The update not only introduces a way to buy new guns, hats and fish-wrapped-in-newspaper melee weapons, it includes the long-promised Polycount Pack update. That’s the community created item sets, which add 17 new items for five of the game’s classes. Players can blow real-world cash on those items starting today. Prices range from 49 cents to $US4.99. Funds can be deposited to the newly launched Steam Wallet.
While Valve stands to profit from selling in-game items, so does the community. The in-game store FAQ notes “community contributors will receive a percentage of sales on items they’ve created.”
While the Mann Co. Store may be goods news for the lazy, the miserly needn’t be overly concerned about the change. Valve notes in its new Mann Co. Store FAQ that the Polycount Pack items are unlockable and craftable through normal means, just like other items.
Read more about the new “Mann-conomy” in the service’s newly released FAQ and peruse the new item sets at the Team Fortress 2 official site.
Probably not a big deal, but… [TF2 Blog]
MrBS
Friday, October 1, 2010 at 10:03 AMI better get myself over to the steam forums to bask in the rage!
Andy
Friday, October 1, 2010 at 10:25 AMYou sir, have a fine idea.
This will be brilliant to watch. I used to be a big TF2 player, and there was nothing more fun than laughing at people raging at the updates.
den
Friday, October 1, 2010 at 10:27 AMThe price for polycount packs cost more than the game!
IRATE VIDEO GAME GUY
Friday, October 1, 2010 at 11:05 AMThis is ridiculous. Buy a mount with IRL money, buy a hat with IRL money. Valve I am disappoint.
Mic
Friday, October 1, 2010 at 11:46 AMAs long as they’re still obtainable the normal way, I’m perfectly fine. Actually quite happy, since it means the pack’s out :D
Joe Mama
Friday, October 1, 2010 at 12:48 PMI think I’m going to stop playing for a long time, yeah I’m going to judge other people. When 5 people on the server I was playing on bought the 50$ polycount pack (IT’S GOING TO BE 110 AFTER THE SALE) and killed everyone, I raged. I raged hard.
You could be spending this shit on charity, or food, or even one of those gifts for everyone on the server. But instead you bought items, which are either 1. Cosmetic or 2. Craftable within a week.
IRATE VIDEO GAME GUY
Friday, October 1, 2010 at 1:01 PMWhen a DLC pack is five times the current price of the game itself…
Needs A New Username
Friday, October 1, 2010 at 2:57 PMplease direct me to this $100 ($20 x 5) DLC pack so i can laugh at it
Joe Mama
Friday, October 1, 2010 at 10:56 PMIt’s on the store page.
What people fail to realise is Valve is doing some really sneaky shit here.
There are set effects for people who buy the whole sets, there are crates that drop that can only be opened with a bought key (which doesn’t drop), the new items are harder to craft requiring a reclaimed metal each and the new items have an much lower drop rate.
As for Valve having development costs? Robin has said that they make more money than it costs to develop and almost all of the updates to TF2 have been fanmade. They’re probably only giving a few cents to the original creators and Valve didn’t even make the descriptions, they were pulled in for free from the forums – no prize or anything. So Valve made NOTHING AT ALL, on the new items – EXCEPT for any shitty and/or game breaking attributes.
Reoh
Friday, October 1, 2010 at 9:53 PMStores like this exist for one reason, people use them. This is your fault people!!
Joshy206
Saturday, October 2, 2010 at 5:31 PMDamn people, always using microtransactions.
Anyway, there might be a problem with this if any of the items were flagrant upgrades, but /none are/.
Loony
Saturday, October 2, 2010 at 4:07 PMIts a good idea for those who can’t be bothered getting drops, crafting or trading, but personally, I won;t be buying anything for a game I already own.