Since the Steam Workshop launched in October of 2011, over 1,200 items created by the TF2 and now the DOTA community have been made available for sale. That's added up to a whopping $10 million in royalties paid to item creators.

The thing is, nobody creates a TF2 item in a vacuum. Chances are if you've made something for the Workshop, you've probably gotten some amount of help and feedback from various toolmakers, communities and mentors. A lot of these resources have proven to be immensely valuable to item creators. We'd like to give you a chance to show them just how valuable.

What if we were to tell you that you can now compensate the service providers that've helped you by giving them a percentage of the sales from your in-game item? And then what if we were to notice you walking quickly away from us after we said that? So what if we ran after you and told you hold on, you didn't hear the important part: You'll get to compensate those service providers without any actual money coming out of your own pocket. That's right: The contribution will be made from a set percentage that is redirected from Valve to the service provider, not taken from your royalty.

Starting today, item creators like yourself can leaf through a wide variety of communities, toolmakers and individuals, and decide who most deserves a percentage of your item sales (again, not your percentage). Those who'll benefit are completely up to you—from forums to programs to tutorial writers. You can divide the money between as many or as few benefactors as you'd like.

We've posted the list here, and we realize it's far from comprehensive. So be sure to let us know about other helpful resources we might have missed.

If you already have an item in the Team Fortress 2 Workshop, you can add and set Service Allowances by visiting the page for your item in the Workshop. So get out there and pay it forward like Kevin Spacey did in that movie, Superman Returns, when he gave Superman all that kryptonite, and then Superman paid it forward into space.

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include:

• Fixing a bug with Description strings getting cut off for the MAC and Linux versions

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include:

• Fixed a client crash when downloading custom maps for the Mac version
• Fixed browser cookies not persisting across game restarts
• Fixed the Festive Frontier Justice using the incorrect skin for the Blue team
• Fixed the Virus Doctor painting the entire hat instead of just the bands
• Fixed the shading for the Couvre Corner, Stout Shako, L'Inspecteur , and Full Metal Drill Hat
• Stopped dropping Mann Co Supply Crate #55 and added Mann Co Supply Crate #59
• Updated the Pocket Pyro so it can get assists in Pyrovision
• Updated the Liquidator's Lid so it can be painted
• Updated VR mode
  • Added support for cloning your desktop display
  • Added support for running the Rift as an extension of your desktop at resolutions other than 1280x800

ESA has announced a new tournament called Open Cup where players do not require an ESA premium account to participate. The prize pool is set to be distributed amongst the top 16 finalists giving all finalists something to earn. Further details can be found on the tournament site.

We were really impressed that so many of you resubmitted your items as Gold Star submissions since our last post two days ago. Now, given that this is what we asked you to do, you might wonder why we’re so impressed, and the answer is that nobody’s ever done anything we asked ever, so this is a bit of a novelty for us. We’ve been asking Robin Walker to stop breaking into our houses at 2AM to show us his latest hat designs for two years now, and we still wake up with him hovering inches over us, whispering “No worries” and holding up his sketchpad.

But enough about our night terror! The important part is that, to celebrate, we grabbed some of those Gold Star submissions and shipped them. “How much did you ship them?” you ask, your eyebrow arching suspiciously. We shipped them all the way, guys. No half-measures. We shipped the HELL out of these items.

This isn’t the big update we hinted at in the last post, by the way, or any of the other super-secret update content we've been working on that we haven't even hinted at yet*. This is just a little taste, a tide-me-over, what the French might call an amuse-bouche (“Your mouth pleases me.”) Enjoy! Or as the French say, Bon appétit! ("It is good that you are starving.")

*Except just then.

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include:

• Added 10 new Steam Workshop items
  • http://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=10864
• Added new promo items
• Fixed the in-game UI not using the Language setting from the TF2 Properties dialog in the Steam UI
• Fixed not hearing the Loose Cannon impact sound when playing on dedicated servers

Over the weekend we hit a new landmark, with over ten million dollars paid out to over 400 contributors and partners. And close to $250,000 of that figure will be paid out to the sixty-plus people who created the Robotic Boogaloo update.

If you just read that last paragraph and are kicking yourself for not making that beard of bees sketch a reality, here's the good news: We've also done a bunch of work improving the item submission tool, so it's never been easier to submit. The tool now automatically tests new creations against a set of standards, meaning anything you create is now significantly more likely to be game-ready.

You can now also see how your items will render on TF2 characters within the tool, making the creation process itself even quicker. Plus, every item submitted through the tool will now be tagged with a gold star, showing everyone that it's been vetted. FYI, our next update is going to ship exclusively with "gold star" items, and there's going to be no limit on how many we'll include. (Check out the Workshop FAQ for more info.)

In short, there's never been an easier, faster or more rewarding time to submit to the Workshop. If you're not making that beard of bees dream a reality, let's face it, at this point it's probably a motivational problem on your end.

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include:

• Added a new promo item
• Unusual hats that are tradable can now be listed on the Steam Community Market
• Updated the network interpolation and update convars so they can be changed immediately after changing class and respawning. This allows the automatically executed [classname].cfg files to update the values.
• Fixed a bug that would cause some players who used an "Upgrade to Premium" item to be unable to thank another player after upgrading. Accounts that were affected by this bug have been retroactively fixed and will have the option to thank a helpful player automatically next time they log in.
• The ITFItems/GetPlayerItems and ITFItems/GetSchema WebAPI interfaces are now deprecated and will eventually be removed. External tools can call IEconItems/GetPlayerItems and IEconItems/GetSchema for current data.

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include:

• Fixed the game failing to launch on Mac OS X 10.5
• Fixed a client crash caused by using custom HUD files
• Fixed a client crash related to the hatless hats and the character loadout screen
• Updated the network interpolation and update convars so they can be changed when dead

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include:

• Unusual effects:
  • Attachment point and offset for particle effects on unusual hats can now be adjusted from the character loadout screen
  • Fixed a bug that would cause unusual effects to float in the air over dead players
  • Fixed a bug that would cause unusual effects to show incorrectly sometimes when spectating other players
• Network interpolation and update convars can no longer be changed when playing. To configure these convars, players must not be connected to a server or must join the spectators
• Fixed a server crash caused by out-of-range animation sequence numbers
• Crates listed on the Community Market are now separated by series
  • Existing listings will be migrated over the next couple days