Valve CEO Gabe Newell revealed that DOTA 2 will be free to play, but "with a twist."
Newell explained that the current model of selling games to all users for the same price is broken. "What you really want to do is create the optimal pricing service for each customer and see what's best for them," he said. "We need to give customers, all of them, a robust set of options regarding how they pay for their content."
"An example is - and this is something as an industry we should be doing better - is charging customers based on how much fun they are to play with."
"So, in practice, a really likable person in our community should get Dota 2 for free, because of past behaviour in Team Fortress 2. Now, a real jerk that annoys everyone, they can still play, but a game is full price and they have to pay an extra hundred dollars if they want voice."