Two or three weeks after I quit my full time job at Minecraft, Team Fortress 2 got a massive update in the form of The Mann-Conomy Update.  Not only were all of the new items from the Polycount Pack included, but also a new store in which players can buy items for their roster of characters.  Now, rather than having to play for hours and hours, hoping for the right random drop or collecting enough raw materials to craft, players can plunk down a wad of cash from their Steam Wallet and buy what they want, straight away.  So I started playing again.

I was a bit apprehensive at first, but overall, the in-game item store is a good idea, really.  It helps monetize a game that, even after 3 years out, is still going strong online, making it more sustainable for Valve to continue updating it (and for the community members creating the content, apparently).  For players who don’t want or can’t afford to purchase items from the in-game store, the old item collection system is still in place, so they can continue to earn rewards the old fashioned way.  And for now, store items cannot be traded, so found or crafted items retain lots of value among players.

Aside from a few small balancing issues with the scout and soldier, my biggest complaints with the update revolve around Mann Co. Crates, boxed items that can be randomly “found” while you play, which require the player to pay $2.50 for a virtual key to open. Sure, the fiscally broken player can trade the crate items to others who don’t mind paying to open them, but it still bothers me that they require real money to open.

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