In its own statement, Valve's Tom Bui said: '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.'Īs for why Valve is launching the new program with Skyrim, it might have something to do with the enduring popularity of the game and its devoted ( and creative) players. The difference here that Skyrim is the first game with an open market-neither Bethesda nor Valve will have a hand in determining pricing or curation. Only in January this year did Valve announce plans to open this up to third-party games. Steam users have had the ability to sell their items through the Steam Workshop for years now-creators have even earned $57 million since 2011 doing so-but this was limited to Valve games like Team Fortress 2 and DOTA 2, among others.

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