Valve reached a deal with Garry's Mod creator. Players will earn money on Steam for games created in S&box
Garry Newman of Facepunch studio announced that he has come to an agreement with Valve and fan projects created in S&box can be sold on Steam. This will effectively give aspiring devs the possibility to create their own games on the Source 2 engine.
S&box is a title that has been in development for many years, conceived as the successor to Garry's Mod. The studio working on it, Facepunch, shared exciting information about the future of this unique platform.
It turns out that fan-made projects developed in S&box can be exported to standalone games and then distributed on Steam. Something like this wasn't possible in the case of Garry's Mod.
- S&box uses the Source 2 engine, so in practice it allows small developers to build their own games based on this technology. Such a solution requires a change in the licensing agreements with Valve Corporation, but both parties have already agreed on this matter, and now their lawyers are in the final stages of approving the new provisions.
- The head of Facepunch studio, Garry Newman, is very pleased with all of this. As he explained, he deeply regretted that fans couldn't earn money from their creations in Garry's Mod.
Besides the option to export projects created in S&box, Facepunch studio will also enable earning from modifications that are still active in the game. The company will pay developers based on how much time players spend playing their creation.
- It's supposed to be financed through the sale of skins and the S&box itself. To help with this, work is underway on the possibility of adding your own costumes to the store in this game.
- However, there won't be an option to sell access to mods alone - these will always be available to anyone who has S&box. Therefore, if a developer wants to monetize their projects, it will be necessary to export them to a separate game.
If all goes well, S&box has a chance to become something like Roblox for adults, with a much more advanced engine. Newman openly aims to steer clear of the issues associated with this hit and make sure that player-created projects don't end up in the pay-to-win category.
At the end of July last year, S&box was made available for testing to all interested parties.
