Valve has always been interested in the gaming community, especially modifying games. Let's not forget, one of the biggest online shooters, Counter Strike, was a result of a modification made to Valve's big game  Half Life. The success made Valve take the team behind it into its own studio and create newer versions of the game, like Counter Strike 1.6 or Counter Strike: Source, powered by the company's high definition engine. The attention it gave to the modding community made it very popular among gamers, a thing that isn't very easy to achieve. As a new way to encourage modders, Valve has recently announced that they would start hosting mods on their popular digital content distribution service, Steam.

“As a part of our continuing efforts to support the MOD community, we will begin hosting selected MODs directly on Steam starting next week. The first five MODs to ship on steam will be Age of Chivalry, D.I.P.R.I.P., Insurgency, Synergy, and Zombie Panic. As always, owners of any Source game will be able to download and play all of these MODs for free. We're excited to see MOD developers get wider recognition for the hard work they have done, and we hope to support more MOD teams in the future.” read the official press release from the company.

Also, these mods will benefit from their custom stat tracking system, called Steamworks, which will result in a “tighter integration with the Steam community”.

It's really nice that big companies actually listen to the feedback from the community and do things which aren't always product oriented, like publicity stunts or gifts. This is a genuinely altruistic gesture from Valve, one that definitely won't be forgotten by all the gamers out there. Something tells me that the sales of the upcoming Left 4 Dead title will be pretty good.