While Valve is an award-winning game designer, it's made a bigger impact on the gaming community with the development of the Steam platform, which stores and sells indie and AAA games to a variety of customers. It's also a platform for a variety of mods, which bring everything from refined visuals to unusual accessories to a player's favorite game. However, Steam never allowed mod designers to make money off of their work. That is, until now.
Valve announced on Thursday that mod builders for Bethesda Entertainment's "The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim" will now be able to sell their creations via Steam.
"We think this is a great opportunity to help support the incredible creative work being done by mod makers in the Steam Workshop," Valve's Tom Bui said in a press release. "User generated content is an increasingly significant component of many games, and opening new avenues to help financially support those contributors via Steam Workshop will help drive the level of UGC to new heights."
A number of "Skyrim" mods have already appeared on the game's Workshop area for a number of prices. "While some have listed prices, many of those are categorized as 'pay what you want,' meaning Steam users can set their own price. Suggested pricing on the initial set of paid mods ranges from $0.25 to $5.99. Valve is currently offering a discounted 'debut pack' of 17 paid Skyrim mods for $28.68," Polygon reported.
However, some mod users and developers believe that this change could have a negative effect on the gaming community. Kotaku noted that there are users who are "worried that [paid mod developers] could become the norm, not the exception, which would fundamentally alter the mod scene. Mods, they fear (and have, to a small extent, observed), will stop updating for those who don't pay, will abandon mod-centric services like [mod portal] Nexus for Steam's greener pastures."
Valve has not released details about when it will judge the legitimacy of selling the mods, or what games it will open up to mod sales in the future.
