Starting this week, Steam – the popular digital distribution and matchmaking service for PC gamers – will begin hosting and supporting numerous fan mods of selected games.
While Valve's service has always provided information about community-based mods, this latest initiative provides an enhanced user experience for gamers and mod developers alike.
Patches for these particular mods, for games created with the company's Source engine, will now be delivered directly through Steam, automatically, keeping the updating process as simple as it is for Steam's commercial games.
As an added bonus, these mods will be integrated with Steamworks. That means all of the stat-tracking, profile integration, achievements and matchmaking that we know and love with the games already available on Steam will now be fully implemented into these fan-made creations, free of charge -– provided that you own at least one Source title (Half-Life 2 or Counter-Strike Source, for example).
Only five mods have been announced thus far, with support for more presumably coming down the line. All things considered, this is great news for mod developers and gamers alike: Mod creation is a (relatively) ancient tradition, and such a direct show of support from Valve towards the community can only help the cause.
