Valve Seemingly Bans All Steam Games That Require Watching Advertisements To Play

Valve has seemingly introduced new rules that ban games that require users to watch paid ads (or rely on other such ad-based revenue models) from Steam. However, some sources report that these rules may have already existed, and that Valve has merely created a dedicated page on Steamworks to clarify this policy.

The page explains that Steam does not contain paid advertising, and that advertising-based revenue models are not allowed on the platform. It further states that developers are also prohibited from using advertising as a way to provide value to players, such as giving players an in-game reward for watching or engaging with ads.

"Developers should not utilize 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 rule reads in part. "If your game's business model relies on advertising on other platforms, you will need to remove those elements before shipping on Steam."

This apparent change in Valve policy was first reported by GamingOnLinux. However, SteamDB posted screencaps on BlueSky that seem to show that this policy has been in effect for at least five years on a different page, and that this new page is a dedicated space for it that states it in a different way. Regardless, Valve did recently introduce a significant change to its storefront: warnings that note if a game in Early Access hasn't been updated in more than a year. These alerts are ostensibly intended to inform users that the development timeline described on a game's page might not have come to fruition, or if the game has been outright abandoned.