A 'Quake Live' Steam update raises the game's price from $0 to $10

Quake Live, a highly competitive first-person shooter from Doom studio id Software, has been free since it launched in 2010. Rather, it had been free. On Wednesday, long-time players booted up the game to find it now costs $10 on Steam and no longer offers subscription options for serious fans. The move is part of Quake Live's transition to Steamworks, which allows players to use their Steam display names in-game, receive Steam stats and achievements, and download new content through the Steam Workshop. "By retiring our services and subscription service, all players now have the same benefits and features in-game," the Quake Live team says. The move also erases all previous game data, which, for some players, is five years' worth of clan-building and killing. Many players were surprised (and some were enraged) by today's news.

One player summed up the situation in a discussion post titled, You have to be kidding me. You killed Quake: "So my old user name is gone, my clans are gone, the match browser is absolutely useless, everything looks all ♥♥♥♥ed up. You absolutely 100%, undeniably just destroyed THE greatest FPS ever created. It is completely ruined. You WILL be giving me my 10 dollars back."

Quake Live first hit the 'net as a browser-based spin-off of Quake III Arena. It transitioned to Steam in 2014, but kept its free price tag and two-tier subscription options. Anyone who had a Pro subscription to Quake Live automatically received the $10 version in their Steam accounts this morning, sans all of their previous game data. Id Software hasn't addressed the sudden price increase or lost data.

"In addition to our new Steamworks features, this update is an accumulation of a year of code updates, optimizations, and over 4,500 map fixes," the developers say. "We hope all players enjoy soaking in our new UI, in-game settings menus, spectating features, UTF-8 text chat, True Type Font support, Workshop, and our Stats API. We have had great pleasure working on this project over the past 8 years, and cannot wait to see what the community comes up with in the many years to come."