One of the most popular community-built Half-Life 2 mods, Garry's Mod, will now be sold via Steam for ten bones according to a story on The Steam Review (thanks, the Shack). The current version, 9.0.4, will still be available from Garry's website. The release date for the Steam version has yet to be finalized, and Garry is promising continious updates for the commercial product.
Steam has opened up many new commercial oppurtunites for mod developers, and that fact should be hard for the community to ignore. I have to wonder that if Counter-Strike were released on June 18, 1999 with a price tag of $10, would have anyone bought it? Would the game have taken off? It's easy to say yes, because the CS we play now is very polished, but the BETA 1 I played was a far cry from a commercial product. Garry is releasing a good, polished product on Steam. I don't think Counter-Strike or Garry's Mod, regardless of how good they are now, could have started on Steam.
If mod authors see dollar signs in their eyes, good for them! But game development is getting more difficult and time-consuming in general as computers and consoles get more powerful, and mod authors looking for a commercial Steam release are now under the scrutiny of a paying audience. Often the mods that succeed are those that release early, and update often. A commercial product can update often, but what about releasing early?
The BETA period for the original Counter-Strike lasted from June of 1999 until November of 2000 — which saw seven major releases that had many new features (like the AK-47, added in August, 1999) and dozens more gameplay changes. The article about GMod's commercial release discusses this issue, and how a commercial release constrains so-called "casual development":
Steam's platform has yet to had significant effect on the mod community, but it certainly has cemented its place in the commercial indie games market. Darwinia, released on Steam in 2005, won three Independent Games Festival awards at this year's Game Developer's Conference. While accepting one of the awards, the team explained why they refused to take publisher money: "... We didn't want any publishers fucking up our game." The audience of game developers applauded for over a minute.
Steam has opened up many new commercial oppurtunites for mod developers, and that fact should be hard for the community to ignore. I have to wonder that if Counter-Strike were released on June 18, 1999 with a price tag of $10, would have anyone bought it? Would the game have taken off? It's easy to say yes, because the CS we play now is very polished, but the BETA 1 I played was a far cry from a commercial product. Garry is releasing a good, polished product on Steam. I don't think Counter-Strike or Garry's Mod, regardless of how good they are now, could have started on Steam.
If mod authors see dollar signs in their eyes, good for them! But game development is getting more difficult and time-consuming in general as computers and consoles get more powerful, and mod authors looking for a commercial Steam release are now under the scrutiny of a paying audience. Often the mods that succeed are those that release early, and update often. A commercial product can update often, but what about releasing early?
The BETA period for the original Counter-Strike lasted from June of 1999 until November of 2000 — which saw seven major releases that had many new features (like the AK-47, added in August, 1999) and dozens more gameplay changes. The article about GMod's commercial release discusses this issue, and how a commercial release constrains so-called "casual development":
Garry's Mod has a legacy of casual development which will have to change when Garry becomes accountable to his customers. GMod has evolved significantly in the past, something that can’t go on. "One of my original worries was that people would complain that they paid for it at version X... I'll be restricted as to how much I can change," Garry explains.This sort of iterative, feature-driven development is how many mods are produced at the moment. Steam is the best platform for this sort of iterative release cycle — but there isn't a way for mod developers to release free builds of their product on Steam as to harness the platform's auto-updating technology. Ironically, these free mods are the ones that benefit the most from iterative releases, as an active community can keep mod development lasting.
Steam's platform has yet to had significant effect on the mod community, but it certainly has cemented its place in the commercial indie games market. Darwinia, released on Steam in 2005, won three Independent Games Festival awards at this year's Game Developer's Conference. While accepting one of the awards, the team explained why they refused to take publisher money: "... We didn't want any publishers fucking up our game." The audience of game developers applauded for over a minute.
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