What pricing plan sounds better to you?

[Revenge]

I did a few quick searches and didn't find any discussions on the subject (but I bet it's been discussed to death long ago)...

What sounds like a better deal to you? Paying $10 a month or paying for everything separately?

I really dunno if valve could release $120 worth of content that I'd want per year...

 

[The Dark Elf]

If you just want HL2, or already have most of the others, or atleast the ones you like. Buy the full version from the store

If you don't have the others and are interested in them aswell as HL2 go the steam route.

 

[Mr-Fusion]

Valve won't release CS2, DoD2 or TF2 for a long, long , ....long time. So i'd say paying $10 a month to get those games may be considered a waste. After a year you've racked up $120 of payments and the games aren't released, Valve won't release screenshots, info or potential release dates. You'll keep paying your money and the games will be endlessely delayed, the production time going into years. HL2 has been in development for 5 years, Condition-Zero 2-3 years? TF2 5 years as well.

Basically, i don't really trust Valve in releasing those games quick enough to justify that $10 a month. (prove me wrong Valve...prove me wrong)

My faith is being placed into the mod community for the "next big thing". Mod makers are in a unique position where they can add new and unique content and not be whipped into place by higher up powers who think it's too risky and might hurt sales.

Example: Blood & Gore --> Not new or unique ....correct, but awesome nonetheless. Day of Defeat used to have huge bloody gushes and blood decals on walls (like CS has now). But for reasons unknown it was all taken out. I don't think Valves development teams can afford to be so arrogant to take out features that people love when new mods come out that have all this stuff in them. Also stupid idiotic features like minimaps and icons above peoples heads. It's just laughable that a game would need to have icons above peoples head. Woeful. Really very woeful.

Arghh. Sorry. Too much ranting.

Once again. The mod makers will be the ones who deliver the goods.

(icons above peoples heads...good god...you have to be kidding!?!)

 

[HybridM]

I just want to buy the game and install it and never pay another cent again.

 

[fizzlephox]

What fusion said. I don't think they'll be able to have quality releases coming out fast enough to justify $10 a month. Poor-quality games... maybe.

 

[Revenge]

Something I'm not sure about however... The way I pay for HL2 will have absolutely nothing to do with however much a mod team might want to charge for their mod right? I don't really like any of the official mods all that much, and tend to stick to playing Natural Selection and Sven Co-op (Unknown Worlds Entertainment seems like it wants to go in it's own direction rather than converting NS to HL2, and the SvenCoop team looks like it's going to stick to it's "play for free, donate if you want" attitude when they convert)...

Ok I think I've pretty much answered by own question... Besides I like pretty boxes and gaming manuals and I can't really get either if I go the monthly way...

EDIT: Woah! Lots of replies while I was typing this out...

 

[Letters]

Example: Blood & Gore --> Not new or unique ....correct, but awesome nonetheless. Day of Defeat used to have huge bloody gushes and blood decals on walls (like CS has now). But for reasons unknown it was all taken out. I don't think Valves development teams can afford to be so arrogant to take out features that people love when new mods come out that have all this stuff in them. Also stupid idiotic features like minimaps and icons above peoples heads. It's just laughable that a game would need to have icons above peoples head. Woeful. Really very woeful.

Arghh. Sorry. Too much ranting.

Once again. The mod makers will be the ones who deliver the goods.

(icons above peoples heads...good god...you have to be kidding!?!)

Both the minimap and the icons over the heads of your team are extremely helpful in Day of Defeat... what is your problem?



I defintely won't be doin' the monthly payment thing... I don't even play massively multiplayer games because of that...

 

[Hazza]

I don't think that the monthly thing is targeted at most of the people who will use this website. I think it's targetted at people who aren't sure whether they want to buy it and so they can try it for less and then get it if they want to or people who won't get as much use out of it by replaying it. Most of the visiters to this site will probably play it again and again and they will want the box and everything, so I don't see that there will be many people on here who will want to pay monthly.

 

[Revenge]

Both the minimap and the icons over the heads of your team are extremely helpful in Day of Defeat... what is your problem?

