The popular sandbox mod for Valve‘s Source engine has generated $3 million in sales over the last two years.
Since its commercial release on Valve’s Steam service in November of 2006, Garry’s Mod has sold 312, 541 copies. At $9.99 per copy, that totals to over $3 million in revenue, according to Big Download’s math.
Garry’s Mod, which began as pet project for Half-Life 2 modder Garry Newman, gives players the ability to manipulate objects from any game that uses the Source Engine. Seen those pictures of the Team Fortress 2 Heavy about to chomp down on the cake from Portal? Or that hilarious Half-Life: Full Life Consequences video? That’s Garry’s Mod.
For Newman, the success of the mod was an unexpected (and obviously welcome) surprise. “I kind of expected that it would sell a big number of copies for the first day, then sell very few after that,” he wrote on his blog. “I was kind of wrong, because over the next 2 years it went on to sell 312,541 copies. Which has totally knocked my socks off.”
Aside from granting him “financial stability” and making “me a lot more experienced in c++”, Garry’s Mod also opened some doors for Newman. “I got to fly to Valve HQ and meet some game making dudes,” Newman said. “I got to tell a nice bearded fellow how I was sick all over myself in the shower after eating airline food, and then realising I was talking to Warren Spector.”
