Half Life 2 Pricing Announced

Site Admin Joined: 17 May 2003 Posts: 0

Now some of you may have heard Valve is going to do some crazy things with Half Life 2 such as different versions and such (No MP, Online Subscription, Boxed). HalfLife2.net contacted the boss of HL2, Gabe Newell to get his reaction from the fans.Here's my current thinking: Some people want to buy Half-Life 2 in a store. Right now we have three SKUs planned at three price points. One will have single-player only and not play MODs and we think of that as the mass market SKU (sold mainly at the Costcos and Walmarts of the world). The second is our traditional single-player plus multiplayer SKU that runs MODs and is sold at places like EBX. The third is the collector's edition SKU with lots of cool bonus stuff for people who like cool bonus stuff.

In the Steam world, some people will want to buy it once, like the middle SKU above. Other people will want to buy the game on subscription (e.g. $9.95/month). The good news for the "buy it once" crowd is, well, they only have to pay once. The bad news is that when we come out with new content (expansion products, TF 2, and presumably other games) then they have to pay separately for those. We're pretty sure that the $9.95 guys are going to get the better value, as we've been pretty good over the years at generating a lot of content.

Now nobody has done this before, so we're scratching our heads and massaging the plans to make sure we've got the best set of options. We've had some feedback that we should sell the top SKU (single-player only no MODs) on Steam, and my reaction has been "yeah, right, for the three people in the world who have a broadband connection, are sophisticated enough to purchase software over the Internet, but DON'T want to play MODs and multiplayer". Some people have said "I want a subscription, but I think the box and the manual are cool, so what about sending me those" and I think that's pretty interesting and we're trying to figure out what to do for them (needless to say Sierra isn't exactly jumping for joy at the idea of selling us boxes so people don't buy Half-Life 2 in stores).

But nowhere has there been a suggestion that people pay in the store and then pay a monthly fee on top of that a la the MMORPGSome of this may be very interesting as I want to see how other companies such as Epic resond to these ideas. While I think they mean well with Steam, I think it may piss off some people later that they can't play online or add mods. What do you think of this?

Irix WAnnabe Joined: 22 Jun 2003 Posts: 122

Is it a hoax?

If not, it's all just too much.
I can't imagine people subscribing to the hope that Valve will regularly churn out new content. If Valve starts charging for things like Team Fotress and Counterstrike, they'll just kill off their supporters. Plenty of other games to play.

Just sell the bluddy box.

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2003 3:06 am

Exactly, I can't imagine myself paying every month just to play a game online Mad

If thats the case, they have already lost me Evil or Very Mad

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2003 3:17 am

Free Bonus Packs > *

I never got onto the original HL mod scene anyway although I wouldn't but the no MODs version incase something really caught my interest.

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2003 3:18 am

Just release one, full-featured version. Jeez.
Why make it so dam complicated?

I wouldn't pay 10 bucks a month, unless I was guaranteed a
full games worth of new content every 4-5 months (not gonna happen).

If I had to pick, I would just go for the collectors edition, if it's not over $45.
Why should I have less than all?
And if they want me to pay money for some mods, they can look elswhere... and if those mods are the only way people play online, then
it looks like I am not playing online.

I think Valve are thinking about this way too much, and
it's going be confusing for some of thier customers in the end.
(remember all the gullible people who bought GF4 MX's thinking they were cool cards?)

Whatever they wanna do though Rolling Eyes

UO Staff Joined: 19 May 2003 Posts: 190 Location: BoooooM

The parents who buy it for their kids for Christmas presents, they see this low price thing and buy it and when the kids open their presents they get all hell anyway. This is probably going to work for them anyway because Half Life was/is such a big seller and they have alot of people waiting for Half Life 2 and I guess alot of them is going to buy Half Life 2 no matter what. This is probably going to get alot of people upset and all but the people who mostly play singelplayer games will probably like it. It all sounds crazy and I guess only time will tell how this wildcard is going to work.

-dp-

Guest

Uhhh i just want to buy the game. Is that too much to ask? I'll spend £34.99 happily on this game. But i ain't doing a subscription why do they have to make it so dam complicated. Its a game. Release it and it'll sell in the millions. Don't fanny about! Smile

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2003 8:18 am

i hate to tell everyone but this is totally true Sad

i just got back a confirmation e-mail that i sent to valve and they confirmed it Sad

Guest

If there is any company/software in the world other than Microsoft that could make on-line software purchases like this work then it has to be Valve & HL2.

The hype is big enough and the fans are hungry/insane enough to fall for it. Maybe Id-software could do it for D3, but that's probably it as far as rabid fans are concerned Epic/UT-fans are too busy complaining about having to pay for a 'expansion/bonuspack' for the first time in their history ...

It's definitely going to leave a mark, whether it is succesful or not.

/me ? I don't like the idea that I have to watch what I buy if I want HL2.
I know it need not be difficult (provided they don't hide the restrictions in small print on the back of the manual ... ), but it is annoying regardless.

At least I never know if I like the on-line part, but I don't want to suffer through some hopelessly complicated non-standard credit-card only method of purchasing the 'patch' that might allow me to do so.

A complete software-only subscription is too abstract for me. I want to 'hold' on to something if I spend money.
Never mind that they need to specify what happens to your game after you cancel your subscription. Can I still play ?
Or is it disabled / deleted until I pay again ?
And what about backups ? Broadband or not I'd hate having to download (and pay for?) everything again after a crash/reformat.

Gambling on 'extra content' by buying into the subscription seems pretty dangerous as well. Remember they've 'promised' Team Fortress 2 ever since TFC was released as part of their first patch for HL1 ...
For all I knew I thought it'd been cancelled.
And if that's not enough ... look at X-box Live!
How much of that 'extra' content has been made available by now ?

And then there's the (grand)parents that think they're doing their kids / kids / grandkids a favour by buying HL2.
Of course they're going to buy the 'wrong' version ... no matter how big the letters on the box are.

Guest

I'm sure Valve won't go through with it. Half-Life may have been flawed but the developers aren't stupid.

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2003 2:56 pm

I bought my first video game in 1983, there is NO WAY IN HELL I will ever pay a subscription for a game. I did that shit back when we had arcades, I pumped enough quarters into them and will never go back. Don't support that crap and it will go away, buy your game and own it.

UO Staff Joined: 19 May 2003 Posts: 190 Location: BoooooM

Well said

-dp-