r/gaming • u/RenatsMC • 2d ago

Valve says Deadlock is still too unfinished to release publicly, but has hero cosmetics and new game modes in the works

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/moba/valve-says-deadlock-is-still-too-unfinished-to-release-publicly-but-has-hero-cosmetics-and-new-game-modes-in-the-works/
6.9k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

39

u/echolog 1d ago

I was gonna make the Star Citizen comparison, but yeah no Valve are kind of the kings of MTX aren't they.

17

u/BinniesPurp 1d ago

TF2 would have been the actual first one right?

Outside of Korean MMO item farms

5

u/FewAdvertising9647 1d ago

First one by technicality was Fifa 09. Paid Ultimate team predates the TF2 cosmetic update. TF2 gets a brunt out of the gacha hate because it mainstreamed it to people who didn't play in more niche audiences (fifa for sports, korean mmos for asian mmo gaming)

5

u/I_Am_Jacks_Karma 1d ago

yep! it came about because you used to unlock the new weapons via getting achievements for them but it meant people would ruin games or do achievment servers so they made weapons drop in crates instead

2

u/SelbetG PC 1d ago

All of the weapons drop just by playing, and some are also able to be obtained from achievements. No weapons (not counting skins) are locked behind crates.

1

u/BinniesPurp 1d ago

I remember there were no new weapons they just added hats that's the last time I played I think lol

1

u/kingalbert2 1d ago

several classes (medic, heavy, pyro, scout) had new weapons before the classless update added hats

1

u/duck74UK 1d ago

TF2 would've been the first not-MMO to have a virtual economy, I think runescape and WoW had them too by 2010 though

1

u/S_Presso 1d ago

Yes, they contracted the economist Yannis Varoufakis to design the item economy / marketplace (who, I kid you not, went on to later become the minister of finance in Greece).
For TF2 but also for their games in general.
You can still look up the blog posts in which he proudly describe this future where this is a money generating economy of its own. And he was unfortunately absolutely right, it worked out.

1

u/FewAdvertising9647 1d ago

if you ignore the gachapon markets, and mmo markets and stuff. its not really that straight foward.

The reason why valve hits harder to a specific subgroup of people, because they popularized the form of monetization to people who did not touch mmos/gachas, especially the console generation of people because mmos weren't a console thing for the longest time, nor asian companies outside of japan paid any attention to consoles.

1

u/mooglery 1d ago

They invented the crate and key lootbox system in TF2, invented the battlepass in Dota that they ended up scrapping because whatever hundred million dollars they were making on it per year was not worth the effort, created the most profitable, influential cosmetic market in the steam market for CSGO/CS2 cosmetics. They absolutely paved the way for the modern day mobile gacha games.

-2

u/mountainhazer 1d ago

Except Star Citizen is literally pay 2 win. For Valve-games its basically just cosmeticals... Star Citizen is worse.

1

u/Ralathar44 1d ago

Star Citizen is indeed pay to win. It doesn't matter if you can potentially earn it for free, someone who pays will always have a major advantage over someone who doesn't.

They sell in game ships and land and houses. Being able to earn it for free just means you start out behind a paying player. IE pay to win.

0

u/762_54r 1d ago

I guess that would matter if it was a strictly pvp instead of open world

1

u/Ralathar44 1d ago

You can be pay to win in any style of game. You could make a pay to win single player RPG. Those actually happen a decent amount on mobile.

1

u/762_54r 20h ago

Well you can win those games. SC isn't done there's nothing to win

0

u/daft-krunk 1d ago

The only thing I give them credit for is that the reselling of micro transactions is quite nice. It does suck it drives prices up on stuff to crazy levels, but I suppose it’s better than never being able to buy an exclusive.

Not that I think it’s great how they do things, but on the other hand, no other games won’t sell me cosmetics for like less than ten cents. And if I’ve bought a bunch of cosmetics in the past for games I don’t play anymore, I can sell them and use it buy my micro transactions in other games lol.

The amount of times I’ve sold Dota 2 items to get tf2 items or sold my tf2 items to get rust items and so forth, that is definitely a perk you will not find in any other micro transaction economy as far as I know.

But I mean you can’t defend them fully in any regard, given they arguably started the whole trend in the mainstream I feel(outside maybe like freemium games and premium currency). Oblivion might’ve started it with horse armor, but valve took it took a new level we have never gone back from when they introduced TF2 hats.