Garry's Mod to be sold on Steam

By Tom Bramwell Published 18 April, 2006

$10 for Half-Life 2 mod.

The Half-Life 2 modification Garry's Mod is to be sold through Steam for $10, author Garry Newman's confirmed - with money split 50-50 between the mod team and distributor Valve.

Garry's Mod - or G-Mod - is a sandbox tool that allows you to manipulate objects within Half-Life 2's Source game engine, creating scenes and situations bound by the game's physics, either for fun or as part of some more purposeful diorama. It's grown to become one of the best-known amateur modifications to the game due to its versatility and creative potential.

However, in an interview with Steam Review, Garry admitted, "I was pretty much done with GMod. There was no reason for me to fix all the bugs (which required a whole lot of work). I planned to release a few bug/security fixes and leave it at that. This deal bought GMod back. There was a reason for me to work on it... the community wins that way."

According to Garry, the version known as 9.1 will become the initial paid release and will be supported by free updates to those who purchase it, while version 9.04 - the last prior to a rewrite - will become a free demo version. Players will need a Source Engine game (Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike: Source or something else) to run it, says Garry.

The question being debated by fans is now whether moving to this model rather than accepting donations will be good or catastrophic for the mod's communities of followers. "PetitionOnline will probably explode," Garry told Steam Review, "but eventually I think everyone will see that this is a great move."

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (14) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Talha #1 6 years ago

    Well, as long as Garry is making some money out of it. But $10? For a mod?

  • Bitkari #2 6 years ago

    Well, as long as Garry is making some money out of it. But $10? For a mod?

    $10 for a unique mod with several game modes, loads of machinima tools, a built-in scripting language.



    at least they're not charging $1.70 for horse clothes.

  • Talha #3 6 years ago

    Well I am not so sure even then - which is by no means saying that the Oblivion horse charge is fair. I guess it sounds good to someone who can and plans to do a lot with the mod.

  • Rankin #4 6 years ago

    I've easily had $10 worth of fun out of it already, so I'll be buying for sure.

  • linksdad #5 6 years ago

    The 50/50 split sounds a ripoff to me. I know it is way better than he would ever get from a traditional publisher, but still it's not like Chubby Newall has bandwidth to pay for.

  • dbeamish #6 6 years ago

    I agree.. Valve have raped him over the pricing.

  • useyourloaf #7 6 years ago

    50/50 is because Valve are giving him a license for the engine. If he wanted to fork out $100000 (or whatever) I'm sure the terms would be different.

  • ali-uk #8 6 years ago

    I honestly don't think Garry's wrong to do this. 50% of every sale's better than 0 profit, and honestly to most people 10$ is hardly a fortune. I'll definitely buy 9.1 on Steam.

  • linksdad #9 6 years ago

    " Players will need a Source Engine game (Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike: Source or something else) to run it, says Garry."

    Why would he need to licence the engine if end users have allready had to pay for it?

  • Lawlost #10 6 years ago

    A 50% royalty is a good deal. I know that the distribution costs will be minimal but remember Valve have invested a lot of money in Steam and are the first games maker to see the potential of on-line distribution. Gary's mod will be marketed to a very wide audience collated by steam, who likely to be very interested in it. He is much more likely to earn a reasonable sum of money through Steam than he would in trying to do it by himself.

  • useyourloaf #11 6 years ago

    "Selling the mod has had one particularly interesting and unusual effect: despite having no license, Garry will receive the uncompiled Source Engine code, blurring the line between a mod and full game as well as overcoming the limitations of the free SDK."

    Sorry for the confusion, but my point still stands.

    I think its an excellent route into the industry.

    1. Come up with an idea
    2. Prototype the idea as a mod
    3. Develop with a full engine without the need of an initial outlay
    4. Share profit, but not IP, with engine developer

  • smelly #12 6 years ago

    Gawd! Now we're expected to pay for fan created mods!!!

    This is all getting out of hand over the last few weeks! I can see this going on and on and on... this is just the tip of the iceburg!

    Paid for patches next!

  • kangarootoo #13 6 years ago

    Since when did "mod" become a rude word?

    Its just a way of describing software, it doesn't imply quality or the lack thereof. The only difference between a good mod and an expansion pack is that one is "official" and the other isn't.

    This is basically someone who spent a lot of time working on software, which many people have found entertaining.

    "Now we're expected to pay for fan created mods"

    I don't mean this as a personal insult, so please don't take it that way, but in the "real world" (as in outside of gaming), if you don't pay for a product you are generally expected to f*ck off. I'm making a sharp point there, and I'm not telling you to fck off, so don't get too peeved with me.

    Read your comment back and check you are sure thats what you meant. You are actually outraged that this guy spent tens of hours working on a piece of game software, but then didn't give it away for free! Really?

    EDIT: As always, you aren't "expected" to do anything.
    Edited by 1 at 18/04/06 @ 14:26

  • Fubdub #14 6 years ago

    You are gonna pay for Vista, which is, if you buy the Basic version little more than a patched up windows XP.