[0xcde4c3db]

> Didn't Valve make the "traditional" buy-once games like Half-Life, Portal, HL-derivatives like Team Fortress/CS?

There's a reason that the slogan "we used to make games, now we make money" has been half-jokingly attributed to Valve. For years, their biggest revenue producers have been their free-to-play games with cosmetic microtransactions such as CS:GO, DOTA2, and TF2. As far as I know, their last "traditional" game was Portal 2 in 2011. Half-Life: Alyx could be argued to have similar production value, but was released as more of an erstwhile "pack-in title" for the Valve Index headset.

[solardev]

Oh wow, I didn't realize those games evolved into cosmetic marketplaces. (I bought TF2 and CS:GO when they were still one-time purchases).

But they're purely cosmetic? That sounds like a wonderful business model for all involved, especially vs the predatory P2W crap that's really infesting the market (especially in mobiles and MMOs). I'd probably also rather than a F2P cosmetics-only game over a buy-once game... if only because that usually implies there will be a proper server farm hosting the games, lessening cheaters or peer to peer hosts with terrible connections.

[dgant]

TF2 has functional items, but you can generally receive them from playing or buying them for a fixed price, around $1 each. Realistically for $30 you won't lack items.

The cosmetics will cost you, though.

[piperswe]

I hear they also balance TF2 quite well such that the functional items don't really give an advantage, just a different play style