5 ms·

Like Team Fortress 2, Valve make DotA 2 free to play - revenue via in-game store

62 points by Smerity 14y ago

omgsean 14y ago
I really think Valve knows how to do this right. If you get people hooked on the gameplay they'll pay for silly extravagances. See: Basketball and LA Lights.
- Smerity 14y ago
  For the community generated content, Valve pays the creator twenty-five percent (25%) of the Adjusted Gross Revenue[1]. TF2 has already paid out $3.5 million to creators, so it's reasonable to assume the TF2 economy has rewarded Valve to the tune of ~$10 million. I think this could work out very well for them. [1]: http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/workshoplegalagreement http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/workshoplegalagreement
  - Laremere 14y ago
    That number doesn't include items which they don't pay the item creator. Most notable as far as I know keys don't pay anything towards content creators, and they're a very important piece of the economy.
- Natsu 14y ago
  > If you get people hooked on the gameplay they'll pay for silly extravagances. Some part of me is picturing them becoming the most successful virtual haberdasher ever. http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Hats http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Hats
gnufied 14y ago
There are few concerns about how ability to customize a hero can affect fantasy aspect of the game. It will be weird if a hero called Anti-Mage suddenly walks around with cowboy hat. There is also a concern of heros suddenly not being recognizable at all, but I think valve will provide various options to get around that. All in all pretty good move though. It will help propel Dota2 to biggest game in China etc where Warcraft3 engine based DOTA is already very popular.
- SoftwareMaven 14y ago
  Ten Cent made an investment in Riot Games with the plan to take League of Legends into China. How is it doing against DotA?
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
soup10 14y ago
They pretty much had to make it f2p to have a chance against LoL, the currently dominant game in the genre. Dota 2 vs LoL should be pretty interesting. I'd argue that LoL has an extremely strong first mover advantage. Dota was technically first, but it wasn't a standalone game, and was completely inaccessible for new players, so I don't really count it. What i'm curious to see is if a company with as much reputation/money as valve can overcome that. If I was a gambling man i'd guess that LoL is going to stay #1, both because they have the first mover advantage, and because this is Riot's only product, so they have way more at stake than Valve, and are going to work harder to make sure they have the best product.
- Smerity 14y ago
  The playability has improved greatly since the original DotA. The UI for DotA 2 has been tweaked to be far more friendly to the novice player. Items used to be one of the most confusing elements of the game and has been fixed by giving each player a simple to follow suggested items guide. Starting a game is also incredibly streamlined. Three or four clicks, a "time until in game" suggestion and then that's it. They've also introduced a karma system where you reward or punish other players for their actions, including language, suicidal playing style and so on. I agree it'll be interesting to see how it competes with other games in the same genre but my money right now would be on DotA 2 simply as Valve really know how to make their games.
  - Chrono 14y ago
    DotA was not at all novice friendly and I do believe DotA 2 has done a lot to reduce the barrier of entry. The UI is simply amazing at this point and all matchmaking based games should really look at DotA 2 before designing their UI, it is simply that good (in my opnion).
- mquander 14y ago
  I expect that LoL might retain a devoted playerbase, sort of like Runescape, but I definitely predict that Dota 2 will be making a ton of money and getting all the attention. - They seem serious about sponsoring tournaments and making it competitive and balanced - LoL turns off a lot of people with pay to win - Their interface and client is already holy shit way better, like night-and-day better, and I expect that it will just get more better, since they have more talent and more man-hours - They should know how to promote and run F2P games as well as Riot, since TF2 was a big success for them
Legion 14y ago
I am becoming a big fan of the free to play model. I think it serves a lot of players well: * When you're a kid, money is a scarcity. I would have loved to have had a bunch of quality F2P games when I was a kid. (Of course, these games tend to be online-based and the commercial Internet wasn't around back then, kids today don't know how good they have it, off my lawn, etc etc) * When you're a working adult, it's free time that's the scarcity. I'm happy to throw some coin at Tribes: Ascend to give me some of the equipment that I wouldn't have the time to grind and unlock. * If you're my wife, it's interest level that's the scarcity. She finds game here and there that really grab her interest, but everything else just gets a "meh". F2P means the ability to sample, no sunken cost besides a little bandwidth usage. It's better than demos were, because if the game is a winner, there's no transition hassle from demo to full product - you just keep on playing.
- cageface 14y ago
  I am becoming a big fan of the free to play model. I think it serves a lot of players well Probably, but not me. I'm the grumpy old curmudgeon that prefers to pay a one-time fee for a quality game and compete purely on skill, not on hours spent grinding or real money spent flipping bits in a DB somewhere. And even at $50 a pop even the typical teenager should be able to pay cash down for a game every month or two. What this is really about is shutting down piracy.
  - Laremere 14y ago
    There is absolutely nothing in the dota2 store which affects gameplay. All items are 100% cosmetic. This allows anyone to go in and play any hero on even ground, but if you like a character you can spend a little irl coin to customize and stand out.
    - cageface 14y ago
      Yeah I was referring to the comment about buying gear in Tribes. I don't have a problem with cosmetic in-game purchases except maybe a worry that they give game designers the wrong incentives.
wiradikusuma 14y ago
in my previous company, a large national financial institution, we (IT dept) had "dota hour" almost every day during lunch time. the interesting part is the teams were divided by "managers/supervisors vs staffs".
gosub 14y ago
Is it possible to play a dota-like game in single-player? I don't enjoy playing multiplayer games and registering to play.
- sundarurfriend 14y ago
  I've played only the original DoTA, and it's possible there. You can either play solo against a single AI, or have n AI heroes in the opponent team and (n-1) AIs in your team - I'd recommend the latter with n=5. The AIs play like an intermediate level player (albeit with a few exploitable weaknesses).
- haar 14y ago
  Dota2 has a co-operative play against AI players, and I assume you can play this mode on your own if you wish; however this entire genre typically focuses on multiplayer values to get the most out of the game. For example, there is no storyline, and the gameplay depends entirely on working together with your team-mates to overcome a huge range of situations that develop from different hero line-ups.

