So, the ultra-realistic World War II mod cum full blown video game that is Red Orchestra is going to have one of the ever popular free week of play on Steam. Better than any mere limited demo, the Steam system allows Valve to unlock any game for free to all users for a period of time - they've done it a couple of times with Day of Defeat.

The occasion for this free week, which will run from August 2^nd through August 7^th, is the release of the booster pack for the game - also free, unlike those shoddy ones we have to pay mint for on Battlefield 2 - which will have new weapons, including smoke grenades, and a new map. Again this is something that is being done with Day of Defeat, with new maps and modes of play coming free over Steam.

This is how you nurture a multiplayer game to its full potential - add to it over time. The Battlefield series has always had it, with some candy coming with most patches - indeed, Battlefield 1942 needed to do it so as we no longer had the Japanese driving German vehicles - and the whole foundation of most independent mods is to release early and constantly update the game. Given the ease of the Steam distribution system the whole thing is made all the easier.

If publishers like EA could now only get over their obsession with charging for everything and ditch these stupidly small and expensive "booster packs" for Battlefield 2, of which we're now on our second, the world might be a marginally better place. Charging for an expansion to a multiplayer game only works if nearly everyone then buys said expansion, something that is very rare - you'd be hard pressed to find a great number of servers running said expansions.

If you release an add-on for a multiplayer game then, no matter how cool the content, it will only work if a lot of people play it. There's no point in making the expansion and not selling it as giving it away for free - at least in the latter case you have leverage for reaching new audiences, keeping existing ones for in-game advertising purposes and so on.