Team Fortress 2 Community Earns $2M From In-Game Sales

One year after launching its virtual item store for Team Fortress 2, Valve Software announced that the game's community item creators have collectively earned more than $2 million from selling their in-game creations. Valve debuted the "Mann Co. Store" for Team Fortress 2 three years after the game's initial 2007 launch, and has since allowed community members to sell their own homemade weapons and items to other players using real-world currency. To celebrate the anniversary of the store, Valve will release an update that includes the Steam Workshop, a new interface that will make it easier for item creators to test, share and track the status of their virtual goods. The company said that Steam Workshop will "be fully integrated with the Steam community" over time but did not provide specific details. Along with the Steam Workshop, Valve plans to add to Team Fortress 2 a batch of new hats, an item decal system, "try before you buy" weapon sampling, and more. "The 'Mann Co. Store' represents an important new direction for games and game makers," said Valve co-founder and president Gabe Newell. "By leveraging and extending the platform features of Steam, Team Fortress 2 has enabled a viable marketplace for independent content creators and significantly extended the gameplay experience in an incredibly short amount of time." This year, Valve made Team Fortress 2 free-to-play, monetizing the game only through virtual item sales.