Steam doubles down on a 5-year-old rule to make it more visible: "Developers should not utilize paid advertising as a business model in their game"

The Steam logo
(Image credit: Steam)

Steam has made one of its policies that bans games𒀰 that use paid advertising as a business model or use ads to "provide value to players" more visible.

Last night, spotted the policy on Steam's . It was initial✃ly assumed to ♌be a new rule, but pointed out it's been in effect for "at least five years," it's just now been made more visible.

The rule reads: "Developers should not utilize paid advertising as a business model in their game, such as requiring players to watch or otherwise engage with adv✅ertising in order to play,☂ or gating gameplay behind advertising."

It also states: "Developers should not use advertisi🐻ng as a way to provide value to players, such as giving players a reward for watching or engaginꦡg with advertising in their game."

Forced ads or the option to watch ads to get power-ups or skip time-gated mechanics has become common in free-to-play mobile game🍌s. But Steam, which holds a fairly strong monopoly on PC gaming, doesn't seem to like the practic꧑e.

Steam recommends developers wওhose games rely on this to generate revenue simply charge for the games direct🌳ly or add microtransactions. Microtransactions can also be controversial, but I think we can all agree it's the lesser of two evils.

Games are expensive to make, so I understand why developers and studio execs want them to make money beyond their launch, even if I dislike any non-cosmetic microtransactions. At least with most of them, you feel like you're getting something for your money. Either DLC that adds more to the story or a 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:new stage in a fighting game, but when yo✨u have to watch ads just to play a game, it feels like you're wasting your time. I'm glad Steam has made its stance on this practice even more clear.

While you're here, check out the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PC games you can play.

I'm Issy, a freelancer who you'll now occasionally see over here covering news on GamesRadar. I've always had a passion for playing games, but I learned how to write about them while doing my Film and TV degrees at the University of Warwick and contributing to the student paper, The Boar. After university I worked at TheGamer before heading up the news section at Dot Esports. Now you'll find me freelancing f♍or Rolling Stone, NME, Inverse, and many more places. I love all things horror, narrative-driven, and indie, and I mainly play on my PS5. I'm currently clearing my backlog and꧂ loving Dishonored 2.