Yesterday, Valve made waves when it up to date its Steamworks Documentation now to incorporate a devoted “Advertising on Steam” web page, illuminating its anti-advertising-on-Steam stance— GamingOnLinux proceeded to report on this as a brand new coverage. Still, this was only a devoted web page for an present coverage, as famous by SteamDB and later GamingOnLinux when it realized its error.
In any case, making and dropping a devoted web page only for this query communicates the restrictions extra clearly and helps be sure that builders do not assume they will get away with posting ad-laden, cell game-esque slop on Steam. While the little regulation on Steam nonetheless permits for loads, the most typical freemium fashions from cell gaming nonetheless usually are not welcome on the platform.
The official web page below “Not Supported” states:
“Developers should not utilize paid advertising as a business model in their game, such as requiring players to watch or otherwise engage with advertising in order to play, or gating gameplay behind advertising. If your game’s business model relies on advertising on other platforms, you will need to remove those elements before shipping on Steam. Some options you could consider include switching to a single purchase ‘paid app,’ or making your game free to play with optional upgrades sold via Microtransactions or Downloadable Content (DLC).”
Other behaviors thought-about “Not Supported” on Steam embody utilizing “advertising as a way to provide value to players, such as giving players a reward for watching or engaging with advertising in their game” or charging “other developers for access to Steam features. These include sale pages, bundles, store pages, franchise pages, etc.”.
A restricted diploma of advertising continues to be allowed on Steam and listed as “Supported.” Still, these all describe your extra typical product placements, cross-promotions, and paid advertisements for video games accessible on Steam outdoors of Steam. Of course, advertising is part of any writer or developer’s toolkit— it is simply unacceptable as a core tenet of gameplay, as Valve has now made it further clear by setting apart a devoted web page on the matter.
Previously, this info was relegated to some temporary FAQs on the present “Pricing” documentation web page. The related FAQs state:
“Steam does not support paid ads or referral/affiliate revenue from showing ads for other games and/or products or services. If your game’s revenue relies on advertising on other platforms, you will need to find a new monetization model in order to release on Steam. Some options you could consider: Switch your game be a single purchase or make it free to play with microtransactions or additional content as DLC” and “Steam does not support models where a customer is blocked and needs to pay to continue playing. If you would like to have a free demo to show off your game, you’re welcome to do so. Your demo and full game can share files as well to continue game play. To figure out if a demo is the right thing for your game, please check out the Demos Documentation”.
To those that have monitored Valve or used Steam regularly through the years, these insurance policies should not be a lot of a shock. Mobile titles with these enterprise fashions that make their option to Steam inevitably change to both a one-time buy or a extra palatable Free-To-Play mannequin, in keeping with titles that pioneered that mannequin for PC gamers, like Valve’s personal 2007-launched, 2011-turned-live-service, Team Fortress 2.
As famous by GamingOnLinux in its protection, Valve has additionally lengthy banned video games reliant upon blockchain applied sciences, together with crypto and NFTs, being offered on Steam. Considering how typically these ventures (particularly NFTs) find yourself being outright scams, that is nonetheless a really clever coverage on their half, nevertheless it, after all, doesn’t cease the likes of studios like Ubisoft from self-publishing abhorrent NFT-RPGs, both.
