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Back in June, we reported that Team Fortress 2 had adopted a free-to-play model. Sure, free users didn’t have as much functionality as paying users (a paying user is anyone who has spent any money on TF2 at all, hats or otherwise) but the whole game was basically there for them to enjoy. Of course, there were a few naysayers who thought that this would make TF2 less appealing to the masses. Well, those people were wrong. According to Gabe Newell, the head honcho over at Valve, Team Fortress 2’s user base has increased fivefold since the game went free-to-play. Since TF2 was making more money on hats and weapons than it was on actual game purchases anyway, this means an actual revenue increase for Valve. In fact, Newell said that nearly twenty to thirty percent of TF2’s users make the switch from free-to-play to paying customers, which is ten percent higher than what he was told he could expect. 
Essentially, times are changing and in a world that is just being introduced to digital distribution and the free-to-play model. No one truly knows how to handle this yet, but luckily, Gabe Newell is there to lead the charge. By Angelo M. D’Argenio |