Steam is banning games that force players to watch in-game advertisements
Valve has updated Steam's advertising rules, preventing developers from placing ads in games that players must interact with in order to access gameplay.
The details:
As reported by GamingOnLinux, Steam's advertising rules have recently been updated. While the platform allows for product placement in games, such as Monster Energy's appearance in Death Stranding, it will not accept titles that require players to watch ads before they can play. "Developers should not utilise 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," the page states.
However, if the games contain those advertisements on other platforms, they are not outright banned on Steam as long as developers are able to remove them from the Steam release. Valve states that alternative methods of generating revenue that are accepted on Steam are the sale of microtransactions and DLC, or a traditional one-time payment to own the game.
Studios are also prohibited from providing any type of incentive or reward, such as in-game items or currency, in exchange for watching or engaging with in-game advertisements.
Aggressive in-game advertising is commonly associated with free-to-play mobile games that frequently force players to sit through unskippable ads after completing a level or dying, or by choice in order to receive rewards. While these controversial systems are rarely seen in PC titles, in-game monetization strategies continue to change, with a strong emphasis on "battle passes," and it would not be surprising if a notable release attempted in-game ads in the future.
The change is part of Valve's quiet push to seemingly protect its users from being exploited by developers. Last year, it announced changes to its Season Pass policies requiring developers to provide more information and deliver content on time. It also recently began adding notes to early access games that had not been updated in more than a year.
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