We all know that Valve / Steam has been offering in-game items, or skins to its huge player base via the Steam Workshop, but those were Valve generated contents and proceedings usually goes to the contracted content creators or GabeN’s wallet. But now, out of nowhere, Valve decided to offer income generation for independent modders who’s willing to submit their creations to the Steam Workshop, as seen on Valve’s latest announcement, and Bethesda’s TES V: Skyrim is undoubtedly one of the best titles to start.
“Steam now offers new functionality in the Steam Workshop, allowing community mod makers the opportunity to earn money doing what they love. With this update, community-made Workshop content such as mods, items, or maps can now be made available for sale directly via the Steam Workshop for titles that have enabled this feature.”
There are number of purchasable mods for Skyrim right now, starting from swords, armors, sets and even a companion none of which I heard of from my favorite and “free” mod repository websites.
“Workshop is now putting mod authors in business via a new streamlined process for listing, selling and managing their creations. Creators contributing to the Steam Workshop have the choice of listing their new creations for sale at a price of their choosing, or to continue to make their work available to players for free. Mods purchased from the Steam Workshop are available immediately for play.”
Is this a a good news for modders and gamers in general? Or is this just a glimpse of the future, where modding has gone way beyond free and monetization starts to become the norm. Either way, I am pretty sure that in the long run, it will affect the modding community, especially Nexus Mods where you could download thousands of great mods freely for your favorite games.
