During Steam Dev Days, Valve discussed the value of in-game economies to boost revenue and user experience.<\/p>\n
Team Fortress 2 is their main example, being one of the first titles on Steam to make use of the now ubiquitous in-game item market economy.<\/p>\n
The Team fortress Mann-conomy, which introduced the in-game item store (and Hat Fortress 2 meme), was launched in October 2010 alongside the Steam Wallet.<\/p>\n
In June 2011 the game went entirely free-to-play, with the item economy becoming Valve’s revenue stream for the title.<\/p>\n
Some Team Fortress 2 stats that emerged from the presentation:<\/p>\n
Valve discussed the psychology behind this type of free-to-play game revenue stream, as it applies to many of the free-to-play titles on Steam, and not just their in-house games.<\/p>\n
Valve tries to avoid creating unhappy customers with poor micro-transaction system. This trains customers to not spend money, which is obviously a bad thing for the developer. Valve rejects the idea that micro-transactions come at the cost of user happiness<\/p>\n
The company believes it is not necessarily a bad thing to have pay-to-win systems, but it is a problem when this makes other users unhappy. Happy players means everyone makes more money.<\/p>\n
Valve wants users to create value for each other and recommends that all game items be tradeable. The company says that this is a good way to monetise free players; they don’t pay, but they still generate value.<\/p>\n
Source: SteamDB<\/a><\/p>\n Steam Controller overhauled, ditches touchscreen<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Valve Virtual Reality gear to trounce Oculus Rift?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Source Engine 2 in the works with OpenGL support<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Steam users, games, and Holiday Sale stats revealed<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\nMore Steam Dev Days news<\/h3>\n