62 points by Smerity 14y ago

I really think Valve knows how to do this right. If you get people hooked on the gameplay they'll pay for silly extravagances. See: Basketball and LA Lights.

Smerity 14y ago
For the community generated content, Valve pays the creator twenty-five percent (25%) of the Adjusted Gross Revenue[1]. TF2 has already paid out $3.5 million to creators, so it's reasonable to assume the TF2 economy has rewarded Valve to the tune of ~$10 million. I think this could work out very well for them. [1]: http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/workshoplegalagreement http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/workshoplegalagreement
- Laremere 14y ago
  That number doesn't include items which they don't pay the item creator. Most notable as far as I know keys don't pay anything towards content creators, and they're a very important piece of the economy.
Natsu 14y ago
> If you get people hooked on the gameplay they'll pay for silly extravagances. Some part of me is picturing them becoming the most successful virtual haberdasher ever. http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Hats http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Hats

gnufied 14y ago

There are few concerns about how ability to customize a hero can affect fantasy aspect of the game. It will be weird if a hero called Anti-Mage suddenly walks around with cowboy hat. There is also a concern of heros suddenly not being recognizable at all, but I think valve will provide various options to get around that. All in all pretty good move though. It will help propel Dota2 to biggest game in China etc where Warcraft3 engine based DOTA is already very popular.

SoftwareMaven 14y ago
Ten Cent made an investment in Riot Games with the plan to take League of Legends into China. How is it doing against DotA?

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

soup10 14y ago

They pretty much had to make it f2p to have a chance against LoL, the currently dominant game in the genre. Dota 2 vs LoL should be pretty interesting. I'd argue that LoL has an extremely strong first mover advantage. Dota was technically first, but it wasn't a standalone game, and was completely inaccessible for new players, so I don't really count it. What i'm curious to see is if a company with as much reputation/money as valve can overcome that. If I was a gambling man i'd guess that LoL is going to stay #1, both because they have the first mover advantage, and because this is Riot's only product, so they have way more at stake than Valve, and are going to work harder to make sure they have the best product.

