Valve has announced that their digital distribution platform Steam will get some F2P titles like Global Agenda and Spiral Knights. Starting Wednesday and concluding on Sunday, the following games will be available: Spiral Knights, Forsaken World, Champions Online: Free for All, Global Agenda: Free Agent, and Alliance of Valiant Arms.
When launched, the game will have steam-exclusive content for those who play the F2P Game of the Day on Steam. The in-game transactions for premium content will be done through Steam’s own systems which is used and trusted by several million users.
The business development director Jason Holtman said “The introduction of Free to Play games is another example of the constant evolution of Steam.” in an official announcement. “Free to Play games offer new game genres and game experiences for customers, while offering developers and publishers new revenue opportunities and the ability to reach customers in areas of the world where the traditional packaged goods model is less popular than F2P.”
To sum these games up, Alliance of Valiant Arms is an online tactical FPS game notable for its graphics and highly balanced gameplay. Boasting multiple traditional game modes and some that are more common to single-player shooters.
Spiral Knights is an MMO published by Sega, having a low filesize and being easy on the processor. It’s an action-oriented game that plays like traditional action-based dungeon crawlers like Diablo. A good time waster but prone to getting repetitive.
Forsaken World is an MMO made by the chinese company Perfect World Beijing, and based on real world mythology. Praised for its excellent graphics and wide range of classes, races, and its soundtrack. It tends to play like most other MMOs however which may put some off.
Global Agenda is a shooter with RPG elements, having basic classes and several PvE, and (a rarity in MMOs I find) PvP minnions. The battle system needs teamwork and skill to win rather than just stats. It used to be subscription but it moved over to a free to play model as time went on. It’s extremely hefty at its 15GB filesize however.
Champions Online: Free for All is simply Champions Online rechristened with a new name, having moved to a F2P model. Published by Cryptic Studios, Champions Online has fast-paced action-oriented gameplay, and a wide range of character builds. A superhero MMO that uses a freeform advancement system.
MMOs being integrated with the Steam client is actually a pretty awesome idea. Although, I can say that most MMO communities are the worst communities on the internet from my own experience (and I have quit several strictly because of the community issues), so this might cause a handful of problems on the community end. We’ll just have to wait and see.
