[jpreiland]

It's interesting how people are willing to shell out so much on in-app purchases for games in particular.

Not judging at all, of course. I play D&D, League of Legends, and Magic the Gathering, all three of which have (to varying extents) an illusion of being free. I've spent large amounts of money on each game and I don't even regret it!

Valve has it down with TF2 and hats. From my understanding it was somewhat of an accident (If I recall correctly, a Valve employee at a talk I attended said that they weren't expect hats to be so huge), yet it's another great example of how much potential free games have to rake in loads of cash. This is certainly the direction I'll go in if I ever plan on making games (unless I want to do a legitimately 100% free game for fun)