices are objectional. (edit - not "by your logic". But you see what i'm getting at.)

@pyrodactyl said:

I think your phrasing is what's throwing people. Reading between the lines, it sounds like you don't have an issue with Valve's style of F2P, so much as you just think any major traditional $50-$60 game developer switching to F2P is bad. Which is an entirely different discussion from "the way Valve has been handling their current business model" which is what you keep saying. Because their version of F2P is completely inoffensive and fine.

But sure, if this doomsday happens where they never make another $50 game and F2P multiplayer is all they ever do, and we never get another Valve story-based game, that would be a bummer. But I don't think that's a guarantee yet.

@bisonhero: We'll just have to disagree on the ''inoffensive and fine'' part. From Brad's tumblr:

Anonymous said: Have you became a happier person in real life since you started playing Dota?

Response: HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL NAW

He might be half joking. Pretty sure he's at least half serious.

As for the Valve making regular singleplayer games again, nothing seems to point in that direction. Last time they talked about singleplayer was to say they wanted to add features for the social media connected gamer. That sounds bad. It sounds like F2P design making its way into singleplayer games.

@pyrodactyl: Yeah, I'll admit I'm not a teenager anymore so I don't know what all the cool teens think about social media integration, but like, do kids actually want to post the bullshit they're doing in a singleplayer story to like Facebook or Twitter? Or put their screenshots on Instagram? I thought the way Sword & Sworcery EP let you tweet out basically any line in the game was super retarded, though apparently game journos just ate that shit up.

But then, I don't see the point of Twitter, aside from it being basically an inane comments section where you can say dumb things because nobody expects that much out of 140 characters. And Twitter allows grown-ass adults have what amount to forum arguments in a public space using their real name. And you get to have an e-peen about how many followers you have.