Steam Offers Game Mods for Free

Mon, Sep 29, 2008

Valve's Source game engine may be nearly four years old, but the price is right -- anybody who buys a single Source-powered game can download the Source SDK for free, via Steam. (Didn't know you had it? Check your "Tools" tab in Steam.) Valve has also used their online delivery system to keep their game engine up-to-date for players and developers alike, adding new tools and support for a growing community of amateur developers. Needless to say, Valve knows a thing or two about supporting game modders with good ideas: Hugely successful titles like Counter-Strike and Team Fortress 2 got their start as game mods, after all. Now, in a Steam news update (spotted via Shacknews), Valve has decided to take the next step, and start supporting select game mods via the Steam service itself. In addition, they're keeping the mods free -- so long as you've bought a Source-powered game, you'll have access to a growing list of total-conversion games. Starting this week, Steam users can download Age of Chivalry, D.I.P.R.I.P., Insurgency, Synergy, and Zombie Panic -- and this is just the beginning.

The exciting part, from a developer standpoint, is the further announcement that these new Steam-offered mods will take advantage of the Steamworks structuring and integration software. At its most basic, Valve promises that these specific mods will gain "stat tracking and tighter integration with the Steam community," but there's much more we ought to expect in the near future. Sure, it'll be great to obsess over your kill-per-death ratio and play against your friends list in your favorite mod. Steamworks, however, promises a handful of interesting design features to a Steam-powered developer -- the ability to define and add your own in-game achievements, for example. In addition, there can be access to Steam's robust back-end, which promises auto-updates for one's users and real-time bug and download tracking, plus basics like voice chat and matchmaking support.

Traditionally, Valve has noted that Steamworks is not intended for small-audience mods, but the inclusion of this new handful in the Steam store could well be the first step towards reversing that policy. And, as always, greater publicity for amateur developers and greater selection for gamers is typically good news for everybody.

achievements, Amateur, development, Digital Distribution, Free, Independent, Modding, Source Engine, Steam, Steamworks, Valve

This post was written by:

Jesse Henning - who has written 474 posts on GameCyte.

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4 Comments For This Post

Seaniccus Says:
September 29th, 2008 at 11:36 am
The only source powered (i think) game that I have is Portal. I only just bought it last week, and i've been wondering if it's possible to get half-life 2 mods to work on it. I wonder if the standalone portal counts for these mods.

I sure hope so. I'm cheap, and I want more game.
Jesse Henning Says:
September 29th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
I bet it does, Seaniccus -- check your "tools" tab in Steam, and check to see if you have access to the Source SDK. If you do, it's a good bet you can get mods for it.
Seaniccus Says:
September 29th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
I couldn't check when i posted earlier, but it is true, i can download source SDK, and the only valve product I have ever purchased is Portal. I have been unable to find any mods available through steam however. Your article says they will be implemented sometime this week, so I'll be looking forward to it to see if they work with just the source SDK, or if they stick to the "HL2 required" mark the placeholder Steam pages say.

Thanks for the heads up on this.
Seaniccus Says:
September 29th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Well Hot Dog, it DOES work.
Sorry to continue to clutter up the comments section, but I decided to download a small mod labeled as "HL2 required" just to see if it worked. The small (99mb) and weird mod I tested it with is IOS - "International Online Soccer," a beta of a multilayer online soccer game. I can't say i'm a big fan of IOS (although the idea of a team based online sports game is interesting, rather than one person controlling an entimre team,) but the Source SDK seems fullly capable of plyaing any mod designed for HL2. (Half-life 2 is now even listed as "pre-load complete" on steams "my games" screen.)

Thanks again Jessie.

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Steam Offers Game Mods for Free Says:
September 30th, 2008 at 4:57 am
[...] Random Feed wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptValve’s Source game engine may be nearly four years old, but the price is right — anybody who buys a single Source-powered game can download the Source SDK for free, via Steam. (Didn’t know you had it? Check your “Tools” tab in Steam.) Valve has also used their online delivery system to keep their game engine up-to-date for players and developers alike, adding new tools and support for a growing community of amateur developers. Needless to say, Valve knows a thing or two about supporting game m [...]

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