So, let’s make some excuses for the lack of a spike. It’s also one of the most popular games on Steam. Skyrim is by far the most popular game on the Workshop – with 8600 items uploaded at time of writing. Now let’s look at the numbers across third party games. So we can at least say that the introduction of the Workshop, when introduced with a price discount, increases the player population. But the previous jumps are most explained by sales, too. There is a caveat: the launch of the Workshop with Portal 2 coincided with a flash sale. The introduction of the workshop to Portal 2 had an immediate and significant impact on player population, and it continued to raise the number of active players post launch to beyond that was seen previously.

Let’s try the last Valve game to use the Steam Workshop: Portal 2. We alsoknow that Dota 2 is still in closed beta, and that its growth is artificially limited. There is a dip immediately before the launch of the Workshop, but I wonder if that is down to Valve holding back invitation waves before launch, creating negative churn. New items means new content, which should translate to new players, right?ĭota 2 is growing, but the introduction of the Steam Workshop on the 1st June seems to have had little impact on the trend. Players will be creating great items, which will then be sold in the Steam store.

DOTA 2’s entire business model is based around the Steam Workshop. It only recovered after the introduction of the Pyromania update.

If your criteria for success is increasing player numbers… not really.Īccording to the data, the introduction of the Steam Workshop in October 2011 had a minor impact on player numbers, but the player population declined substantially in the months following. It was introduced in part to help Valve assess and prioritise the best items for introduction to the game. In it, players can create new weapons and new cosmetic items. Team Fortress 2 was the first game to introduce the Steam Workshop.

How to use the steam workshop