Valve Bans In-Game Advertising From Steam Games

As part of Valve’s updated Steam terms of service, several new measures have been implemented to remove a lot of the more predatory features in games. Chief among these is the banning of any games that has in game advertising. This is detailed in a new ‘advertising’ page on Steam that gives a run-down on what won’t be allowed in games if their developers’ want them to be available on their platform.

When it comes to advertising in games, you may think that this would mean the banning of loot box promotions or microtransactions being shoved in player’s faces. Fortunately for EA, however, these are exempt and aren’t what Valve is targeting with their new rules. The ‘advertising’ being referred to and banned is more related to 3rd party’s paying studios to include advertising within their releases. It also prevents players from gaining in game items for engaging with these advertisements. Think watching an annoying ad as part of a mobile game to get more gems.

These types of games are far more mobile than PC based but it’s good to see a lot of potential shovel ware being removed from the storefront. Of course, free to play or paid games offering microtransactions or DLC will still be allowed to advertise these- as long as they are completely optional and don’t interfere with the general playing of the game.

Other exceptions such as crossovers or in game promotions are allowed as well as advertising other products from the same studio (such as sequels or spin-offs). Again, this mostly just targets those releases that force players to engage with the advertisements in the same way that a mobile game would force you to either watch more ads or pay in game currency. Although rare, the option for developers to exploit players in this way has now been heavily restricted thanks to these new rules.