Team Fortress 2's Conversion Rate Is Huge And Confusing

[Jegsimmons]

It's also interesting how they note that Russia is their second largest European Market.

Uh...Geography fail?

you can consider russia Eurpoean and Asian dude, its in both continents.

 

[Danny Ocean]

It's also interesting how they note that Russia is their second largest European Market.

Uh...Geography fail?

Russia is in Europe?

 

[Kapol]

I think I know the real reason why. The truth of the matter is that quite a few F2P users likely pay to become premium for one very simple reason...

Profit.

I've recently gotten into the Stram trading of the SPFU, and I can tell you that the random drops can get you a decent amount of scrap (quite literally). A single hat gets you at least 1 refined metal in trading, and that's only if it's sold as a craft hat. 1 Refined metal equals out to about $.85-90 if you want to sell it for cash. I once traded 10 refined for a copy of Saints Row 2. And if you get a really good hat, a misc item, or a new drop, you can get a lot more. Some items go for around 4+ refined.

And for genuine items (the kind you get from preordering games) can be sold for quite a bit. The pre-order items from Football Manager 2012 are going for about 1.5 buds right now, which is just about enough to pay for the game by itself. So those items you just have sitting in your TF2 inventory that you think are worthless? You might be sitting on enough to get you a new Steam game.

As for me, I mostly stick to game trading. I've made about $150 dollars worth of profit (not in cash, but in games I wanted to get anyways) already. I've gotten Skyrim, Serious Sam 3 BFE, Bastion, and many more. The only problem is it takes a long, long time.

And it's not just actual cash for tf2, but the fact that if you go ahead and pay fifty cents in the shop, you can get better items for the rest of the time you play the game. That by itself is enough to get many to just throw $1 or so into the game.

 

[Kapol]

[double post due to forum wonkyness]

 

[Hashime]

1. TF2 is an amazing game with a lot of content, but you don't feel like you HAVE to buy certain content to be competative. I STILL use stock gear for some classes and i have enough items to start a large war.

2. TF2 is great value, whether you play for free, bought it recently or bought it at launch with the res of the orange box it was a stellar deal. Owners of the game get acess to frequent drops, crafting and trading which means they never really NEED to by things. But the long term vlauve of the game makes them WANT to buy things.

3. The items are REALLY cool, both in terms of trying out new stuff or just their asthetics.

4. You can't pirate thhe game since it is free and you can't hack items since the game is set out with a very effective anti cheat system and items only really exist within steam's severs.

I believe points 1 and 2 are the best points. Valve actually produces quality games and at a reasonable price, increasing the likelihood people will actually purchase the game. One of the most used, and dumbest, of piracy justification is "it's not worth my time/money". "Good news!" Says Valve. "We made a game worth giving a shit about!".

Well, I would say a lot of the sales come from people getting tons of man-co crates and getting curious about what is inside.

Also: HEY I was the first Beaker with eyewear and don't forget it.

 

[MajorDolphin]

Some of the comments here are making me laugh.

Everyone here likely walks around with corporate logos on their shirts, hats, etc in real life. You may think you're superior to those that have given in to F2P gimmicks but eventually the game devs, publishers, and marketing ninjas will find a way to get YOU to pay real money for pointless digital garbage.

Hell, most people would have scoffed at the idea of downloadable map packs and reskinned games selling for full price before the current generation of consoles (and younger gamers they brought) hit the market. Look at where we are now.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

It's a super fun game that's even more fun when you buy some stuff for it. As long as TF2 exists, I will be happy. I don't need any other online game.

 

[Jiefu]

It's mostly people who set up an idling alt, buy two keys or such for it, then never buy anything else with it.

 

[Pedro The Hutt]

I understand the situation. My point is, the vast majority of those accounts aren't people who just love the game so much that they wanted to upgrade.

They're mostly metal traders. Unusual hats go for $200-2,500 REAL MONEY. People actually pay hundreds to thousands of dollars for a virtual hat with a particle effect. Other FTP games don't have that, which is why their conversation rate is so low while TF2's is mindbogglingly massive.

But last time I checked, items bought from the Mann co. store can't be traded or crafted , and metal can't craft you an unusual hat. And having six premium accounts won't help you along unless you intend to run the game on just as many accounts and sit on idle servers and hope to get crates, and then buy keys for those crates that would hopefully contain an unusual hat so... er... I'm not entirely sure about your theory really. Or well, what exactly the point you're trying to make is.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

Attention all other publishers, Watch and learn.

Be nice to your community, and they shall give you some money!

