Steam Item Stores Revisits The Idea Of Paid Mods On Steam

Remember earlier this year when Valve and Bethesda teamed up to allow paid mods for Skyrim via Steam? It's safe to say that the effort blew up in their faces, as users lashed out at both companies. Eventually the paid mod store was pulled down, and considered to be a failure. Well, Valve has decided to re-introduce the idea of putting community-created content up for sale, but they're taking a different approach this time.

If you head over to the new Rust Item Store, you'll see a variety of items up for grabs. Many of those items are created by community members. And like the failed paid mods from Skyrim, the creators get a cut of any money brought in by the sale of those items. So what makes this different from that fiasco? The most important fact is that all of the items you can purchase are only cosmetically different from their regular in-game counterparts.

What's even more interesting is that you can obtain all of these cosmetic items as in-game drops. That means that everyone has a chance to get any of these, without paying a dime. That seems like a far more fair way to add more content without upsetting the community.

One final thing to note is that Valve has chosen to list the current starting price for each of these items in the Community Market. If the items are selling for a lower price on the market, you can simply purchase it from someone there. You also won't be able to trade or list any items purchased through the Rust Item Store for one week, likely to prevent flipping items when they become available.

VIA: RockPaperShotgun

Source: Rust Item Store