Steam Workshop Now Allows Mod Developers to Make Money Off Their Work
Steam Workshop, an Internet-based multiplayer and social networking platform, is one of the best platforms where developers can share their add-ons, mods (modifications), maps and items to the games for free. Today, Valve Corporation, creators of Steam, announced that people who create different mods, maps or in-game items can sell and earn of their work through the Steam Workshop.
Steam writes on its official blog:
The Steam Workshop has always been a great place for sharing mods, maps, and all kinds of items that you’ve created. Now it’s also a great place for selling those creations.
With a new, streamlined process for listing and selling your creations, the Steam Workshop now supports buying mods directly from the Workshop, being immediately usable in the game.
The new paid marketplace is updated with the hit game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, which currently has over 25,000 available mods. An American video game publisher Bethesda Software said many of their fans have been creating mods for more than ten years, and Steam is offering them a chance to earn by doing what they love best.
While the new paid model sounds great for modders and developers, the other side of the coin is that many Steam users who are used to free mods have started to cry foul against the change. Several users have called the move as ‘immoral’ and blamed the creators to be greedy.
In January, Valve announced that new analytical and measurement tools will be introduced to further optimise the sale of user-created content. This tool may help creators get a better idea of which of their mods are more popular.