I have a problem with those and many other things in the new DoD... It used to be gritty, moody & sometimes even downright scary... Now it's like I'm playing a friggin cartoon... Fortunately NS saved my lust for gritty, moody, scary stuff! (OK sure I'm playing a lot of Sven Co-op now, but that's mostly because I enjoy mapping for it)

 

[another-user]

from the way i last understood this, its if u buy the full game (sp+mp) mods and online play and all that is free, but if u get just the sp game and want to play mods and what not its 10 a month. am i correct about this or way off?

 

[PvtRyan]

I wonder, does getting a Steam subscription give you right to download the mods of the people who make their mods paid?
Probably not but still would be cool
I prefer the game in a box, so I'll buy the regular version or if the special edition comes at the same time I'll buy that.

 

[chu]

Do you have to pay for every mod that comes out, if you want it? Or is it just for the main ones, the ones that will go retail?

 

[mbrithoms]

Valve hasnt earned my trust for $10 a month, ill be buying full and thats it

 

[PvtRyan]

Do you have to pay for every mod that comes out, if you want it? Or is it just for the main ones, the ones that will go retail?

Mod makers (anyone) can choose to make their mod a paid one, and sell it on Steam. So I wondered if getting a subscription means you can get those mods for free. Probably not, but just wondering

 

[Revenge]

Yeah I'm also wondering about that... But how would it work then? If a Steam subscription covered all 3rd party mods, then does that mean that mod teams who ask money for their work can make a claim to valve for the money I would have had to pay them?

If it was that easy, then wouldn't that mean ALL mod teams would ask valve for money if they knew they could get it for free just from subscribers playing their mod? Ofcourse to even out the subsequent legal issue that'll mean they'd have to charge us non-subscribers too... Can you imagine having to fork out money every month for something as crappy as Ricochet? D:

I hope for everyone's sake that the subscription is considered separate from 3rd party stuff, so that people still have some reason to go free and make their mods for the sake of art and not for the sake of cash...

 

[Quixote]

Are you guys sure about the selling on steam bit? The logistics would be tricky like revenge pointed out and I thought the common practice was to sell the source code to a company that wanted to make another game.

 

[Wilco]

???
There currently are plans to allow other companies to sell games over steam (Pirates of the Burning sea or something like that is 1 of them). And also allow mod makers to charge for games. Now the main reason why mods are successful is cos their free, so most mods wont make ppl pay until they are well established, and they probably wont anyway as it a lot fewer people would by it.

valve can also sell the Source Source to another company to make a game, thats seperate. valve also have a Steam SDK that companies can get in order to make their games compatable with steam.

 

[hero]

lets say u pay ur monthly fee for a year and u get the games tf2 hl2 cs2 and cz, after u stop paying the monthly fee you will not be able to play them

 

[Revenge]

Yeah that bites... I wanna know that in half a decade from now when I losing brain cells trying to imagine the pure emotion that Half-Life 3 will be, I can still go back and go through the HL2 just one more time as I have been doing with HL1 lately...

I've restarted up my mad mapping fetish and have started fooling around with the spirit of half-life mod in preparation for the sort of stuff we can do in HL2...

 

[chu]

They aren't going to allow every mod maker to charge for their mod are they?

That could get out of hand.

 

[Revenge]

I'm certain there are easily over 300 mods for HL1 (Including all the SP ones)... I'm just as certain that atleast half of them aren't worth a penny. There's CS2, DoD2, TF2 you'll probably have to fork out for each of those, NS2 probably wont be a mod and anything smaller than that I can't really imagine wanting to get money out of each and every player... I wouldn't be surprised if they simply maintain their donation programs if they want...

But, yeah you will be able to charge whatever the hell you want for your mod apparently... Which sorta goes against the whole idea of modding being purely an artform but what they hey... If I can make a quick buck then who cares about quality then eh? (insert rolling of the eyes and much cursing under breath about the rancid state of the gaming industry)

 

[Dr. Freeman]

They aren't going to allow every mod maker to charge for their mod are they?

That could get out of hand.

not all mod makers will have the power to charge.. simply because the mod may not be popular enough.. or just not that good..

if ur a mod maker.. and u just completed ur mod.. sure u can charge for it.. but whos gonna buy a mod they never heard of?

only realistic way a mod maker can justify a fee for the mod is if it gains the kind of popularity that CS has achieved (if a mod can even get half the popularity of CS, mod maker may be able to charge for it) but definitely just cause u pump out a mod does not mean pple will pay for it right away..