The Steam Workshop holds 6.77 million active mods. Most of them are finished. That isn't a criticism — it's the shape of a healthy content ecosystem. But knowing exactly how much of the Workshop is actively maintained, and where that maintenance concentrates, is a demand signal studios and creators rarely look at.
Using ModSignal's live dataset of 6.77 million active Workshop items across 401 tracked games, we measured mod update vitality directly: the share of each game's active mods updated in the last 90 days, plus how much subscription demand the recently-updated minority actually capturates.
The Workshop is a dormant long tail
Across the entire active catalog:
- Only 448,000 mods — 6.6% — were updated in the last 90 days.
- 3.51 million mods (52%) were first published over three years ago.
- The average active mod is roughly 4 years old.
Dormancy is the default. Of the 6.77 million active items, 6.22 million went untouched for over 90 days.
Recently-updated mods punch far above their weight
The small minority that is maintained carries disproportionately more demand per item. Mods updated in the last 90 days — 448,000 items — account for 1.10 billion subscriptions, an average of ~2,466 subscriptions per mod. The other 6.22 million dormant mods hold 11.35 billion subscriptions, an average of ~1,824 per mod.
That 35% higher per-item demand on the maintained tail is exactly the signal to watch: an updated mod is more likely to be installed, re-visited, and re-shared than a static one.
Update vitality by game
These are the largest Workshop ecosystems, ranked by the share of active mods updated in the last 90 days:
| Game | Active mods | Updated last 90d | Update rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Counter-Strike 2 | 144,328 | 17,780 | 12.3% |
| People Playground | 138,189 | 15,476 | 11.2% |
| Trailmakers | 330,847 | 35,632 | 10.8% |
| Garry's Mod | 174,395 | 14,780 | 8.5% |
| Brick Rigs | 131,334 | 10,550 | 8.0% |
| Human Fall Flat | 216,627 | 13,474 | 6.2% |
| Scrap Mechanic | 198,039 | 12,293 | 6.2% |
| Portal 2 | 178,425 | 10,509 | 5.9% |
| Left 4 Dead 2 | 144,272 | 7,456 | 5.2% |
| Terraria | 149,542 | 5,108 | 3.4% |
| Rust | 132,223 | 4,218 | 3.2% |
| Kerbal Space Program | 124,812 | 3,260 | 2.6% |
| Cities: Skylines | 158,329 | 3,506 | 2.2% |
| Besiege | 238,063 | 5,019 | 2.1% |
| Empyrion – Galactic Survival | 132,064 | 1,233 | 0.9% |
What the ranking reveals
Live-ops games sustain the hottest mod tails. Counter-Strike 2's 12.3% update rate tops the list — aim trainers, utility tools, and config mods are tied to a fast-moving competitive meta, so creators keep shipping. This matches the earlier conversion analysis: CS2's utility mods convert browsers to subscribers at 148%.
Sandboxes drift dormant. Besiege (2.1%) and Empyrion (0.9%) have huge, mostly-finished catalogs. Their mods are completed artifacts, updated occasionally — not a live-service treadmill.
Update vitality and popularity are not the same thing. Garry's Mod sits mid-pack at 8.5% despite being the single largest ecosystem, because its long tail of one-off contraptions never gets touched again. High raw counts don't imply high maintenance.
What this means for studios and creators
- A maintained mod is a demand multiplier. The 35% per-item subscription advantage of recently-updated mods makes update cadence a real lever for creators competing in crowded catalogs.
- For studios, the dormant tail is the retention risk. A mod player depends on is an asset; when the creator abandons it, so do some players. Supporting key creators with API access before they go dormant is cheaper than losing the install base.
- Freshness is a ranking-like signal, not just a nicety. The ecosystems with the healthiest update rates are the ones where new mods keep landing and old ones keep evolving — the two together are what keeps a Workshop alive years after launch.
How we measure
All figures come from the ModSignal live dataset of the Steam Workshop. "Active" means currently indexed and not removed; "updated in the last 90 days" refers to the item's most recent Workshop modification timestamp (time_updated) relative to the snapshot. Update rates are computed as the share of each game's active mods with a modification within 90 days.
This is the data ModSignal tracks daily to spot breakout creators and fading ecosystems early. Explore the live dataset to see these numbers move, or compare games directly.