Monthly Subscriptions Now Available Through Steam

The traditional subscription-based MMO developers have not had any opportunities to bring its games to the largest digital PC distributor on the internet, Steam. Yesterday is when everything changed.

In a statement made by Valve on its own Steam News feed, it announced: “With Subscription Plans, Steam offers gamers the ability to sign up and manage payments for subscription-based games on Steam. The launch title for the new service is Darkfall Unholy Wars, with additional subscription-based games to follow. Steam customers may now sign-up for, manage, cancel or renew game Subscription Plans at any time, online directly through Steam.”

This will obviously change how this market perceives Steam as a viable platform from which to launch its games, but depending on how much of a cut Valve will take is still a mystery. The subscription-based MMOs live and die by that $15 a month from its subscribers, and if Valve takes a significant portion of that, adoption will be far and few between.

The best news lies with the gamers themselves, where they will now have opportunities to pick up these games at a discount when Steam runs its seasonal or mid-week sales. This will bring more players into the fold with a wider audience that can be reached; this is never a bad thing when a game is driven by the players.