Popular online shooter Team Fortress 2 is now basically sustained only through hats. You heard me right. Hats. Because so many people in that game’s community are hat fanatics (you can buy them), the money from that is now what sustains the game. You now get it for free on both PC and Mac.

What’s really great is that people who make popular digital objects for the game (like hats) can still have their items put in the game’s store once they become popular — and they’ll still make a percentage of each transaction.

This announcement comes as part of the largest update made to the game since its release in 2007 — the Über Update.

For more information about the free-to-play development, visit http://www.teamfortress.com/freetoplay.

For more on the “Über Update”, please visit http://www.teamfortress.com/uberupdate.

Where can we be seen next? Well, Trina’s going to a Nintendo event next week, so you can see her there. But! If you want to see her on a show, she’ll be on This Week In Video Games with Jessica Villareal on June 30. You can watch that live online, so that’s awesome.

As always, we encourage you to check out our partners in GamingAngels Presents: The Married Gamers, Game Dames and PrincessCast. Also be sure to take a listen to Blood Angels, our True Blood podcast.

If you want to contact us, you’ve got tons of options!

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“Our partners and customers have asked us to make Steam available in more places. With the introduction of Steam on the Mac, and soon in Portal 2 on the PS3T, we’ve done just that,” said Doug Lombardi, VP of marketing for Valve. “With big picture mode, gaming opportunities for Steam partners and customers become possible via PCs and Macs on any TV or computer display in the house.”

More details about this big picture mode will be part of Valve’s partner meetings happening at GDC this week in San Francisco, CA.  During these meetings, Valve will also be sharing data gathered during the successful launch of Steam Microtransactions within Team Fortress 2, and the integration of Steam features within Valve’s own games.

“We’ve come to understand what type of content sells well in TF2′s in-game store, and the various price points at which players value this content,” said Robin Walker, game designer at Valve. “Our players are continually teaching us what works and what doesn’t. Much of this feedback can be generalized to other titles on Steam, so we’re looking forward to sharing what we’ve learned with partners at GDC. We’re also interested in seeing partners get up and running with their own in-game economies, so they can collect game-specific data to inform their design decisions.”

I’ll admit Big Picture mode has me interested.  I’ve been re-playing Dragon Age: Origins Ultimate Edition on Steam, and the fact that it’s not a game using Steam’s cloud saved game storage is sad.  The ability to play it on my big screen or in other rooms of the house is pretty exciting.  What do you think about this announcement?  Interested to see how it works?

Poker Night at The Inventory is a new Telltale Games title bringing together characters from Team Fortress 2 (Heavy), Penny Arcade (Tycho), Homestar Runner (Strong Bad) and Sam & Max (Max). The card game is getting released later this month on Steam for $4.95, and Team Fortress 2 players get a little extra something sweet.

Occasionally, there will be a special round that requires everyone at the table to buy in with special items from Team Fortress 2. Win that round, and you get the item. It’s a cross-game promotion!

Telltale provided a list of the items:

* “The Iron Curtain” weapon, for use by the Heavy in TF2

* Max’s Lugermorph handgun for use by the Scout and the Engineer in TF2; and Max’s Freelance Police badge wearable by any player in TF2

* Wrist watch from Penny Arcade’s Tycho for the Spy in TF2

* Styling “Dangeresque” sunglasses anted in by Strong Bad, wearable by Demoman in TF2

If you pre-order Poker Night at The Inventory, you’ll get a special poker visor for the Heavy, too.

For more, visit www.telltalegames.com/pokernight.

Team Fortress 2 is getting a frighteningly good update. The Headless Horsemann is in Mann Manor which is a new map that should scare any veteran TF2 players. The map is filled with exploding pumpkins, creepy noises and new achievements.

The store has new Halloween updates which are wearable all year long. Read all the information on the event on the official blog here.

If you don’t want to spend the cash (right now, everything is under $4.99), you can still get your items the old-fashioned way for free.

