Team Fortress 2 player base 5x larger post free-to-play switch

I actually bought the game (with Orange Box) but I can't play since after one patch (sometime in 2011) my game stopped passing the loading. :)) Nice menus tough...

I too never would have purchased Team Fortress 2, but after it went free-to-play it got spruiked all over youtube and since I already had steam thought I would try it out. Love the game! Purchased some stuff from the store, not that I really needed or wanted it (prefer the stock weapons to be honest), but just to support the game after having now racked up like 70 hours of playtime (so far!). It's just such a fun, awesome game. I also really like it that they don't -punish- f2p players. There's nothing that annoys me more, than a game that says it's "free to play" when in reality the 'free' part is just like an extended trial. I could have happily stayed as a f2p player forever, and ironically enough that made me want to give Valve money, lol. PLAY THIS GAME!

my only problem with the game is the fact that every time now since the newest patch i can't play on any of the servers

can valve count to three?..

i dont carebring us half life 3

i like the fact that it has gone free to play i already had it but i stopped because it was close to death but now it filled with peaple witch i can play with (and defeat hard). so the fact that it has been gifted with a second life is great and they still get their money with the hats and guns and i am okay with it it keeps the game going

I've had the game for years, but have been playing it more since it went F2P

@lfebaggins There were tons of people who didn't know how to play properly before this game went F2P. Why are you mad? that you wasted money to buy a game that went F2P a couple of years after it was released and made its money?

@lfebaggins what is /wrist though oh superior intelligent being? Why not just write "go slit your wrist" It would make your insult to someone of being a "community college dropout" have some actual merit to it.

untill team fortress 2 went free to play i never even imagined purchasing it it just never apealed to me but now i have played it i have to say its been my most played title latley i have already even considered going premium good job valve smart thinking(now lets see what else they make free)

@lifebaggins I'm all for helping the community and helping people, hell i've helped plant trees and given money to charity however... I always question people that always bring Africa as their way to impose someone being inconsiderate of others... and yet people in Africa that can't afford food and have problems living they still have kids? Was their responsibility as a parent not to bring life to earth unless they was able to take care of it? Yes way off topic but I don't find the whole Africa argument completely justified considering the other facts. I respect the human population and knowledge that Industrialism and consumers are to blame for Africa's current state however :S they are making their own situation worse.

@Magick420 I find it hilarious that you claim I'm a jobless loser who has no money yet you acknowledge the fact that I had tf2 pre-f2p patch and that I must have bought the game. Disgruntled kid, moms basement, blah blah blah, good job insulting me with what everyone else says to other trolls. While trying to decipher my own words against me, all you've done is prove you have the intelligence of someone who flunked out of community college. You can go /wrists though, that could be the first intelligible thing youd do

@emperiox Not that I wanna STEAM your buns, but nobody is gonna miss your sales....

This is one of the only games I've seen that has done F2P right. In that you actually DO get a complete game for free without having to drop extra money to make it fun and/or playable. Rock on Valve.

TF2. For 20 bucks I have played 1500 hrs+ The game is constantly adding new maps, items (cosmetic and functional) It is community driven and gives money back to it's players that contribute maps and items to them. It can be a social game or a competitive game for the individual or someone that wants to work as a team. It has a liitle niche for everyone. The only people that I can see that would have a problem with this game are people who can't stand up to a mild learning curve.

@ lfebaggins I find it hilarious you mention starving kids in Africa when talking about people buying things online. What exactly do YOU do to help 3rd world countries? Nothing? Hmm. Then you are no different than the person buying stuff from a cash shop. You just decide not to spend your money there. In all honesty you probably dont have a job and cant afford anything anyways. You truelly sound like a kid in his moms basement that is all disgruntled over people buying items it took you months to earn in game.

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@BloodMist My pessimism is just in response to some butthurt noob's pessimism on my comments that TF2 is too good of a game to go the f2p route, being offended by my calling f2p noobs as cheapskates, since his friends and possibly he himself got the game when it became f2p, and trying to justify that buying hats on the Mann Co store counts as paying for the game. I'd go on but I think what I've said so far says enough.

@lfebaggins lolwut?

@lfebaggins Massive pessimism based on pure hyperbole wastes everyone's time.I hope you figure that out some day. *pats on head*

@WolfGrey What good is the community expanding if all it does is add more retards that can't seem to figure out how to transition from playing angry birds to team fortress. All the morons playing can't even figure out how to use the demoman pipebomb launcher. I never seen more tards playing tf2 except when tf2 became Mac compatible and the community had an influx of Mac tards. Oh and you and your f2p cheapskate friends bought some hats eh... GOOD FOR YOU! Here's your cookie. I never bought anything on the mann co store and never will. I got all my hats pre-mann co patch through frags and time played, without using the idling cheat. Congratulations on spending real money on that stuff. I mean poverty-stricken countries in Africa are scouring for dollar donations but hey if you want to spend cash on video game customizations that have no effect on gameplay, by all means! You are right, ignorance is bliss. F2P noob.

