![Source SDK To Become Completely Free [Updated]](http://lambdageneration.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/hammerbasicsredbadgertut.jpg)
Back when Alien Swarm got released last year, many thought this would mean the Source SDK would become freely available to all. But that wasn’t to be, as Alien Swarm used its own, specialized mod tools.
Now TF2 has gone free-to-play. The way it works is – going premium will give you access to the Source SDK. That means any purchase from the Mann Co Store, as tiny as it could possibly be, will give you access to the Source SDK.
But apparently, there has been a change in plans!
Riley, lead playtester for Zombie Panic: Source, and the infamous No More Room in Hell, e-mailed Robin Walker, asking him if going premium within TF2 would give you access to the Source SDK. Robin replied with this e-mail, stating that:
Yep. That said, your email has triggered a process here that made us re-examine that, and we’re going to just go ahead and make the Source SDK freely available. Thanks for making us better!
Riley shared the e-mail with the fine folks at Reddit, and they’ve went ahead and created a handy little list of mods that are worth checking out. Rock, Paper, Shotgun asked Robin about it themselves, and he did confirm it:
We are in the process of getting it all done. It’s a bit messy because we have multiple versions of the SDK, and there’s some dependencies we need to shake out. But yes, the gist of it is that we’re just going to go ahead and make the Source SDK freely available.
So, that’s great. It’s too early for any guesses, but we’re really hoping this release sports some new tools, source code for the Source 2009 build (which includes Mac support), and is compatible with all Source mods, past, present and future.
Updated: James “Echo” Pizzurro has also informed us that the SDK and both SDK Bases were made completely free yesterday, without the prerequisite of owning any Steam game on your account, so it would seem that Valve has begun this process earlier than we thought. We’d like to thank him for letting us know.
12 Responses to “Source SDK To Become Completely Free [Updated]”
Does this mean Garry’s Mod no longer requires another game to run?
No, it still requires a Source game to work.
Hmm so much for having to waste time saying “well go ahead and ban me, i’ve got 100 other steam accounts”
That however doesn’t mean people would be able to play any mod for free.
Source SDK Base only provides the basic content, if you would like to play a Portal mod, you’d need to have Portal, otherwise you can’t mount the content.
Same about Half-Life 2 and the rest of the games, imagine if you didn’t have Half-Life 2 but you could play a Half-Life 2 mod, you could simply download the map files from somewhere (Like ‘the update’ mod) and play Half-Life 2 through the console easily.
The only mods you are going to be able to play for free are total conversions that do not require any mounted content from any game, such as Black Mesa: Source.
That’s not the point, though.
This is somewhat accurate, yes, but most new mods are supposed to be basing their content on a Source SDK Base variant anyway, so this does in fact apply to most of the Source mods out there, especially the ones on ModDB listed under ‘Half-Life 2′.
Correction: Source SDK, Source SDK Base 2006 and Source SDK Base 2007 are now all free to download via Steam without the previous requirement of having a Steam game installed. That means anyone can now play most any Source mod, even on new accounts that have no Steam games associated with it. I just felt the need to point this out given that your article states differently.
Since when have they been free to download?
Yesterday.
I would assume this is a direct consequence of Valve’s decision to make it free, since Riley’s e-mail was sent on the 26th. I will go ahead and add this information. Thank you for notifying me.
Yeah, I think that’s what sparked the initial conversation over at Valve that eventually led to this. Other folks also had a hand in this too, but there are far too many names to list and I forget most of them. Regardless, no problem, and thanks for updating your article. The more people that know about this the better!
Hmm… Free mods…