An official blog post from Team Fortress 2 has announced the full release of the game's source code. Given the game's industry-defying longevity and especially-creative fanbase, it's likely we'll see an explosion of innovation from players in the months to come.
Team Fortress 2 players have already had some creative freedom with things like the Steam Workshop for mods, but this release from Valve gives them a complete look under the hood. Valve outright states that this will let people "build completely new games based on TF2."
But with this release, comes a question. Valve's practically non-existent pace of updates hasn't gone unnoticed. If Valve has been looking to put their focus elsewhere, does this mean that Valve has officially given up on updating Team Fortress 2?
In theory, there's nothing Valve can do right now that players can't do themselves. In practice, Valve still holds domain over one key feature of most games: the ability to make money. This gives them some incentive to keep things going, if only a small one.
The use of TF2's source code comes with a "non-commercial releases only" restriction. Paid content is not allowed - if you use the...
