Team Fortress 2 becomes Valve’s first Free-to-Play game

Team Fortress 2 went free-to-play today, making it Valve’s first ever free-to-play game. The game was originally released as part of the Orange Box in 2007, so has never exactly been pricey, but those who have never purchased it now have no excuse not to give the 92% metacritic rated game a go.

The game will generate revenue via the already existing MannCo store, which sells various in game items. Mostly hats. Those who had already purchased the game will have a “premium account” that gives access to a load of goodies.

Speaking to Develop, Team Fortress 2 lead Robin Walker discussed the reasoning behind the game moving to a free-to-play model:

“We’ve been toying with the idea [of going free-to-play] ever since the Mann-conomy update, where we added the in-game Team Fortress 2 store…Over the years we’ve done a bunch of price experimentations with the game…The more we’ve experimented, the more we’ve learned there are fundamentally different kinds of customers, each with their own way of valuing the product.

“Now that we’re shipping it, it feels like a fairly straightforward next step along the ‘Games as Services’ path we’ve been walking down for a while now.”

Head over to Steam and try out Team Fortress 2 for yourself now, the only thing you’ve got to lose is memory space.