For five years, Quake Live has been free-to-play with subscription options. That changed suddenly when, yesterday, all subscription options were dropped and the game sprouted a price tag on Steam.
The change hasn’t gone down well.
It’s not just the addition of a price tag – though the £6.99/$9.99 cost has certainly ruffled feathers – that’s troubling players. Quake Live has made the move to Steamworks, erasing friends lists and stats. Even worse, players that had yet to make the move to Steam will now need to buy the game.
Id Software made an announcement after the fact, painting the changes, obviously, in a positive light.
“Today marks a new beginning for Quake Live,” reads the announcement. “Last year we expanded our platform to Steam, and today we have retired our old launcher and services in favor of integrating a robust array of Steamworks alternatives. We are now fully utilizing Steam for Friends, Chat, Lobbies, Voice Chat, Server Browser, Statistics, Achievements, Anti-cheat, Trading Cards, and Workshop.“
The announcement fails to mention the problems, like the loss of friends lists, but it does advise players with PRO accounts who didn’t download the Steam version prior to the update to get in touch with customer support. You can do that here.
Cheers, MCV.