The in-game store is good news for TF2 community members that create content – if yours ends up in the store, you get a cut of the profits. (The Polycount Pack, now available for sale, is a prime example of this.)

I, for one, welcome our new fish-wrapped-in-newspaper-based economy.

The above image was sent to RockPaperShotgun by Valve on March 3.

Mac users, rejoice! Finally, you’re going to get something to play besides The Sims and Spore! No more dual-booting, either! Steam – Valve’s digital content delivery service – is coming to the Mac!

Valve’s game library (including Left 4 Dead 2, the Half-Life series, and Team Fortress 2) will be making its way onto the new platform starting this April. And they won’t just be emulated Windows versions, either.

“We looked at a variety of methods to get our games onto the Mac and in the end decided to go with native versions rather than emulation,” said John Cook, Director of Steam Development. ”The inclusion of WebKit into Steam, and of OpenGL into Source gives us a lot of flexibility in how we move these technologies forward. We are treating the Mac as a tier-1 platform so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Windows, Mac, and the Xbox 360. Updates for the Mac will be available simultaneously with the Windows updates. Furthermore, Mac and Windows players will be part of the same multiplayer universe, sharing servers, lobbies, and so forth. We fully support a heterogeneous mix of servers and clients. The first Mac Steam client will be the new generation currently in beta testing on Windows.”

Valve has also added another feature, called Steam Play. What’s it do? Well, you buy a game for Windows, and you can also play it on the Mac free of charge (perfect for multi-OS households like my own).

Portal 2 will be the first simultaneous release for both platforms.

For only $15.95, you have your choice of a 10-pack of either Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, or Team Fortress. If you enjoyed her adorable zombie-themed Valentines, these are even better. It’s ideal for the lazy gamer who wants to tell everyone they love to have a happy holiday season. I’ll be picking up a set or two…

Head on over to the Valve Store and support creativity!

Where did you get your start?

I started seriously dedicating time to drawing when I was 13 years old. It was really more of a hobby back then, but it occupied all of my spare time. I started out drawing lots of dragons. Actually, I recently redrew my very first digital art. It’s this really weird, creepy looking yellow dragon, affectionately stroking the side of a rock.  I was really into cyber pets back then too. I don’t know if anyone remembers this, but you could find these sites on the internet where you could download adoptable animated gifs to put on your own websites. I had millions of these things on a website that has long since fallen into the darkest pits of the internet called “Alex’s animals”

Have people been supportive of the path you’ve taken?

Yes I have a great family. At first I think my dad was a bit disheartened. I wasn’t originally going to go into art as a career, I took 4 years of Neuroscience and Biology (I couldn’t make up my mind) at a local university. I think parents always want what’s best for you, and the hard truth is the earning potential of an artist is much lower than that of a neuroscientist or doctor. Like I said though, I have a great family. My dad always says “do what makes you happy” and I did, and he respects that and supports me 100%. My mom is my biggest fan, she has supported whatever I wanted to do since day one. I hear from a lot of young artists that their parents aren’t being supportive of their decision to follow the art career path. My advice is, you have to do what’s best for you in the end, and sometimes you just have to show them that you’re serious about it. Do your research and have an adult conversation with them about it (don’t whine) and they’ll be more likely to accept that you’ve really put some thought into this and aren’t just doing it because you like to draw glittery vampires in your spare time.

What are your influences?

So many. Mary Blair is probably the biggest. Charley Harper is up there as well. Really, all art from the 1930s-1950s, particularly commercial art. It’s just so… amazing! They did everything by hand. These gorgeous, clean, crisp gouache paintings. They didn’t have the comfort of the undo button back then, or layers. Advertising from that time had such style and was so masterfully created. I get a lot of inspiration just looking through old illustrator’s work. Elliott Erwitt too. He’s actually a photographer, but he has a great sense of humor, and I find it inspiring to look at his work. Just browsing through deviantart too (Alex’s own DA page : http://beavotron.deviantart.com ). It gets a lot of hate, but I love that site, I’ve found some amazing artists on there, amateur and professional alike.

