Valve creates micro-transaction steam support

Damn! As lame as I find the TF2->hat game transformation, there is just no way around to take my hat off when seeing those amazing numbers. Highly impressive.

So now a money fire has to be lit under peoples asses to make worthwhile content. Nice.

Always brings out the best in people, surely.

Quote from zaphod

So are they starting to teach economics classes at game development school programs yet?

actually i had a few at my school. but these were quite shitty and more about management rather than peer-2-peer selling and micro transactions.

Wow!

This is sooo just the beginning

too bad this will never work for custom maps because everybody would have to have it

Nobody wants new maps either, it's all about HATS HATS HATS!

Youme emailed Robin about his concerns over the pricing of levels ($3000) compared to items.

Quote from Robin Walker

We’re actually very concerned about this, and getting level designers fully into the economy is actually the highest priority thing we’re working on right now. We’ve got a bunch of ideas for how we’re going to do it, and we think you guys will be happy to see them. The solutions we’re kicking around will all handle the case where maps are being produced by collaborations of people, like you [Youme] and Alex.

It'll be interesting to see what happens.

if a hat model is 10 bucks than by caluclaitons of how much more affort it is to make a full custom map

a map should be worth something around 10.000 $ !

not gonna happen !

Quote from Warby

if a hat model is 10 bucks than by caluclaitons of how much more affort it is to make a full custom map a map should be worth something around 10.000 $ !

not gonna happen !

Lower your standards and profit. Make 10 FY_ICEWORLD's instead of 1 cs_havana. The real challenge is figuring out why people will buy your professional fy_iceworld before downloading a dozen amateur clones for free.

still not gonna happen !

i mean the thing is just that owning a map is pointless in a multiplayer game when nobody else has it / is playing it ! i mean thats even an issue with FREE mp maps !

Quote

Valve say that their plan is to get the community involved with other aspects of the game as well, the ultimate aim being to let map makers, animators, custom UI creators and guide makers sell their wares through TF2. Before any of that comes into play, Team Fortress 2 creator Robin Walker told us that we can look forward to more Polycount items, which will be released with the next update, along with a brand new game mode.

Also Valve's cut is 75%

Then each of these guy's items made around 200 000$ x5 = 1 000 000$

I'm happy that Valve is redistributing the wealth (let's face it, a lot of people would contribute for buttons just to have their art in a great game), but I'm also slightly bemused at those amounts.

That's a good chunk of a year's salary for most employees. Moreover, amazingly talented artists populate triple A titles with reams of amazing content and (when you spread those payments out to a year) only see a fraction of that money. Unless valve has very generous profit-sharing schemes, those contributors will be making so much money that they'll outstrip most Valve employees. Also, as already mentioned, there's a huge disparity with the amounts paid to level designers. I'm guessing a contributing level designer will be paid a(n admittedly not paltry) one-off sum for their work, yet someone who contributes a hat and a gun makes a huge wad of cash?

I... brain... can't.... resolve this?! I guess all I'm saying is whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

Not having a pop at Valve, just ... struggling to make sense of this and what it means.

Back in my day in the mod scene, the amount we got paid for a community made map that went into the retail product was less than a week's worth of salary for a full time in house level designer...and by garr that's the way we liked it. Wait...no we didn't.

I guess that's just how it worked back then. Today, if I made a community map that took a year from start to finish that got absorbed into a commercial product that made Valve money, I'd sure as hell would want more than a couple grand for it. I suppose there are a lot of details Valve needs to fathom out.

You will propably get community TF2 maps and L4D campaigns on sale as well.

I doubt they can do the same with maps, as paid map content packs will split the community. At the very best, all they could do is bundle up a decent amount of maps (say 5) into one pack so that it guarantees pack owners will be able to play together. Even then, I can't see it happening.

Custom maps are not easy to sell because of their nature. A map is the resulting mix of plenty of assets + a layout design. Back in the days when Valve would purchase community maps (as opposed to contracting custom mappers to make maps for them), they had to go through all the red tape of pinpointing each asset to its maker, then give that guy the papers and check that comes with it. I heard that on DoD, it was up to 30 people. Per level.

An asset is easy to sell. It's a lot easier to quantify, and it's generally only done by a single person.

Cant people just pimp maps as well? Why make an entire map when you can just sell a model like "New Water Fountain -> replaces model x for official map y"

Quote from Skjalg

Cant people just pimp maps as well? Why make an entire map when you can just sell a model like "New Water Fountain -> replaces model x for official map y"

That's a good idea.

And Why stop there.

People could pimp avatars, ambient sounds or taunt sounds. Imagine playing a good game of TF2 then suddenly you get killed and the player tosses this OMFGWTFBBQ awesome sound-taunt at you.

You just gotta have that taunt too.