Steam now offers new functionality in the Steam Workshop, allowing community mod makers the opportunity to earn money doing what they love. With this update, community-made Workshop content such as mods, items, or maps can now be made available for sale directly via the Steam Workshop for titles that have enabled this feature.

Workshop is now putting mod authors in business via a new streamlined process for listing, selling and managing their creations. Creators contributing to the Steam Workshop have the choice of listing their new creations for sale at a price of their choosing, or to continue to make their work available to players for free. Mods purchased from the Steam Workshop are available immediately for play.

“We think this is a great opportunity to help support the incredible creative work being done by mod makers in the Steam Workshop,” says Tom Bui at Valve. “User generated content is an increasingly significant component of many games, and opening new avenues to help financially support those contributors via Steam Workshop will help drive the level of UGC to new heights.”

Direct mod sales via the Steam Workshop debuts today with Bethesda Softworks’ award-winning title, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and additional titles will become available across the Steam Workshop in the coming weeks.

Mods on the Skryim Workshop have received more than170 million downloads to date. The thousands of free mods, items, weapons, and quests will continue to be available at the discretion of the players who made them.

Support for mod sales via Steam Workshop is the latest expansion of Workshop in recent weeks. In late January, support was added for third party games to sell in game items created by members of the community. Valve alsoannounced over $57 mil has been paid to community content creators since Workshop debuted in October 2011.