Unreal Tournament 3 play jumps 2000%, Steam adds second free weekend

by Randy Nelson on Mar 11th 2009 5:45PM

Get this: if you grant free access to a top-tier FPS ... a lot of people will play it. Valve learned this after letting Steam users download and play Unreal Tournament III Black on the house last weekend, to the tune of a more than 2000% increase in simultaneous UT3 players. Valve claims that the conversion rate of trial downloads to full purchases has put the game at the top of its most-downloaded titles, so, being entrepreneurial, it's announced another free-to-play weekend for March 13-15.

The promotional $11.99 purchase price for the game (it's usually $19.99) has also been extended through March 22. Given the apparent success of this program, it'd be unreal to think Valve won't try it with more titles in the future.

[Via Blue's News]

Source

Tags: epic, midway, pc, steam, unreal-tournament-3, valve

Reader Comments (34)

Before the trolls get a hold of this, I just want to congratulate Epic for an excellent marketing decision. We need more companies doing things like this...

just grabbed a copy last week...used to be 10 bucks at EB, those bums went ahead and raised to the price to 20....arhghgr you Gamestoop purchased barstards..but i got mine. action like this you cant get in any other fps save for halo MP- on a smaller scale though

IMO, Halo has been garbage since the PC release of Halo: Combat Evolved.

Unreal has better balance among vehicles, more fun variety in weapons, better maps, more game types, etc. Pretty much better than Halo in every aspect.

For $20 you can get a new copy at Target in their discounted section with the greatest hits and shovelware wii titles. Maybe I can talk you into buying this, even though you just got KZ2? UT3 needs more players.

i'm still looking to buy the ps3 version

It's $12.99 new in box on Gamestop's site. For the record.

@rollins

dude, thats the pc version. thats for getting my hopes up on that whopping 5 dollar refund...smh

Don't forget if you buy the box version of UT3 you can register it with steam using your serial code, and now you own the game virtually so if you lose or damage your copy you can download it.

Just keep in mind in order for your copy to be steam-able you'll need to download the Steam edition after you enter your UT3 key into Steam, it won't convert your existing copy. Kind of annoying but if you have a fast connection not a big deal.

I know some update is coming out for UT3 and it might be only for Steam copies of the game.

wait im not sure if im understanding this correctly cause i understand its on sale but it costs money just to play this online?

No no, they are letting you play the full game for free all weekend...you need to buy the game to play it after that.

No. It doesn't cost anything to play online. It's like CS:S and Team Fortress. You buy the game, you play online. It just happens to be free to dowload and play this weekend, but after that you must buy the game just as you would have to normally to continue playing it.

This is an excellent idea, way to go Valve.

I didn't get to participate last weekend, but hopefully I can this weekend.

You can preload the data right now so you can be ready for this weekend's free to play event.

So did Valve not admit that they're doing this again because their first attempt was problematic? Read the Steam forums. There were tons of people, myself included, that couldn't download the game in time to get to play it. This time, they're letting people pre-load the game before the free weekend, something they should have done the first time.

You should realise that it isn't Valve's fault that your internet sucks.

Hmm...yeah, actually it is Valve's fault.

Probably both, but it's probably more for the 2000% increase...personally I'm glad cause I love this version almost as much as 2k4, but nobody else accepted it.

It wasn't his internet gamer4250, I had the exact same problem all weekend where whenever I tried to install it I just got a message saying that the Steam servers were too busy. Literally all weekend.
And typically I'm away from my computer the second weekend they do this so I won't get to try it :(

They had to patch the Steam Client just so people could get UT3.
Too bad for me by the time the download completed i had 6hr's till the free weekend finished.....then i uninstalled it (8GB is big space to keep for a pre-load)

I had the same problem. Gave up and downloaded a demo on steam, which kept crashing randomly. First time using steam too, used this as an excuse to try it out. My first impression is very low.

I will give them another shot this weekend. ( i really like the idea )

Ah Steam, your giving PC gaming a huge shot in the arm, and I love you for it.
Though I wish you would let my brother buy one copy of a game and let both of us play it just like when we used to buy physical copies...... : (

As long as it is not a online game, you can. Just have your brother boot up steam in offline mode. My girlfriend playes my steamgames on her PC all the time this way.

2000% increase, eh? So what, 21 people play it now?

Seriously, though, now that they've fixed a large number of issues I initially had with the game, I've bought it and will be happily playing this weekend.

Steam works.

I bought this game once I heard trophies were out.

Good game.

Ok, so Valve's comment that UT3, "has enjoyed an increase of over 2000% in simultaneous player numbers" since 5th March may be true, but there are still less than 2000 players playing at peak, which doesn't even beat something like the original Day of Defeat - an eight year old game.

And yes, I think Shafnitz is partially right. The decision to release the update at the same time as the free weekend was moronic. Some people couldn't even update their client because of the network bottlenecking, and those were just the people with the original files already installed on their system.

I like the new update; I like UT3, but lets not get caught up in Valve's hype machine now, shall we?

I got lockefd out twice trying to download it. So I know what you mean.

Yet I couldn't find a single server running low grav instagib CTF.

Id be content with normal grav turbo IG CTF.
Hopefully this move by Steam will breathe some life into the EPIC's bastard child. (Damn you GoW)

Titan pack is only delayed 2 weeks, but KZ2 is a kick ass game either way.

Its nice to see Valve test the waters with New and Current games on the market. UT3 is a good game just dropped off the radar, but maybe this will zap some life into it.

Downloaded it last weekend, loved it, bought it for me and a friend.

But since then, it crashes randomly... Sometimes when loading the main menu, sometimes when loading a game, and every time I try to start a campaign game.

Sounds nice,I didn't get to try it last week because my internet wasn't behaving, but it's behaving now!

I'm pretty sure a large part of the huge increase in players on UT3 is the titan pack for the PC. I know that is why I started playing again. I'm not a fan of steam at all.

Im not a fan of steam to but to be honest, here in Latin America these games are a lot more expensive to us (in terms of US dollars = local currency). This offers let us buy the game at a reasonable price and they are a great way to fight piracy.

Now, how about Left 4 Dead free weekend and $11.99 promotion? I bet Valve will see way more than 2000% increase with this one.

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Unreal Tournament 3 play jumps 2000%, Steam adds second free weekend

Reader Comments (34)

Posted: Mar 11th 2009 5:52PM Temidien said

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