Steam Just Keeps Getting Better – Now With Free To Play Games

With the many fantastic daily deals available on Steam, you have to wonder what could be better.  Valve has satisfied that curiosity today by announcing the immediate addition of five Free To Play (F2P) games to Steam.

• Spiral Knights
• Forsaken Worlds
• Champions Online: Free for All
• Global Agenda: Free Agent
• Alliance of Valiant Arms (AVA)

In addition, beginning on Wednesday (6/15/2011) with Spiral Knights and concluding Sunday with AVA, each game will offer exclusive in-game content to those who try the “F2P game of the day” on Steam.

“The introduction of Free to Play games is another example of the constant evolution of Steam,” said Jason Holtman, director of business development at Valve. “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.”

All five games will be monetized using the same micro-transaction system currently used in Team Fortress 2.  This leaves me to wonder if user created content will be available to sell for the new titles in the future.

Watch for more details about the exclusive in-game content right here on Platform Nation.

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Left 4 Dead 2 DLC Revealed

Valve truly embraces the game modding community.  The recent DLC announcement is a perfect example as it will bring some community based mods to console gamers.

“Matthew Lourdelet (2 Evil Eyes) has been working on a new community campaign – Cold Stream. We loved 2 Evil Eyes and Cold Stream looks even more promising with innovative game play arenas and effects. Matthew has really shown that there are still plenty of new ideas in L4D2 modding.

He recently shared it with us and we love it so far but it isn’t done. We were tempted to have him quietly finish it with our help and release it as part of an upcoming DLC.

Tempted… but we decided against that. Instead, we think we have a better idea. We want you the community to be part of the process of taking his unfinished campaign and releasing it as DLC on the Xbox 360, PC and Mac.”

The DLC, which has yet to be named or dated, will be a sort of “map pack” and will not include any new story elements – only new campaigns.  To start off with, the remaining three Left 4 Dead campaigns will be included in this DLC.  Since it is being developed on what Valve likes to call “Valve Time”, the DLC will be released only when it is ready – but it will be sometime AFTER Portal 2 is released.

The Beta version will be available on PC and Mac only – and you can make suggestions on what to include in a forum dedicated to the development of the “Cold Stream” DLC.

Source: Bobby (^RF) of the XboxSupport Elite Tweet Team / Left 4 Dead Blog

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An email sent to media outlets from Aperture Science (a domain that tracks back to Valve) stating that the Portal 2 presentation originally scheduled for Monday, June 14th at E3 2010 has been canceled.  More to the point “replaced” with a “surprise”.  This is either a brilliant publicity move or someone a Valve dropped the ball (not likely).   The vibe here is that something amazing is coming from Valve.

Find this complete story with the email from Valve at Platform Nation.