

Team Fortress 2 getting micro-transactions via Steam Wallet - trafficlight
http://www.teamfortress.com/mannconomy/FAQ/

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tvon
Team Fortress 2 has offered absolutely stunning value to the buyer over the
past two years. Paying $15+ for DLC for the Call of Duty, GTA and Battlefield
games is an absolute joke compared to the massive improvements that have come
to Team Fortress 2 from the publisher _for free_.

What I'd like to see, however, is some hard numbers that demonstrate this has
been worth it to them from a financial perspective.

~~~
arohner
I can't find the link right now, but I'm pretty sure I've seen them say:

1) TF2 is profitable, even including the close to ten years that it spent in
development(!)

2) They make money off the updates (because of new sales), but not always
enough to break even for the update

3) Valve views TF2 as their sandbox to see how players respond to certain
ideas, so they find it useful to keep TF2 around even if it weren't carrying
its weight anymore.

(edit this backs up some of my claims:
[http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/08/19/interview-valve-on-the-
fut...](http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/08/19/interview-valve-on-the-future-of-
team-fortress-2/2/))

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cjeane
_However, each time you fund your wallet, the minimum amount of funds that you
can put in your Steam Wallet is $5 / £4 / 5€ to keep transactions and payment
service provider fees to a minimum._

Is $5 really a micro-transaction?

~~~
jws
I think the individual transactions can be quite small. You just have to
commit to making $5 of them because of the non-micro-transaction handlers.

Apparently you can buy gear. I haven't played TF2, but from my "too many" TF
days, there were many times I'd have gladly payed $0.10 to see a sniper lagged
for just 200ms.

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noonespecial
We've been talking about this for years, since the bad old days of TF _before
the turn of the century_ (1).

Wouldn't it be awesome for online games like TF to have a small "buy in" and
then a prize purse for the winners? That might be enough to bring this old
fogey back to Team Fortress again.

(1) Yes, kids, they had Team Fortress, on the quake engine, playable online in
the 1900's. It was blocky, it was slow, it was guaranteed to be lagged to
hell, _and we liked it that way_. Now get off my lawn.

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frou_dh
While Valve's continued development is impressive, as someone who hasn't
played since what must be 2008, the stream of new systems and facets that have
been laid over the game make it intimidating to return (harshly: game bloat).

~~~
mquander
Have you actually tried it and been discouraged? Honestly, 100% of the core
gameplay is identical to what it was in 2008. The bonuses are just new maps,
slightly different alternate weapons, a new game mode or two (payload, king of
the hill), and hats. It's not as if they added a dozen new classes or
something; they release exactly enough content to keep it fresh for people who
are playing all the time.

I'm surprised that anyone would find it intimidating -- frankly, if you took
2008 me, put me in a hole for two years, and brought me out to play TF2 CTF or
CP, I would probably barely even notice that there were new things.

~~~
frou_dh
Good to know. I haven't played since, I just always seemed to see changes
mentioned on news sites.

Someone also told me there were 360-like achievements (with perks) and there
ended up being servers with custom maps to rack them up with minimal effort.

~~~
mquander
Yeah, there's a few hundred achievements (!) which exist for a combination of
fun and to unlock the alternate weapons. (If you don't get the achievements,
you'll gradually get the weapons anyway via random "drops" when you die and/or
crafting, trading, or (now) RMT.)

