Valve ban advertising-based business models on Steam, no forced adverts like in mobile games – GamingOnLinux
Update: 10/02/25, 11:29 UTC – Turns out this was actually already a rule that Valve had (thanks SteamDB). It was listed on their Pricing page but this change has made it a lot more visible with its own dedicated section. Still, good to have a reminder this awful practice isn’t allowed on Steam.Original article below:Valve have updated the developer guidelines for releasing a game on Steam, making it clear that the scourge of mobile gaming advertising-based business models are not going to work on Steam.There’s a new advertising page in the public Steamworks documentation that goes over what is and isn’t allowed. What’s allowed is as you might expect like games can have real-world product placement, cross-promotions with other games are fine and paid advertising outside of Steam is also fine.What they’ve done here is completely ban paid advertising getting in your way inside the games. As their rules state now:Not SupportedThe onboarding page has also been updated to add “Applications with advertising-based business models” to the list, which also includes their previous ban on “blockchain technology that issue or allow exchange of cryptocurrencies or NFTs” that came in 2021.What this doesn’t do is stop developers throwing up a big advert for another of their games, that’s fine, this is specifically about the business model you often see on mobile platforms. Imagine when you go into a game, want to unlock a feature or do anything, but it tells you to watch an advert first before you can proceed. That’s what Valve are putting a stop to here.I’ve never personally experienced a game that did that on Steam, although I’m sure some developers have tried it. But it’s a huge and annoying thing in mobile games. Glad to see it just won’t ever be a thing on Steam.Valve have done a lot of really consumer-positive changes over the last few years like making sure developers note kernel-level anti-cheat, a recent change of noting Early Access games that aren’t being updated, a proper Season Pass system that includes more complete info and refunds for missing DLC content and more.
