Steam Cracks Down on Games with Forced Ads

Steam Doubles Down On Banning Games With Forced In-Game Advertisements

Valve has taken a firm stance against games that force players to watch in-game advertisements, creating a dedicated policy page to outline these rules. This move is significant for gamers as it directly impacts the gaming experience on the Steam platform. Let's delve deeper into what this policy entails and its implications for players.

Valve Rolls Out Rules for Games with Forced Advertising

Games are Forced to Remove Ad Elements

Valve's new policy explicitly bans games that require players to engage with or watch advertisements to continue playing. This practice, often seen in mobile and free-to-play games, involves placing unskippable ads between levels or offering rewards for watching ads. The policy has been part of Steamworks' terms and conditions for nearly five years but has now been highlighted with its own dedicated page, likely due to the increasing number of games being released on the platform. According to SteamDB, 2024 saw an impressive 18,942 game releases.

Given the growth in game releases, Valve is tightening its guidelines. Steam itself does not feature paid advertisements, and thus does not support advertisement-based business models for games. Developers wishing to list such games on Steam must either remove these ad elements or reconfigure their game as a "single purchase paid app." Alternatively, they can adopt a free-to-play model with optional microtransactions or purchasable downloadable content (DLC). A prime example of this is the business management simulator Good Pizza, Great Pizza, which has transitioned its in-game ads into paid DLCs or unlockable content through gameplay.

Product Placements and Cross Promotions Allowed on Steam

While forced advertisements are prohibited, Steam does allow for product placements and cross-promotions, such as bundles and sale events, provided the necessary licenses are in place for any copyrighted content. This includes racing games like F1 Manager with real sponsor logos on racecars, or skateboarding games featuring real-world brands.

This policy is designed to ensure a higher quality gaming experience on PC, free from intrusive ads, thereby enhancing user immersion and satisfaction. Steam users can rest assured that the games they purchase will not interrupt their gameplay with forced advertisements.

"Abandoned" Early Access Games Now Give Warning

In addition to the advertisement policy, Steam has introduced a new feature for Early Access games. If an Early Access game has not received an update in over a year, a notice will appear on its store page, indicating the duration since the last update and a warning that "the information and timeline described here by the developers may no longer be up to date."

This feature aims to assist customers in filtering out games that have been essentially abandoned. While negative reviews can already signal an abandoned game, this new alert prominently displayed on the store page adds an extra layer of transparency.

The gaming community has responded positively to this update, with many expressing gratitude on social media and Steam forums. Some users, however, suggest that games abandoned for over five years should be delisted entirely.