Valve Introduces Free-to-Play Support for Steam

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Valve Introduces Free-to-Play Support for Steam

Post by Steve Farrelly @ 11:16am 15/06/11 | 26 Comments

Valve has announced they're offering Free-to-Play support for Steam, releasing five games with exclusive Steam content to celebrate - Spiral Knights, Forsaken Worlds, Champions Online: Free for All, Global Agenda: Free Agent, and Alliance of Valliant Arms (AVA).

Beginning tomorrow (Weds) with Spiral Knights and concluding Sunday with AVA, each of the five launch titles will offer exclusive in-game content to those who try the "F2P game of the day" on Steam. In game transactions in all of the titles will be supported by Steam's micro-transaction backend system that is available to Steamworks partners and currently used in Valve's Team Fortress 2.

While it's obviously not a huge step forward given the concept of F2P, it's another step in Valve's direction to keeping all of your gaming on Steam.

free-to-play steam valve champions online

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Pirroh
Posted 11:44am 15/6/11

I'm only seeing three of them (Spiral Knights, Champions Online and Global Agenda) on Steam.

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Reverend Evil�
Posted 12:08pm 15/6/11

Yeah, same here. Grabbing Spiral Knights and Global Agenda.

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Eorl
Posted 12:10pm 15/6/11

Cool.

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blaze0041
Posted 12:35pm 15/6/11

In somewhat related news, Crysis 2 has been pulled off Steam, and instead been made an EA "Origin-exclusive".
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2011/06/crysis-2-pulled-from-steam-now-exclusive-to-origin/

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Enska
Posted 12:38pm 15/6/11

^^ fucking lol, EA are massive spaz's

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Pirroh
Posted 12:52pm 15/6/11

Is anyone even interested in Crysis 2 anymore?

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Plasma
Posted 01:06pm 15/6/11

Was Cry2 eventually released? (out of the loop)

Considering how profitable (RE TF2 in-game items) the micro transaction store has been; this sounds like a neat idea for Steam.

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Eorl
Posted 01:20pm 15/6/11

Bahaha, that officially kills the game.

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Bah
Posted 02:16pm 15/6/11

Any of these games worth playing?

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Eorl
Posted 02:31pm 15/6/11

Spiral Knights is damn fun. Albeit a bit laggy, but might give my ports an opening. It has the essence of Zelda.

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FraktuRe
Posted 02:46pm 15/6/11

In somewhat related news, Crysis 2 has been pulled off Steam, and instead been made an EA "Origin-exclusive".
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2011/06/crysis-2-pulled-from-steam-now-exclusive-to-origin/

That's pretty bad news for those of us wanting to buy bf3 on steam though, fuckers will probably not put it up.

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Midda
Posted 02:58pm 15/6/11

Fucking hell. I really hope they don't restrict BF3 to their own store. If that's the case, I'll be buying my first physical PC game in many years. I don't want to support the idea of every publisher having their own distribution platform and client.

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Eorl
Posted 02:59pm 15/6/11

Limited edition is exclusive to Origin, however there are rumours Steam is getting normal edition.

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skythra
Posted 03:01pm 15/6/11

Fucking hell. I really hope they don't restrict BF3 to their own store. If that's the case, I'll be buying my first physical PC game in many years. I don't want to support the idea of every publisher having their own distribution platform and client.

Just make sure you get it from somewhere online so their sales look like physical retailers are still balls, but only they are the balls of the internet retailers.

I swear, EA is one step forward 2 steps back. One hand "Totally supporting games to release to Wii U" next week, "Totally removing support for steam".

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ravn0s
Posted 03:04pm 15/6/11

That's pretty bad news for those of us wanting to buy bf3 on steam though, fuckers will probably not put it up.

and mass effect 3

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DarthGuybrush
Posted 05:35pm 15/6/11

And EA just removed Crysis 2 from Steam!

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DarthGuybrush
Posted 05:38pm 15/6/11

EA themselves have stated Mass Effect 3 PC is Origins only. XBox 360 then.

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Ivonin
Posted 05:40pm 15/6/11

I believe this will fund a dickload more piracy then it already has.

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DeadlyDav0
Posted 08:10pm 15/6/11

Is anyone even interested in Crysis 2 anymore?

Fuck no. I got it only a little while after release (maybe a month) and even during peak times there were only a few full AUS servers and most were packed with 400ping fuckwits who lagged around the whole map using what im certain was unlimited energy hax. The gameplay pretty much was run around while invis trying to find somebody who isnt invis, shoot him then invis again before somebody else who is invis sees you and shoots you. Fucking retarded. Worse than COD6 IMO with regards to MP and i thought COD6 was bad.

Gotta check out that Spiral Knights. Tried global agenda and was completely lost.

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WirlWind
Posted 02:04am 16/6/11

Dave, Global Agenda is a write off if you're an Aussie.

End up having to lead targets because of old-school UT shot lag. Makes the game nigh on unplayable in most pvp action I've seen.

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ctd
Posted 03:57am 16/6/11

OMFG. I don't want to use two or more fucking platforms. Don't care about Mass Effect or Crysis but if BF3 isn't on steam I'll buy it from a shop (lol buying games from shops).

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Manst
Posted 12:08pm 16/6/11

You guys forget that even if you buy it from a shop they will probably make you sign up to their platform. Either way I foresee that if you want an EA game in the future your gonna need origin.

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CHUB
Posted 12:59pm 16/6/11

That will definitely be the case Manst, there will be no way around it.

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skythra
Posted 05:54pm 17/6/11

Just as an aside:

If you try and download Forsaken World then steam will eat up your bandwidth downloading it, but it will be invisible. It won't add itself to steam, and from reports you won't be able to claim your free steam turtle.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1931677

This only affects australian and newzealand people.

Included in this thread for when you realise the game was a bad idea before you've even finished letting it download:

Delete the files in the \common folder and the .ncf files in the \steamapps folder(they both have forsaken world in the filename). Without these steam should forget about the game entirely and stop trying to download it.

So that again is:
Quit steam entirely.
Delete the files.
Steam will give up downloading it
Do as you will with the remainder.

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DeadlyDav0
Posted 06:07pm 17/6/11

Dave, Global Agenda is a write off if you're an Aussie.End up having to lead targets because of old-school UT shot lag. Makes the game nigh on unplayable in most pvp action I've seen.

Noticed that. Quite sad how so many games are dead in Aus yet still alive and well in USA due to more people.

Played the spiral knights last nite. Pretty boring and laggy once i got to the online part with everybody else.

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Enska
Posted 06:09pm 17/6/11

+1 for Spiral Knights
pretty damn hard once you work your way through the dungeon floors.

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