What is: Steam Workshop and How to Use it
The Steam workshop is a part of the gaming client Steam. It is a community-driven place where users and content creators can upload and download content for their favorite games. Steam workshop supports many different items which include mods, artwork, skins, maps and much more.
How to browse the Steam workshop
You can access the Steam workshop on your web browser by going to this Steam community Workshop Page. Alternatively, you can access it within the Steam client itself by clicking ‘Workshop’ under the ‘Community’ tab. If you are using the web browser, make sure to log in with your Steam account if you want to download it from the workshop.
Once inside the workshop, you can browse the vast collection of user-uploaded content using the search bar, or by clicking one of the sort buttons on the right. If there is no Browse the Workshop button, then the game doesn’t support the Steam Workshop.
Steam Workshop Mods: Free or Not?
The Steam Workshop is a free to use service. Mostly, mods and other items at the Steam Workshop are also free. Although some games like Skyrim have premium mods that a user has to purchase and the payment goes to the creator of the mod (not the game). But refund policy of the purchased mod will be the same as of the game for which mod was created.
How to download a mod
Let’s use the popular FPS shooter Counter Strike Global Offensive as an example by download a training map. Use the search bar to navigate to the CSGO workshop page. Find something you wish to download then click on it. Let’s download Dust 2 – Smoke Practice as an example.
Users can give reviews and ratings for workshop items which you can read to find what you are looking for. The rating can be seen in the top right-hand side of the workshop page and scrolling down will take you to the user-submitted text reviews.
Click the green subscribe button and the mod/map will be added to your subscription list.
Make your way over to the downloads section in your Steam client and you should see the item you just subscribed to in the workshop list.
When the download is finished, you can launch the game and access the content in-game.
The downloaded map will be available inside the game in the workshop section.
How to delete a mod
To unsubscribe from a mod, go back to the Steam workshop page. Scroll down until you see the ‘Your Workshop Files’ tab and click on it.
Now click on the ‘subscribed items’ on the right-hand side of the page.
You will be able to see the mod you subscribed to most recently. You can click the unsubscribe button and the mod will be deleted from your library.
Who Can Upload to the Steam Workshop?
Everyone can be the creator of the Steam Workshop. But you will have a binding agreement from Valve when you submit items in Steam Workshop. But uploading (not done through Steam Client) is much more complicated than downloading from Steam Workshop. The upload method depends upon the developer of the game. Some developers add an in-game menu option to upload your mods while others require you to use a command line. Also, some developers provide a utility to upload the mods.
