The Steam Workshop: Crowdsourcing Content

Making a video game can be hard and expensive. Here's an interesting thought though: how about other people make the video game and you sell it?

Well, it's not actually that simple, but it is an interesting idea.

In my previous post, I discussed how new technologies have brought game development to the masses. I also mentioned how crowdsourcing projects like Kickstarter can fund video game development by drawing donations from across the world. Another form of crowdsourcing emerges when we draw the content itself from the people. Now that independent and hobbyist game design has reached the quality of studio work, it is possible to take advantage of this commercially. Valve was one of the first to realize this potential, and created the Steam Workshop.

Mann Co, Valve's fictitious alter ego, learns that even the worst situations can still yield a profit. (source) 

Team Fortress 2 is one of Valve's hit titles, and it has been constantly updated and supported since its release almost five years ago. Valve also released the developer tools for the game, allowing other programmers or game designers to easily modify or add to the game. A large community formed around the game, and many players spent their free time using those tools to create alternative weapons or new game play modes and maps. These creations, however, were never officially supported by the game, and were only every used by the select group of players who were involved in the modding community. Valve, seeing the quality of these works, created a simple submission system in 2010 that allowed people to submit their creations to be officially included in the game. This was the beginning of the Steam Workshop.

You couldn't have that mullet before the Steam Workshop. 

Sure enough, the project was a success. No longer did Valve have to design new weapons or hats; all that was being done by the community. Even later, Valve created a store for the game that allowed players to buy hats made by other players, which gave a portion of the profits to the creator of the hat. This too was a success, with these creators (and Valve) making a ton of extra cash.

Valve was crowdsourcing game content.

With time however, the number of submissions grew and grew until they became too much to handle- so what did Valve do? They used crowdsourcing again. The Steam Workshop evolved further and now allows players to view, sort, and rank content made by other players. This has created an interesting dynamic that allows players to add to the game as they play it.

Other video games, such as LittleBigPlanet, have also focused on allowing users to create their own content using built in level editors and tools. The Steam Workshop is unique, however, in that it supports programmed mods of any kind as an integral feature of the platform. Modding takes time and dedication, and it requires a lot more personal commitment to create and share. There have always been many websites and communities that focused on creating original content and mods for popular games, however, these have always been segregated from the game itself. When these mods are available directly in the interface of their respective games it brings this content to a much wider demographic. This allows players to get a lot more out of these games, and this feature becomes a valuable element of the game. In these cases, the developers only have to support the Steam Workshop, and then sit back and relax as the world does the rest. And so, these companies can use crowdsourcing to extend the value of their game.

Skyrim is the second game to use the Steam Workshop, with more to come. From the user's end, it is very simple and easy to try different mods. The submissions range from gameplay tweaks to entirely new missions. It is an awesome feature, and I'm excited to see this implemented in more games to come.