The interview conducted with Valve's Doug Lombardi and Jason Holtman with Gamasutra started out plain enough, but soon ventured into the realm of microtransactions.
Other parts of the interview focus on Lombardi's assertion of the PC's dominance over consoles, and a bit about Indie developers.
So does Valve ever expect to capitalize on emerging trends like microtransactions, tiered subscriptions and free-to-play?" I think you will definitely see that come online," said Holtman. "We know that's an emerging trend, already very well established in Asia now. We've looked at that, we know we have a base there, and we also know there's a model that people are exploring... where you can play an instance for free with microtransactions [as] another way of lowering the barrier to entry and getting people into that game and into that franchise."What does this mean for the future of Valve's titles or business model? Your guess is as good as mine right now, but the wheels are already turning over in Asia with the Steam free version of Counter-Strike, CS: Online. It'll be interesting to see how this pans out.
Added Holtman, "You will see partners come on and do it, and you may see functions inside Steam come online. it's something we've always approached... you're going to see it slowly roll out, and we'll see how people react."
Currently, he says, Valve is working with Nexon to experiment with CS Online under those revenue models in Taiwan, Korea, Japan and China, incorporating a microtransactions model.
"Folks will need to make microtransactions to get different items, skins, things like that," Lombardi explains. "We're working with those guys, and using different versions of our backend to administer it, and obviously our IP to headline it."
Other parts of the interview focus on Lombardi's assertion of the PC's dominance over consoles, and a bit about Indie developers.
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