Team Fortress 2 item makers earn $2m
That's a lot of hats.
Team Fortress 2 item makers have made over $2 million selling their digital creations, Valve has announced.
Yesterday marked the first full year of the in-game Mann Co. Store, and during that time user-generated content creators have made millions selling their virtual wares.
The Mann Co. Store is where the community designs, buys, sells and trades items TF2 characters can wear, such as hats.
"The 'Mann Co. Store' represents an important new direction for games and game makers," said Valve boss 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."
Meanwhile, Valve has made live the Steam Workshop, an improved submission hub for community-created content. It's designed to make it easy to upload entries, check their status and get feedback from Valve. The Team Fortress community can view, comment on and rate items there, too.
Valve's added 30 new hats and cosmetic items, an item decal system, a "try before you buy" system, loadout presets, improved game performance and a new taunt as part of the Manniversary Update, which the company describes as "one of the largest and most ambitious in TF2's four-year history".