Great games blog

In today’s squeeze-everything-you-can-out-of-every-customer-and-every-property environment, it is refreshing to hear a company flat-out refuse to do business that way.  Valve software is adamant about not charging customers for downloadable content, and had this to say on the matter:

“You buy the product, you get the content.  We make more money because more people buy it, not because we try and nickel-and-dime the same customers.”

“Our philosophy there is, if you buy the product, we put more content out to keep the game interesting, we sell more products.  Counter-Strike is number one and has been since ‘99 because we kept the game interesting, not because we tried to charge people more, and that’s come back in sales of Counter-Strike.”

In order to keep making money, post-release, Valve has been focusing on the use of in-game advertising to bolster revenue.  Microtransactions have no place in their strategy.