Smerity 14y ago
The playability has improved greatly since the original DotA. The UI for DotA 2 has been tweaked to be far more friendly to the novice player. Items used to be one of the most confusing elements of the game and has been fixed by giving each player a simple to follow suggested items guide. Starting a game is also incredibly streamlined. Three or four clicks, a "time until in game" suggestion and then that's it. They've also introduced a karma system where you reward or punish other players for their actions, including language, suicidal playing style and so on. I agree it'll be interesting to see how it competes with other games in the same genre but my money right now would be on DotA 2 simply as Valve really know how to make their games.
- Chrono 14y ago
  DotA was not at all novice friendly and I do believe DotA 2 has done a lot to reduce the barrier of entry. The UI is simply amazing at this point and all matchmaking based games should really look at DotA 2 before designing their UI, it is simply that good (in my opnion).
mquander 14y ago
I expect that LoL might retain a devoted playerbase, sort of like Runescape, but I definitely predict that Dota 2 will be making a ton of money and getting all the attention. - They seem serious about sponsoring tournaments and making it competitive and balanced - LoL turns off a lot of people with pay to win - Their interface and client is already holy shit way better, like night-and-day better, and I expect that it will just get more better, since they have more talent and more man-hours - They should know how to promote and run F2P games as well as Riot, since TF2 was a big success for them

Legion 14y ago

I am becoming a big fan of the free to play model. I think it serves a lot of players well: * When you're a kid, money is a scarcity. I would have loved to have had a bunch of quality F2P games when I was a kid. (Of course, these games tend to be online-based and the commercial Internet wasn't around back then, kids today don't know how good they have it, off my lawn, etc etc) * When you're a working adult, it's free time that's the scarcity. I'm happy to throw some coin at Tribes: Ascend to give me some of the equipment that I wouldn't have the time to grind and unlock. * If you're my wife, it's interest level that's the scarcity. She finds game here and there that really grab her interest, but everything else just gets a "meh". F2P means the ability to sample, no sunken cost besides a little bandwidth usage. It's better than demos were, because if the game is a winner, there's no transition hassle from demo to full product - you just keep on playing.

cageface 14y ago
I am becoming a big fan of the free to play model. I think it serves a lot of players well Probably, but not me. I'm the grumpy old curmudgeon that prefers to pay a one-time fee for a quality game and compete purely on skill, not on hours spent grinding or real money spent flipping bits in a DB somewhere. And even at $50 a pop even the typical teenager should be able to pay cash down for a game every month or two. What this is really about is shutting down piracy.
- Laremere 14y ago
  There is absolutely nothing in the dota2 store which affects gameplay. All items are 100% cosmetic. This allows anyone to go in and play any hero on even ground, but if you like a character you can spend a little irl coin to customize and stand out.
  - cageface 14y ago
    Yeah I was referring to the comment about buying gear in Tribes. I don't have a problem with cosmetic in-game purchases except maybe a worry that they give game designers the wrong incentives.

wiradikusuma 14y ago

in my previous company, a large national financial institution, we (IT dept) had "dota hour" almost every day during lunch time. the interesting part is the teams were divided by "managers/supervisors vs staffs".

gosub 14y ago

Is it possible to play a dota-like game in single-player? I don't enjoy playing multiplayer games and registering to play.

sundarurfriend 14y ago
I've played only the original DoTA, and it's possible there. You can either play solo against a single AI, or have n AI heroes in the opponent team and (n-1) AIs in your team - I'd recommend the latter with n=5. The AIs play like an intermediate level player (albeit with a few exploitable weaknesses).
haar 14y ago
Dota2 has a co-operative play against AI players, and I assume you can play this mode on your own if you wish; however this entire genre typically focuses on multiplayer values to get the most out of the game. For example, there is no storyline, and the gameplay depends entirely on working together with your team-mates to overcome a huge range of situations that develop from different hero line-ups.