Gabe Newell talked about this in an interview with Eurogamer[1]. Seems it's about more than selling hats in TF2, e.g they also need to understand what happens if it becomes possible for users to trade games with each other on Steam.
Valve is now a platform provider, more than an actual game company, so they need to understand these things.
"We need to hire an economist, because we keep bumping up into these issues. You're starting to look at weird issues like currency and inflation and productivity and asset values and liquidity of asset categories. We just wish we were smarter about this stuff. We're reading frantically. We're brushing up, and all we're doing is convincing ourselves that we're more stupid. Half the time people are saying, oh, well, illiquid assets inherently have a penalty, so this argues for trade-ability, that we're essentially becoming a Russian currency model in the 1970s. Everybody races off to try to read papers on the implications of that."
There's a meaningful distinction between 'pay to play' "can't wait" farmville, 'pay to play' random drop, tradeable, gameplay-available goods a la tf2, 'pay to play' cosmetics a la tf2 hats and hon skins, and 'pay to play' in-game advantages a la a lot of Korean MMOs and HoN's early-access hero stuff. Valve is toeing the line, HoN is straddling it, and Korean MMOs and "social" games have thumbed their nose at it.
But what Valve is doing is an improvement over the status quo, and social games are a regression from the status quo. TF2, by and large, didn't get worse by letting more people play it for less money - lots of value was created, and Valve is content to only capture a small* amount that came along for the ride.
*Many games that have gone F2P (in a generally benign way) report increasing revenues, e.g., Lord of the Rings Online, D&D Online, etc.
In the case of TF2, this has really hurt my ability to enjoy the game.
Since they made it free and added a thousand new items, there are vastly more new (less skilled) players, many games are spammed in both text and voice chat with offers to trade, and every game is a circus act of ridiculous hats.
With the exception of private clan servers, there's really no way to make sure you're joining a game with focused and skillful players.
Totally agree. I also think that TF2 lost the simple rules and focus that made it so much fun. My theories on this:
* The hats break the usability of the game: characters used to have very easily distinguished silhouettes. Now it is harder to tell what is going on in the game.
* The hats visually and thematically damage a game that once had very strong art-direction.
* The variations in weapons makes the game harder for them to balance and harder for the player to find an optimal strategy.
* Allowing players to individualize their avatar encourages people to devalue the team aspects of the game.
It's still fun, but I want to play in classic mode.
I disagree.
I play tf2 quite a bit, and have been playing since before the free to play update. I actually started playing more often since the free to play update, because my friends who didn't want to spend $20 on the game can now play.
Other than the (rather common) offers of trade from people wanting my earbuds [1], I'm finding that I'm coming across players who are as skilled or more skilled than I am. I'm actually learning how to better play the game.
My enjoyment of the game has increased since TF2 went free to play.
TF2 and Heroes of Newerth both became free in order to sell more premium "can't wait" for it goods.
Valve even has job listings for economists and psychologists now.