Everybody makes mistakes! That’s life, really, a constant series of tiny mistakes that are sometimes good ones, sometimes bad ones, occasionally purposeful, often not. Here’s one that was very much not purposeful: Pico Park: Classic Edition, a delightful co-op puzzle platformery game you’ve almost definitely seen a bunch of Twitch streamers play during COVID lockdown, is now permanently free.
For some context, Pico Park: Classic Edition released almost 10 whole years ago in 2016, and despite the fact that up to 10 people can play together, it was an offline only game. In August, developer Tecopark said that they were thinking of updating the game soon to add in online support, an update that did in fact arrive in September, and one that they thought they “might charge a small fee for.” Come September, the update is released, and online play is added, with plans to keep it free for about a week.
Except, Steam apparently doesn’t allow you to switch between a game being paid-for and free an infinite number of times, resulting in this message from Tecopark: “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! 🙂 If you enjoy playing this free version, be sure to try the series (Pico Park, Pico Park 2) too.”
Welp! Truly seems like there’s not much to be done there, but the matter of fact approach to the news that the game is permanently free does tickle me. What else can you do in a situation like that? I doubt that Pico Park: Classic Edition was making all that much for Tecopark in any case, particularly with Pico Park (2021) being as popular as it is.
If you’re wondering, “why didn’t they just discount it to 100% off?” the answer is you can’t! The maximum discount you can set on Steam is 90% off. Don’t ask me why, it’s just one of those weird Steam things that robs mostly inconsequential control from developers that release games on the platform.
In any case, unless you’re someone who likes to keep their Steam library as lean as possible (you’re not better than the rest of us), it’s a fun little game to add to your library free of charge.
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