Steam Takes Stand Against Forced In-Game Advertising with New Policy

Valve, the company behind Steam, has introduced new guidelines that explicitly ban games requiring players to watch advertisements to progress. This new policy change on Steam aims to maintain the platform’s gaming experience and clarify acceptable business practices for developers.

According to the updated rules, while cross-promotion and product placement remain acceptable, games cannot force players to engage with advertising as a prerequisite for gameplay. The policy specifically addresses the practice of rewarding players for watching ads, stating this is no longer permitted on the platform.

“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,” Valve states in their new guidelines.

The company has provided alternative monetization suggestions for developers whose games currently rely on advertising. These options include converting to a traditional paid app model or adopting a free-to-play structure with optional microtransactions and DLC.

The rules also address developer-to-developer relationships, prohibiting the practice of charging other developers for access to Steam features like sale pages, bundles, store fronts, or franchise pages. This policy update comes alongside other platform improvements, including a new feature that displays the time elapsed since early access games received their last update, further enhancing transparency for Steam users.

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