 

[ThunderCavalier]

I imagine that when he releases Half-Life 2: Episode 3, he'll be baffled as to why it's reached such monumental sales.

 

[Monkey_Warfare]

I just bought the cheapest item for increased stash space as the initially space is tiny. I think that was $0.50 (and it was an item I didn't have). The people who spend a fortune accruing strange items are wasting their money

 

[Neverhoodian]

I think the reasons are rather simple, actually:

-All you have to do to upgrade to premium is buy a single item from the Mann Co. store, no matter how cheap. A single $0.49 purchase gives you premium status forever.That's a far better bargain than most other F2P titles.

-The game is updated regularly with all sorts of new items, providing extra incentive to obtain more backpack slots and trade with other players for the items you want.

-The game is not "play to win" like many other F2P games. Unlockable weapons are sidegrades, not upgrades (for the most part, anyway). A skilled player with a "vanilla" loadout is still going to beat an unskilled player that's using unlockables.

-TF2 is a quality product. Far more time, money and effort was put into the game than many other F2P games, and it shows. Even after four years, it's still the best multiplayer experience out there (in my opinion, anyway).

 

[The Random One]

I paid because I was going to buy it anyway, so might as well spend some money on it. I was actually going to buy it back when Portal 2 came out, which is when I first tried to sign on to steam, so I would have been very very mad when it became F2P.

I quite like F2P players.

They make such beautiful targets.

Oh sure. Perfect targets, for the other team.

[picsnip]

I'm not sure we need three snipers, guys... Okay, if we're going to have three snipers can they watch different approaches? Okay, if they're all going to look at the same approach can they at least not stand in front of each other?

Don't you see? If one of those snipers get killed, there's one right behind him! No one is going to expect that!

 

[AugustFall]

Once I dropped 50 hours into it I decided to go premium because I felt valve deserved my money and I wanted to trade/get better drops. I am 100+ in and have put 7 bucks in now and will probably go up.

It's the best FPS I've played.


Also the hats are so very addictive.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

I played it once just to try it out, kept getting yelled at for playing the game (i.e., killing the opposing team) and uninistalled it thinking to myself "Oh, so this is one of those [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Heroes] games [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Villains]."

This puzzles me.

I've played TF2/CoH/CoV for years and I've been yelled at once. By someone who had no clue what he was doing.

Seriously, pop on a decent server sometime, play a Soldier/Scout and just have fun. I promise you there's a lot of fun to be had.

But last time I checked, items bought from the Mann co. store can't be traded or crafted , and metal can't craft you an unusual hat.

There's a number of ways to trade, Mann Store things can be traded, and Kop knows what he's talking about. Metal can be traded into an Unusual Hat with astounding ease, and there's at least one person out there with 20 premium accounts, and probably his own idle server.

 

[NeutralDrow]

Huh. You mean I actually had limits before I bought that Cloak & Dagger? I got it so early in my career, I never even noticed.

But yeah, I've spent some money...none of it on hats, though. Mostly on things I didn't have the patience to trying crafting or finding in a drop. And I doubt I would have hit the Spy Milestone needed to unlock the C&D if I didn't already have it.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Rule of Thumb: If they're lower on the scoreboard than you, mute player

I cut the middle step and mute everyone straight away.
Force of habit, after CS Source.

 

[Geo Da Sponge]

I quite like F2P players.

They make such beautiful targets.

Oh sure. Perfect targets, for the other team.

[picsnip]

I'm not sure we need three snipers, guys... Okay, if we're going to have three snipers can they watch different approaches? Okay, if they're all going to look at the same approach can they at least not stand in front of each other?

Don't you see? If one of those snipers get killed, there's one right behind him! No one is going to expect that!

No, what happend was a Sniper on the enemy team had the Machina equipped and killed all three of them with a single shot.

...

Nah, I wish something that funny could've happend. What actually happend a few seconds after that picture was taken was a Spy ran into my little nest (disguised as a Sniper, naturally) and started sapping everything. After a frantic melee I managed to take him down and get rid of his sappers just before they destroyed my buildings... At which point an enemy Pyro ran round the corner and killed everything. So yeah, well done Snipers. You failed to help me kill the Spy, and you failed to shoot the Pyro as he ran straight towards you.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

My guess would be that at least half of those sales are people buying a really cheap weapon, like the sticky jumper, in order to become paid players so that they can trade for weapons that they want. Trading is a huge thing, and not being able to do it puts F2P players in a bind, because they have a very low chance of finding one of the weapons that they really want, and don't have anything that they can do with the junk they don't want other than crafting (which is usually much more expensive than trading for a weapon anyway).