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Steam Introduces Game Subscription Plans

Announcement - Valve

New Service Gives Gamers Flexibility and Control of Subscription-Based Games

April 25, 2013 -- Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Dota 2 and Half-Life) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source,) today announced the addition of Subscription Plans to its offering of services.

With Subscription Plans, Steam offers gamers the ability to sign up and manage payments for subscription-based games on Steam. The launch title for the new service is Darkfall Unholy Wars, with additional subscription-based games to follow.

Steam customers may now sign-up for, manage, cancel or renew game Subscription Plans at any time, online directly through Steam.

Visit Steam Support for more information about Steam Subscription Plans.

http://store.steampowered.com/news/10463/

The first game that will use this is Darkfall Unholy Wars http://store.steampowered.com/app/227400/

EVE Online will be the next to use this.

 

[MoeB]

it's over. can't wait till i'll be finally able to order a big mac from big picture mode.

 

[DaBuddaDa]

This is great. The vast majority of proprietary billing systems built individually for every publisher are abysmal, and this can reduce a huge burden on smaller teams.

 

[CambriaRising]

This is great. The vast majority of proprietary billing systems built individually for every publisher are abysmal.

This.

This is good news across the board.

 

[Sentenza]

Not something I intend to use anytime soon, but it sounds like a nice feature to have.

 

[Zia]

This'll make it way too easy to impulse resub to EVE. Guess I'm not using Steam anymore.

 

[kswiston]

Does Valve take a cut from the monthly subscription?

 

[DaBuddaDa]

Does Valve take a cut from the monthly subscription?

They're offering a great service to developers so I would assume so. The up front cost of development and maintenance on a billing system for your game is replaced with a fee to use Steam's system.

 

[Nirolak]

Does Valve take a cut from the monthly subscription?

Yes, this is why many major MMOs aren't on the service.

 

[Bigmac1910]

This is actually quite cool, there are companies that I don't trust enough to give them my credit card number, even though I might want to play the game. But this way I can give it a shot, as long my card info stays with Valve.

 

[Forkball]

Will be handy for those Half-Life 3 monthly fees.

 

[CrunchyFrog]

Does Valve take a cut from the monthly subscription?

functionality development + infrastructure maintenance costs money, so I'm sure some marginal amount at least, yeah.

 

[Portugeezer]

Does Valve take a cut from the monthly subscription?

Lol, why even ask?

 

[slightconfuse]

But cn I roser Pizza Hut from steam

 

[crimsonheadGCN]

But cn I roser Pizza Hut from steam

You can in a way. Start up Big Picture mode and use the built-in browser.

 

[kswiston]

Lol, why even ask?

They provide other services for free via Steamworks. Not completely unreasonable.

As Nirolak said though, unless the cut is substantially less than their normal 30%, and is instead comparable to the cut taken by credit card billing companies, I doubt many big players will jump on board.

 

[Woorloog]

Will be handy for those Half-Life 3 monthly fees.

Damn it, i was going to make this joke.

 

[Wiktor]

Nice I guess. I just hope you will still be able to use devs's own billing systems. I want my money to go to devs, not Valve

 

[kurahador]

So I can sell hats to continue play mmo??

YES PLEASE!!!

 

[gillty]

They provide other services for free via Steamworks. Not completely unreasonable.

As Nirolak said though, unless the cut is substantially less than their normal 30%, and is instead comparable to the cut taken by credit card billing companies, I doubt many big players will jump on board.

SOE already allows players in PlanetSide2 to purchase Station Cash through Steam billing services.

 

[The Dutch Slayer]

this makes ways for more types of games to be added to steam with is a good thing!

 

[JustinBB7]

I won't use it, but a good new feature for Steam to have. This and the bandwidth limit thingy are some good new things these past few days.

 

[Wiktor]

this makes ways for more types of games to be added to steam with is a good thing!

Uh....no? There was nothing that stopped subscription based MMOs from appearing on Steam before.

 

[fleck0]

I like this, it would solve my problem of forgetting to cancel an auto-renewing sub. Though - I can't think of anything coming up that even uses a sub model so I doubt I'll ever use it.

