In-game items make the sales of a game grow over night. Many companies have started producing and selling this kind of interesting and useful things even if the games are free to download and in consequence, they shouldn’t pay so much money. But don’t they? In fact, in the situation of Team Fortress 2, a game of Valve, the amount of money that comes from designing useful items for the game players is very high. From the beginning of 2011, over $57 million were paid to people that are part of the Steam Workshop program which is based on this business in particular. The games that are also part of the lucky ones are: Counterstrike: Global Offensive, DOTA 2, Team Fortress 2 and additionally, in the near future, the ones who will join are: Dungeon Defenders: Eterny and Chivalry: Medieval Walfare.
The 1500 item creators for games have spread in over 75 countries and the salary tuned out being substantial: about $38.000 per person, which means a lot to the people that took part of the incredible team. MOBAs, Gabe Newell and Co. are looking for new partners who will help them design more and better, so the chances of getting such a jack pot are numerous.
Furthermore, good news are spreading about new workshops of Valve that will give birth to various chances for beginners. A Valve representative wrote about this in a company blog post.
“When we launched the Workshop late in 2011, we expected that it would grow, but not that it would grow this much, this quickly. More curated Workshops to become available for creators and players in various games over the coming weeks and months.”
In addition, non-Valve games (the mentioned Medieval Walfare and Dungeon Defenders: Eternity) have also begun recruiting for item designers that are going to be as well paid as the Valve ones.
The items that are being created for these games include: fight and strategic weapons, a wide range of skins in order to personalize the game and the persona you are in it, emoticons for better communication, maps that help you find the key in every game and guide you to the very best experiences that the graphic offers.
Image Source: I-Stack