Valve have been experiencing some pretty notable success recently with the new microtransaction system in Team Fortress 2. We recently discovered that the TF2 store sells plenty of its most expensive items, and has been welcomed pretty much whole-heartedly by the community. Now, Valve hope to teach others what they've learnt through TF2 experimentation and help their partners implement microtransactions into their own Steamworks games. Read on for the details.
With Steamworks' new Microtransaction system, an in-game economy can now be readily created by anyone using the SDK. "We've come to understand what type of content sells well in TF2's in-game store, and the various price points at which players value this content," said Robin Walker, game designer at Valve. "Our players are continually teaching us what works and what doesn't. Much of this feedback can be generalised to other titles on Steam, so we're looking forward to sharing what we've learned with partners at GDC. We're also interested in seeing partners get up and running with their own in-game economies, so they can collect game-specific data to inform their design decisions."