Brilliance, thy name is Valve.To give away a game that for all intents and proposes is a flawless multiplayer experience with a microtransaction system that's appealing to some yet not intrusive to the game in any way is pure genius.

I think it's a good thing when the only complaint people have about a company is when they give a product away for free, compared to SOME COMPANIES that charge you for ridicules stuff like Capcom for the RE5 multiplayer, EA for the extra 5$ when I bought a used ME2, and don't get me started on the Call of Duty Maps spending over 100$ on a game and the new COD Elite charging people even more.

i got it when it went free and im just constantly getting pwnd, having trouble finding any fun in it but I still load it up every now and then to see if I can manage to at least stay alive for a while

I think that Valve is one of the best companies in the gaming business. Not just that they make amazing games, it seems that they know what gamers want... and they deliver. I wish other companies will learn from Valve how to treat their costumers. Hear that EA?

No more free games! Making this free was the worse decision, as they brought thousands of incapable players (not newbies, or inexperienced players, "dumb" ones) into the game, transforming it into a joke. The old times were the best... without nonsense weapons, and without mindless bot-like players...

Played this game theo ther night and uninstalled it an hour later. I don't understand the point in it. Its just everything custom servers with one shot kills and stuff. I'll skip. Least it went F2P i would of been angry if i had paid money for it

Many of which are hackers, watch me never buy a valve title ever again...

TF2 gave me more than 1000 hours of gameplay and it only cost me $20. No other game has made me hat-obsessed than this game. MOAR FREE HATS VALVE!

The same amount of money for a CoD map pack bought me Team Fortress 2.

@lfebaggins So bringing 5 times more players,making the community bigger, and extending its life time probably by years is bad? Luckily there is very little of any those kind of elitists on the game now or in SPUF. And btw most F2P players actually buy something pretty quick.Most F2P friends i had all within a week each went out and bought stuff on the Mann Co store, supporting the game. Ignorance must be bliss.

Would you believe it, I actually went out and bought it in anticipation of the Uber Update, in which it went F2P - I saw that they were having 'their biggest update ever' or something and thought 'I've been wanting to play that for a while, I'll pick it up'. A couple of weeks later it went F2P :D Anyway, still one of my absolute favourite games ever.

I bought it just months before it became F2P, and it annoyed me at first considering I had just paid for it not too long ago. Now however, I think it was a great move by Valve. Many of my friends downloaded it for free, then after realizing it is possibly the greatest multiplayer game they have ever played, bought items from the store so that they could get a Premium account. I get to play the game with more of my friends than I could before, and Valve (eventually) still got their money.

Valve just shut up and take my money!

I bought TF2 for sale for $10, and that was the best deal I ever made for a game.

i bought TF2 the day it came out. .. now its F2P... i hate it when they do that.

Im a little disappointed Valve went with the f2p route with Team Fortress 2. Its a game that deserves to be paid for in order to play, not to leech off from f2p cheapskates.

I paid for the whole orange box years back and I don't regret it at all - I just got to play for that much longer. :)

@CrossFire312 Yes i watch it, you got a problem buddy? :D Its an awesome cartoon and it makes me happy

ya so its time to go on and stop making hats whenever theres a freaking new game.

You want to know why Team Fortress 2 is doing so well under the free to play banner? It doesn't suck complete dog feces like Asian shooters do, thus it has absolutely no competition in free to play shooters. Within the next 5 years as North American games go free to play, all these crappy Asian games that Westerners have been subjected to for all these years will rapidly decline and die off. The market is totally ripe for the taking and Valve can totally own the North American free to play shooting market hand over fist if it really wants to. Can you believe tens of thousands of people in 2011 play garbage like Cross Fire every day?

Haha, I already owned this game for YEARS before it went free to play. :P

I spent $30 on tf2 a year before it went free, I don't regret a thing

This is very, very good news indeed! In my opinion, Team Fortress 2 is the PERFECT multiplayer experience. Classes are exceptionally balanced and each one can be adapted to a multitude of play styles. The community is mature (for the most part), respectful, and understand that people actually play games to have fun, not to get incredibly competitive and ***** at other players. Kudos to Valve, Steam, and Gabe--you are among the few innovators of not just the PC gaming industry, but the gaming industry as a whole.

@ Jessica_M_C and that is an important message brought to us by captain obvious! but i do agree wholeheartedly!

@ toddx77 amen to that brother! no matter how ridiculous the industry gets valve somehow always manages to stay relatively grounded

Long Live Steam. I bought the Orange Box when it launched twice. Once for PC and again on PS3. I had to buy it on PS3 because my PC couldn't run TF2 or HL2:EP2 back then. Though now I have no problems with games on my PC.

"We don?t understand what?s going on," Newell said, "It?s just an exciting time but also a very troubling time." Am I misunderstanding, or is he confused that more people play when it's free.

I love it when gamespot has in article about either gabe or valve. You just know its going to be a good read.

When it went F2P is when I started playing.