 

[Zia]

I wish they'd launched with a better game, as Darkfall Unholy Wars probably won't be the best indicator of whether or not this is greatly beneficial to pubs. I think it will be -- "MMO people" like to dabble and the less hoops one has to jump through to try something out, the better.

 

[Dunlop]

Uh....no? There was nothing that stopped subscription based MMOs from appearing on Steam before.

exactly, I remembering buying Rift from them for like $5 on a promo, still needed to sub to Trion afterwards

 

[The Dutch Slayer]

Uh....no? There was nothing that stopped subscription based MMOs from appearing on Steam before.

ah :O really I thought all on steam based mmo's were free to play?

 

[Jhriad]

Gotta fund all that hat development somehow I guess.

 

[Kade]

But cn I roser Pizza Hut from steam

Why limit it to pizza? The only flaws are that I can't shout at my computer and it's not a pretty looking app.

 

[SteveWinwood]

So I can sell hats to continue play mmo??

YES PLEASE!!!

Yeah you actually can which is crazy to me. 21st century.

 

[KingKong]

That reads like it was written by a non-native speaker

 

[fleck0]

Would people being able to buy Eve subscriptions with wallet money made from selling hats do bad stuff to Eve's economy?

 

[opticalmace]

Not something I plan on using, but nice that there's an integrated approach to subs.

 

[shintoki]

I wish they'd launched with a better game, as Darkfall Unholy Wars probably won't be the best indicator of whether or not this is greatly beneficial to pubs. I think it will be -- "MMO people" like to dabble and the less hoops one has to jump through to try something out, the better.

It's no additional cost to them, and many smaller ones will definitely use it.

 

[Pureauthor]

The games-as-service future edges ever nearer. Oh well.

creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Dota 2 and Half-Life)

Interesting how they use Dota 2 now. Guess being the most played game on Steam by a country mile outweighs its supposed 'beta' status.

 

[BLACK AMERICAN PSYCHO]

Developers could just charge more in order to offset the margin that steam takes right? That's what I would do. Any major MMOs on steam that requires a subscription?

 

[Tellaerin]

Hm. If they bill your Steam wallet, it means that you could pay for your sub using Steam cards. Assuming this takes off, it's bad news for those MMO time card companies, but great news for Valve (and consumers in general).

 

[Htown]

Developers could just charge more in order to offset the margin that steam takes right? That's what I would do.

They could, but they won't.

The entire thing with giving a cut to Steam in the first place, for subscriptions OR for regular games, is that you figure the increased eyes/attention from offering the product/service on Steam offsets the 30 percent cut.

Simply put, would you rather have 70 percent of $500 or 100 percent of $100?

Any major MMOs on steam that requires a subscription?

Plenty:
Final Fantasy XI
Eve Online
Rift

Plus a lot (if not all) F2P MMOs let you buy their in-game cash through the Steam store.

 

[Sentenza]

They could, but they won't.

The entire thing with giving a cut to Steam in the first place, for subscriptions OR for regular games, is that you figure the increased eyes/attention from offering the product/service on Steam offsets the 30 percent cut.

Simply put, would you rather have 70 percent of $500 or 100 percent of $100?

And what makes it even more advantageous is that you can actually have both: 100% of those "100" you sell by yourself, plus 70% of those "additional 400" you sell through Steam.

 

[Crawl]

They provide other services for free via Steamworks. Not completely unreasonable.

As Nirolak said though, unless the cut is substantially less than their normal 30%, and is instead comparable to the cut taken by credit card billing companies, I doubt many big players will jump on board.

Its really no different than Gamestop selling you a WoW game time card or amazon selling you a digital code for 12 months of xbox live, each these retailers take their cut.

Valve and participating game companies are just offering another form of convenience for customers to pay.

 

[Htown]

Would people being able to buy Eve subscriptions with wallet money made from selling hats do bad stuff to Eve's economy?

not really

anything that would be common enough to cause a problem isn't worth enough money to cause a problem

 

[scorpscarx]

Yes, this is why many major MMOs aren't on the service.

Well sure, but perhaps they will come to Steam now that Valve at least implemented an easier system for it?

 

[Tacitus_]

Half Life 3 to be an MMO. Can't wait to go collect 10 antlion asses and 5 zombie heads for an NPC so he can cure his sick wife.