Steam Introduces Free To Play Titles

Valve, along with their Steam service, announced that they have introduced support for Free To Play (F2P) games. Five new titles will be launched on the Steam service, all of them costing no purchase price, nor a monthly fee.

Available as of now, the launch titles are Spiral Knights, Forsaken Worlds, Champions Online: Free for All, Global Agenda: Free Agent, and Alliance of Valliant Arms (AVA).

Starting today and going through Sunday, starting with Spiral Knights and ending with AVA, each title will offer exclusive in-game content to players who try the “F2P game of the day” deal on Steam. In game transactions 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.

Jason Holtman, Director of Business Development at Valve said about the new service:

“The introduction of Free to Play games is another example of the constant evolution of Steam. Free to Play games offer new game genres and game experiences for customers, while offering developers and publishers new revenue opportunities and the ability to reach customers in areas of the world where the traditional packaged goods model is less popular than F2P.”

I am looking forward to seeing what Steam will have to offer with upcoming F2P titles. AVA is one of the highest-rated F2P titles available right now, as it mimics the online multiplayer of top FPS titles on the market. Steam deciding to add this feature will add to the already immense titles to choose from with the service, and we can all enjoy that.