When you see this logo, your game will probably last a long time.

"It is important to us that people can continue to find this game fresh, and supporting the modding community is a good way to do that."

When fans produce stuff like this, developers can pretty much stay home.

"The more offensive and controversial the custom content is, the better."

This map's more like Dungeon Attacker.

"For a developer to not release mod tools because they want to have an exclusive lock on new content for their game would be a foolish decision."

Tomorrow, co-op tower defense action game Dungeon Defenders gets its 21st and final major piece of paid DLC. This marks the end of developer Trendy's DLC plan -- but that doesn't mean Dungeon Defenders is ready to fade off into the sunset. As a parting gift, Trendy's patching in Steam Workshop support, giving players one-button access to tons of player-made maps and mods. I talked to Trendy co-founder Jeremy Stieglitz about the value of modding, the importance of Steam Workshop, and how mods and paid DLC can peacefully coexist.Though it's on everything from the Xbox 360 and PS3 to the iPad, Stieglitz agrees the PC version of Dungeon Defenders has become the best version because of the limitless expansion potential. "If anybody is able to play the PC version, they should play the PC version," he says.To an extent, Trendy sees adding Steam Workshop support to Dungeon Defenders as a sort of passing of the development torch. "It is important to us that people can continue to find this game fresh, and supporting the modding community is a good way to do that," says Stieglitz. While the Trendy team will still be on hand to assist and may put out occasional small pieces of content, the heavy lifting will be left up to the modders.Without the easy mod distribution and installation of Steam Workshop, this plan would have a much smaller chance of success. Finding, downloading, and installing mods has always been a hassle even for PC gamers who know what they're doing, but now player-created content for Dungeon Defenders will be easily accessible for all. As of Tuesday, all you'll have to do is visit the Steam Workshop page and push the subscribe button -- and if you attempt to join a game that's using a mod you don't have, you'll be sent to the appropriate Workshop page and prompted to download it. "It's pretty seamless," says Stieglitz.Stieglitz holds up the winners of Trendy's recent modding contest as examples of what can be accomplished using the already-available mod tools, saying the community has built content that rivals what Trendy itself creates. The winner, Palantir, will be adopted as an official ranked Dungeon Defenders map. "It's sort of a Lord of the Rings-inspired tower fortress, very kind of moody, moonlit night that looks like the tower in Mordor. It's a pretty neat-looking, darker style than you'd typically see in Dungeon Defenders," he says.While Palantir is a conventional map, Stieglitz says some of the runner-up entries bend the rules in interesting ways. "There's a level called King's Valley, which is basically an MMO-scale world. It's this huge environment with all these different region. It's a very long level -- you defend each region, then move onto the next. Another fun map is called The Siege, where you have to assault a fort. There are catapults that you can use to fling yourself over the walls. It's a fun kind of thing that kind of inverts the Dungeon Defenders formula a little bit."Stieglitz says there will be about 20 levels and mods available on Tuesday, with that number quickly rising as players upload new ones -- and he's hoping for some attention-getting shockers. "The more offensive and controversial the custom content is, the better. Hopefully we'll see some things that will get us nearly in trouble, but notin trouble." Based on some of the somewhat risque stuff that can be found in Skyrim's Workshop page, that's all but inevitable.Our conversation then turned to an often-seen message board theory that some developers (such as EA, which famously refused to support mods in Battlefield 3) intentionally withhold mod tools or actively cripple modding efforts to prevent competition with their own paid DLC content. As co-founder of a company that produced a large quantity of paid DLC, Stieglitz dismissed it outright. "I think it's kind of a false view," he says."I don't know why all developers don't put out DLC tools, but I think that if anyone is not giving tools to their users because they're afraid it will decrease their DLC sales, that's an inaccurate judgement of how people's brains work. People playing your game will always, if they're enjoying it, want to pay you for more official content. That's not really the problem. The problem is getting people to play your game and keeping them engaged. From that standpoint, mod tools are only helpful. They get people engaged because there's more content, and they don't have to pay for all of it. They'll keep playing, and if you have premium content that's developer approved and official, and is more polished than the mods available, they're likely to buy that as well. But I think for a developer to not release mod tools because they want to have an exclusive lock on new content for their game would be a foolish decision. I really do suspect, though, that a lot of developers simply don't release mod tools because it's very complex."But among games thatmake the effort to support modding, Stieglitz expects to see Steam Workshop adoption take off big time, especially among indie games. "If a game supports modding or mapmaking, then it definitely should support Steam Workshop if it's going to be available on Steam. There's no reason not to, and your players will thank you.": It's going to be great to see this in action in the weeks and months to come. I wonder what kind of great things the modding community will come up? What's something you'd like to see modded into Dungeons Defenders that would make it a better game?