Selling Game assets

[GameSmashDash]

Considering a lot of other platforms do this, I'm surprised you guys don't have a place to sell game assets considering you're one of the biggest if not the biggest platform in the market as of right now.

[Spawn of Totoro]

Because Valve sells Games.

Game assets are sold by places that cater to the developers who make the games that come to Steam.

They are two different markets.

[GameSmashDash]

Originally posted by Spawn of Totoro:

Because Valve sells Games.

Game assets are sold by places that cater to the developers who make the games that come to Steam.

They are two different markets.

Epic and Unity both have said markets; also TF2 Steam workshop is similar to someone selling their idea on the market just community chosen instead.

[Crazy Tiger]

Originally posted by GameSmashDash:

Originally posted by Spawn of Totoro:

Because Valve sells Games.

Game assets are sold by places that cater to the developers who make the games that come to Steam.

They are two different markets.

Epic and Unity both have said markets; also TF2 Steam workshop is similar to someone selling their idea on the market just community chosen instead.

Epic and Unity both have game engines that are widely used in games. Valves Source engine isn't.

[Mad Scientist]

Originally posted by GameSmashDash:

Originally posted by Spawn of Totoro:

Because Valve sells Games.

Game assets are sold by places that cater to the developers who make the games that come to Steam.

They are two different markets.

Epic and Unity both have said markets; also TF2 Steam workshop is similar to someone selling their idea on the market just community chosen instead.

they sell games & software here. Asset flips are usually removed from Steam as well, so it's better to not be seen as encouraging use of said assets & then turning around and removing asset-flipping games.

[Spawn of Totoro]

Originally posted by GameSmashDash:

Epic and Unity both have said markets; also TF2 Steam workshop is similar to someone selling their idea on the market just community chosen instead.

Epic Game Store doesn't sell assets. The Unreal Engine Marketplace does.

Unity does not sell games, only assets.

TF2, DOTA 2 and CS:GO does not have game assets. They sell items specifically for their games. I would equate them to user mods being sold, then to assets for games.

As I said, they are two different markets. Even on Epic, it is still two different storefronts. Epic Games and Unreal Engine Marketplace. Two different stores, simply owned by the same company.

[GameSmashDash]

Originally posted by Mad Scientist:

Originally posted by GameSmashDash:

Epic and Unity both have said markets; also TF2 Steam workshop is similar to someone selling their idea on the market just community chosen instead.

they sell games & software here. Asset flips are usually removed from Steam as well, so it's better to not be seen as encouraging use of said assets & then turning around and removing asset-flipping games.

You are correct; it's not as if other stores have to deal with asset flips and report it on their stores.

[GameSmashDash]

Originally posted by Spawn of Totoro:

Originally posted by GameSmashDash:

Epic and Unity both have said markets; also TF2 Steam workshop is similar to someone selling their idea on the market just community chosen instead.

Epic Game Store doesn't sell assets. The Unreal Engine Marketplace does.

Unity does not sell games, only assets.

TF2, DOTA 2 and CS:GO does not have game assets. They sell items specifically for their games. I would equate them to user mods being sold, then to assets for games.

As I said, they are two different markets. Even on Epic, it is still two different storefronts. Epic Games and Unreal Engine Marketplace. Two different stores, simply owned by the same company.

You are correct; my mistake on that one.

[OptimalNoob]

(tl;dr included)

I was going to submit a separate thread but I feel this is close enough for an idea I was pondering.

It's definitely not something that would be critical to the success of Steam's financial health and could simply be left to the existing players in this specific market, but if Valve ever felt the need to stretch into a different side of the gaming industry (I'm looking at you, Index, SteamLink, Steam Deck, etc.) I could see the option of sharing created game assets within the Workshop, with no affinity to a specific game, and no charge to the users, just community provided assets, sprites, models, audio, etc. (the selection of types could be adjusted).

The idea brings me back to the days of Greenlight where you would find tons of raw creativity, prototypes, and great ideas (sure there may have been some that never went Green /s). My experience with Steam apart from consuming games has been Authoring Tools provided for various games and Garry's Mod which is basically a limited but still great variant of the Source Engine to play around with, and Greenlight demos and prototypes.

Valve provides fantastic game/mod tooling and games that are fun to mod, and while platforms like Itch exist (they also sell games), I'd love to see a part of Steam that provides an even stronger community in the Game Dev space considering that video games are the centric point of Steam's existence, if not for the commerce of it.

There'd of course be a responsibility to vet the content for DMCA infringing works, one would assume this already exists for those that want to launch their game on the Steam store anyway, let alone for the existing pipeline for the Workshop.

If there are concerns about storage, my only defensive argument would be that game assets, on average, might create a smaller storage footprint than thousands of game prototypes that never turn a dime for the maintenance of the platform (nodding back the selection of asset types earlier in this message)

While not a direct focus of this idea, but a bonus: this could potentially pave the way for game engines/IDEs and other tools sold/hosted on the Steam store to have direct Workshop access so developers could have quick and easy access to the asset portion of the Workshop, allowing for direct imports into a dev project.

TL;DR what if Steam allowed sharing game assets in the Workshop, kinda like the Greenlight days? A space for sprites, models, audio—stuff not tied to a specific game. It might not revolutionize Steam, but could boost the game development community. Address copyright, sure, but game assets take less space than prototypes on Greenlight. Bonus: Game engines/tools on Steam directly accessing Workshop assets. Thoughts?

Edit: added a missed word, spelling, oxford comma

[Adam]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.