Last week, Valve began hosting a number of free-to- play games that would be available to download for anyone with a Steam account. Alliance of Valiant Arms, Global Agenda: Free Agent, Champions Online: Free for All, and Spiral Knights are currently being played by Steam users everywhere and from the look of my Steam friends list, AVA and Spiral Knights are proving to be particularly popular. Apparently Valve has taken notice of these games’ success as Doug Lombardi, vice president of marketing for Valve recently confirmed that the publisher is currently at work on a free-to-play game of their own.
Rumors are circulating that the title could be DotA 2 though it has not yet been revealed by Valve whether the game will even be free or not. It’s a tough call either way. Valve has undoubtedly seen the popularity that free-to-play RPG League of Legends has generated these past months, so the publisher may want to cash in on a game that improves upon LoL‘s main flaws. On the other hand, they also must realize that LoL will inevitably be DotA 2‘s main competitor, and giving potential players a reason to bash it right out of the gate for not being released free is undoubtedly a major concern.
