Adored Party Game Accidentally Gets Stuck As Free On Steam

It’s quite the pickle. You’ve got a well-loved 2016 indie hit, and you figured it’d be nice to make it free on Steam for a bit. But then, a good while later, you decide it’s time to give it a graphical overhaul, update it with a whole new online multiplayer mode, and start charging a little bit for all that work. Except, nope. It seems there’s a limit for how many times you can switch your game from free to paid. So, as spotted by Eurogamer, Tecopark’s Pico Park: Classic Edition and its new multiplayer mode is stuck at free, and will always be.

Japanese developer Tecopark’s Pico Park games have proven hugely popular multiplayer games over the last ten years. Alongside the Classic version, there’s 2021’s re-imagined Pico Park, and most recently 2024’s Pico Park 2. They’re all cooperative puzzle games for between two and eight players, in which you’re challenged to collect a level’s keys via collaborative platform action. As you might imagine, this can become chaotic extremely quickly as groups attempt to arrange their cute cat-like characters into stacked piles to reach platforms, or assign themselves to pressing multiple buttons at once to open doors. And in the Classic version, that madness could go up to as many as 10 players. Albeit, until recently, only in local multiplayer.

Tecopark’s Shunsuke Miyake posted to the game’s Updates page on August 20, “I’m thinking of updating Classic Edition for the first time in nine years… Since I’m doing it anyway, I’ll update it with online support.” He added, “I might charge a small fee for it. I recommend installing it while it’s still free.”

Come September 13, that update had happened, and the game now had art that matches its two sequels, ran on monitors running over 60Hz, added Steam inputs, and most significantly, now included online multiplayer. Miyake added, “We’ll keep it free for about a week.” Which was pretty generous!

Then this last weekend, a new update appeared. The title is “PICO PARK : Classic Edition is permanently free!” with the text explaining this change.

“I was planning to switch to a paid plan after updating the online support, but I forgot that once you switch from paid to free, I can never go back to paid! : )”

He then adds, “If you enjoy playing this free version, be sure to try the series (PICO PARK, PICO PARK 2) too.”

The 2021 version of Pico Park was an updated port of the Switch’s 2019 game (keep notes, there’s a test at the end), with all-new levels and online multiplayer, along with a bunch of new modes and ways to play. It even lets you use your phone as a controller for party gaming around one screen, rather than forcing you into the hassle of hooking up eight Xbox controllers at once.

Last September’s Pico Park 2 offered a brand new set of levels, along with all the previous features, including cross-platform support. Both games are extremely well received, eliciting very creative Steam reviews from people broken by their experiences. “This is the game where friendships go to DIE,” says one positive review. Another says, “this game ruined my relationships with all my friends and I am now left alone. Great game.” My personal favorite reads, “You get to see who’s stupid among your friends, then realize it was you all along.”

And now, it seems, you can experience the original version of all this in its prettier glory, and online, for free! Poor ol’ Tecopark. For real, go buy a sequel if you enjoy it! Poor people just wanted to make a well-earned buck. Honestly, they should add it as a free game on Itch.io too, where at least people can then choose to pay for it if they want to.