What is your favourite subject to draw?

Red pandas! They are so cute. I could spend hours on youtube watching red pandas roll around and play. How can something that cute even exist? It boggles my mind. Animals in general really, I’m a big animal person.

Do you prefer digital or traditional painting?

Digital because I’m better at it, but I enjoy looking at traditional work more. I am in art school now trying to learn more about traditional methods.

What do you like to do outside of art?

Video games, reading, going out to see the sun every now and again (ha ha ha). My life has a bit too much art in it right now I think. I’m in art school, and working as fulltime as I can as a freelancer, so it’s just like draw draw draw… sleep….draw draw draw. I spend way too much time on youtube.

What videogames are your favourite, and what are you playing now?

I hate to say this, but WoW is probably my favorite game. And it’s the main one I’m playing now because of my schedule, but I rarely play it at all anymore. I don’t even know why I hate to say that WoW’s my favorite. I feel like it’s a huge time sink, but… well, I’ve been going back to it for pushing 4 years now, so it’s clearly got some magic power over me. I still play L4D, I’m looking forward to L4D2. I have the demo, so awesome. I have also taken to playing lots more DS games, currently the newest Professor Layton and Scribblenauts. Scribblenauts is an incredible game, I have tried so many things and they all exist. My favorites are black hole and jet pack. Oh, and bean… because it doesn’t do anything, it’s just a bean. I play lots of iPhone games too before I go to bed, I love those brain testing ones, like Brain Age, they make me feel like I’m doing something productive even though I’m not. Oh and TapWord, I like that one too.

Arts and gaming are typically male-driven careers — what is it like for you working in those fields?

I think that I’ve just had a weird experience in my career because all the companies I’ve worked for, be it in studio or freelancing, have lots of ladies working there! In all fields, programming, art, production, everywhere! I think that it’s definitely changing with more girls coming in, and I like that a lot. But you’re right — it is typically seen as a bit more male-oriented than female. I went to PAX this year, and the girl-to-boy ratio was pretty funny, though it also wasn’t quite what I was expecting! There were more girls there than I expected there to be, and apparently more girls this year than in past years. I was always a bit of a tomboy, so I tended to get along better with more guys than girls. I found that in the studio I worked in, I just sort of fit in with the guys, and they just treated me like one of them, a giant sloppy nerd who likes watching youtube videos and shooting zombies.

Where do you hope to go in the future?

There are so many things I want to do and I change my mind daily. I’d love to work full time for Valve software someday but I’ve got such a long ways to go before I’m at that level. Their concept artists are mind-blowingly good. But I’m in school now learning my face off, so hopefully someday! I also really like doing work for kids. I’m working on an educational game right now for children and I find that really rewarding.

What advice could you give to someone interested in following your path?

Don’t give up! Draw as much as you can, don’t let people tell you what you can and can’t do. I had someone tell me once I’d never be good enough to make art my career. It only made me push that much harder, so I should really go find her and thank her for that. Art school’s awesome, I love it, but you don’t need it. I got lots of jobs prior to starting school, I only started this year. So, if you’re worried that you can’t afford the big overpriced schools in the states, head on over to conceptart.org and start learning from the people over there. I got all of my art education from the internet for free till this year. Get your name out there, get on deviantart, make an account, talk to other artists, network. Show your work to people, make a website, set up a portfolio, email potential clients. Don’t buy “How to Draw Manga” or “How to Draw Super Heroes”  or any of those garbage books because they’re useless and a waste of your money. If you want a good book on learning to draw, pick up “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain” by Betty Edwards. Drawing cartoons and anime and stuff comes naturally once you start to learn how to draw what you see.

It’s hard work, but it’s so, so worth it