Valve ban advertising-based business models on Steam, no forced adverts like in mobile games
Valve ban advertising-based business models on Steam, no forced adverts like in mobile games
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.
Valve slamming the door on ad-rot mechanics? Finally a corp treating gamers like humans, not dopamine piggybanks. Mobile’s ad-infested hellscape stays where it belongs—in the pocket-sized Skinner boxes of despair. But let’s not kid ourselves: this isn’t altruism—it’s market hygiene. Steam’s dominance hinges on not becoming the digital equivalent of a bus station bathroom plastered in NFT billboards.
Meanwhile, Epic’s over there sharpening its shiv, ready to monetize your retinas if it means clawing back relevance. Capitalism’s funniest gag: competition via not being intolerable. Keep the ad-free oasis flowing, GabeN.
It's not entirely altruistic.
Valve doesn't get their 30% taste on ad revenue.
This will play into it. But Valve allows stuff that cuts into their immediate profits, like e.g. third party sales. I think ensuring market dominance by ensuring customer satisfaction is the more important part of the decision. Steam is imo meant to stay a quality product with a reliable turnover. They are not aiming to become a bookmaker, like the play store or apple store basically are nowadays.
When can I run Steam OS on my phone? :)
A Steam Phone would be a massive undertaking, but I'm so here for it. I would love if they used one of the actual Linux phone OSs and made it good instead of Android.
Lets all pray they stay out of the stockmarket
the day gaben dies and the company falls into the grubby hands of investors, its over.
Everyone is acting like this is purely for good intentions, but I'll point out they make most of their money from taking a cut of the sale price from games. Ad money probably would not go to them at all. This is almost certainly purely a business decision, not because they fundamentally don't like the concept or want to protect you from it.
I honestly don't really care about Valve's motivations. It's a good decision. This kind of trash can take over and ruin an entire marketplace if you let it.
Of course everything a company does is in the best interest of the company. Even as simple as "let's make excellent products with lifetime warrantees" benefits them by making people want to shop there.
But that doesn't mean it isn't a good thing when companies realise the customers best interest are also their best interest. We should encourage that, not scoff at it.
Of course everything a company does is in the best interest of the company.
That is not true, but that is part of the problem and also why Steam is at least a little better for us customers. Most companies only do what is good for the stakeholders short term, Valve does what is good for the company/single owner long term. And happy customers are good long-term, but not so important short-term.
It is still capitalism, and thus still terrible. But a tiny bit less terrible.
Yes, when something half good finally happens, let's complain it probably didn't happen for better reasons
Why are we never happy again?
Removing choices to the consumer isn't good. It may sound like they're doing a good thing, but if a racing game can include non-intrusive ads and either make the game cheaper or make more content without harming the experience, that's good for the consumer. If a company makes a shitty ad ladden game, you can always just not buy it. They aren't defending you. They're defending their method of making money and ensuring you can't make money without paying them, while removing options for the consumer.
Maybe the look at the shitshow that is mobile gaming and they want to stay away from it. Good intention in my book.
a good thing done for a shitty reason is still a good thing.
Also known as free market capitalism 100% working as it should.
Good guy Steam.
Realistically they're probably doing this mostly because they don't get the 30% cut on ad revenue. They want to force publishers to actually charge money through Steam.
Even when this is true. Adding ads is in my opinion unethical. As you shove the user pictures that can trigger him. You dont know what the neurodivergent Gamer has. OCD? Or smth else?
Ads are made to catch an eye and clickbait. Flush some dopamine or other emotions. Just to break the wall and make the user buy something against his own real motivation.
At the end some ads are even scams and you dont even get what the manipulated motivation directed it towards to. Mostly the motivation is directed, because the user is being told it recieves something valuable for himself, but at the end doesnt even recieve that.
Ads are just scams and destroying the mentallness. I dont feel psychologically well for 3 days after seeing the wrong picture. Obssessive thoughts unrelated to your life but bothering you, while having your own issues is not nice.
Yeah, I agree with you. Banning ads as a good thing. I just wanted to point out that Valve isn't doing this purely for our benefit. Valve also does some anti-competitive or anti-consumer stuff to keep their near-monopolistic status.
Makes sense they don't want games supported by ad revenue on Steam.
Mobile games started off with that business model and the result is that users are very rarely open to purchasing mobile games, which is where Steam makes money.
I don’t even bother gaming on my phone anymore with everything filled with iaps and ads. Would rather just pay to have the license and play on the Steamdeck instead. Hell, with the sales I’m more likely to just get them even if I don’t get around to playing it.
They won't because they're the ones making money from it. The only reason they care about this is likely because they don't get money from ads as they don't have any related advertising business like Google and Apple does.
It's the same as when they kicked EA off of steam. EA allowed buying DLC without going through Steam. If they're not getting a cut, but you are being hosted/distributed by them, they don't want it.
They won’t because they’re the ones making money from it.
I was (trying to) be tongue in cheek about it, so yes of course they won't. I just don't like the idea of propping up Valve as some incorruptible, can-do-no-wrong company. They know they're causing children to gamble and it's not that they don't care, they actively encourage it.
I really like my Steam Deck, it basically retired my Switch, the last time I saw that it was caked in dust
BASED
Weren’t they the ones introducing forced ads in cs 1.6?
They're not banning games with ads, ads are still allowed. Read the article.
I feel like it would be difficult for them to enforce this, given how hard they struggle to keep halfmade unplayable messes off the platform.
Steam should make a mobile game store
They are working on Proton for ARM devices and will probably try to sell the next Steam Deck with an ARM processor. It wouldn't be too far off for them to make Steam for phones if that becomes reality.
I'd be most excited if they just worked on SteamOS for phones too...Then the rest of the community could piggyback on that to catapult phone-Linux as our long awaited practical third option!
(And no, Android, especially modern googlized Android, is not Linux or FOSS enough by a longshot.)
AFAIK Apple/Play Store do not allow this. They already got into a fight with Epic about it.
I think what they dont allow is having a store in their store. You can easily install a third party store on Android at least but you cant do it through googles store. They dont care if you do, they just wont help you do it. AFAIK, theres legislation in the works to prevent this since not offering third party stores is monopolistic akin to Internet Explorer being pre installed on windows.
Play services is not the same as Andoird. Manufacturers can decide what goes.
Bans in-game ad but allows outside ad. The origin of drink verification can. There's no good idea that can't be made bad by marketing.