Valve Bans Most In-Game Ads on Steam

[ZedClampet]

(This has had a lot of discussion on here, so I thought I would try a new thread)

Only product placement is okay.

What's been banned is any form of in-game advertising that gates access to, or otherwise interferes with, gameplay. "Developers should not use paid advertising as a business model in their game, such as requiring players to watch or otherwise engage with advertising in order to play,"

And there you have it. Ads join crypto and NFTs as 'not gonna happen'.

 

[January's Ghost]

And there you have it. Ads join crypto and NFTs as 'not gonna happen'.

At least on Steam (so far).

 

[DXCHASE]

At least on Steam (so far).

Yea, im glad to see this about steam but its gonna creep in somewhere.

It would be nice if an org like the FCC made it illegal to do that in games and other media. So platforms like Netflix, who already incorporate adds in a subscription tier, cant do this stuff.

 

[Pifanjr]

Honestly, I don't even have a problem with the existence of games with ads as long as they're clearly labelled and you can filter them out easily. Google Play already does the first part, so games with ads are avoidable. Though it doesn't say how bad the ads are and the ads in, for example, Vampire Survivors aren't really a problem.

The second part doesn't exist in the Google Play Store as far as I'm aware.

 

[Johnway]

Its certainly a step in the right direction for the future, atm i don't think there are any games that show ads. Perhaps if there was some mobile games that crop up it would be perfect. But so far, no indie or AAA(A) have it. yet. heres hoping we never see it in games.

 

[Colif]

I like this, as I rarely buy anything off anyone apart from Steam anyway.

AAA will try to make this a feature... as why should we only pay once for a purchase, they want it all to be like mobile games are now.

Ubislop already have NFT Games, just not on Steam

 

[neogunhero]

(This has had a lot of discussion on here, so I thought I would try a new thread)
Only product placement is okay.
And there you have it. Ads join crypto and NFTs as 'not gonna happen'.

Not that this was ever in the works AFAIK, but this means Roblox won’t ever come to Steam now most likely. My GF and I play it as it’s usually a good time hopping between lots of random little games, but it is so incredibly predatory with the ads and in-game currencies that are constantly trying to urge players to buy Robux. I’m glad I’m not a kid and can clearly see through this BS, but what I’m also worried about is if that set some kind of precedent for other games to be just as predatory. At least Steam is making it a bit better for the users.

 

[Colif]

My ability to resist buying things is much stronger now than it was when I was a kid... youth. Its why selling to kids is so popular. Most of them don't have any filters.

It can still be hard to resist some things but for most part its easy now as I use adblockers and never see ads.
We need ad blockers that work on a firewall level to block the ads loading on PC.

 

[ZedClampet]

Not that this was ever in the works AFAIK, but this means Roblox won’t ever come to Steam now most likely. My GF and I play it as it’s usually a good time hopping between lots of random little games, but it is so incredibly predatory with the ads and in-game currencies that are constantly trying to urge players to buy Robux. I’m glad I’m not a kid and can clearly see through this BS, but what I’m also worried about is if that set some kind of precedent for other games to be just as predatory. At least Steam is making it a bit better for the users.

The games that I play that sell microtransactions are very non-predatory in the way they try to sell them. For instance, back in early January I knew that my time with Darktide was coming to a close and that I might never play it again, and I really wanted to buy something for some reason, and I had to go all over the place to try to find where you could buy the cosmetics and had almost decided they had gotten rid of them when I finally found them.

But the games I play are almost always buy-to-play. The free-to-play people are much more desperate because the vast majority of free-to-play players never spend a penny. Just googling it, it looks like 2 to 5 percent of players buy anything at all in a free-to-play game and that 90 percent of the revenue actually comes from the whales who make up less than 1 percent.

Actually, based on that it would seem to me that most in-game advertising is a waste of time and likely counterproductive.

 

[Pifanjr]

Honestly, I don't even have a problem with the existence of games with ads as long as they're clearly labelled and you can filter them out easily. Google Play already does the first part, so games with ads are avoidable. Though it doesn't say how bad the ads are and the ads in, for example, Vampire Survivors aren't really a problem.

The second part doesn't exist in the Google Play Store as far as I'm aware.

I discovered that Google has a separate Google Play Games app that is just a different way to browse the games on the Play Store but that does have filters for in-game ads and microtransactions.

Which is how I discovered Achikaps, a simple real time strategy game made by the creator of Antiyoy, which I'd discovered years ago and is a pretty decent, completely free turn-based strategy game.

Not that this was ever in the works AFAIK, but this means Roblox won’t ever come to Steam now most likely. My GF and I play it as it’s usually a good time hopping between lots of random little games, but it is so incredibly predatory with the ads and in-game currencies that are constantly trying to urge players to buy Robux. I’m glad I’m not a kid and can clearly see through this BS, but what I’m also worried about is if that set some kind of precedent for other games to be just as predatory. At least Steam is making it a bit better for the users.

As far as I'm aware Roblox doesn't feature any ads that stop the gameplay. It's just that every game on Roblox tries to get you to pay to unlock parts of the game.

Not that I expect Roblox to ever go on Steam. I don't think they want their player base to be exposed to any other games and risk losing their players to games that don't shove a store window in their face for every single little thing.

 

[Rataplan]

Mobile games are infested with ads and pay2win mechanics. That has a bad impact on many games. I´ve tried some puzzle games from google play store where you solve a puzzle in 20 seconds and have to watch a 2 minute ad in between the puzzles.

So you spend more time watching ads than playing the game.

Nice from Valve to fend of such practices. It would ruin the quality of the games. I hope other storefronts follow their example.

 

[Colif]

I haven't played any game on my phone for over 10 years as I don't want to constantly be paying to play a game. Needing to use glasses to use my phone probably saves me money as I don't carry glasses with me in public so I can't read screen. Their reputation is enough to stop me even looking. Google play and The Samsung shop always suggest games and I just ignore them.

Shame the hardware is getting better on phones but there are no games worth playing on them. Reminds me of reasons why you would upgrade a GPU now when there are also few games worth playing.

 

[neogunhero]

As far as I'm aware Roblox doesn't feature any ads that stop the gameplay. It's just that every game on Roblox tries to get you to pay to unlock parts of the game.

That’s right. The games themselves try to get you to buy Robux to purchase in game stuff. I’m sure they get a kickback for any Robux spent on their game, so that must be why they quite literally shove it in your face to buy stuff. We just play because it’s silly fun and runs well on her aging laptop, but if I were a kid or had a kid, I’d be much more cautious about the stuff shown in those games.

 

[BeardyHat]

It can still be hard to resist some things but for most part its easy now as I use adblockers and never see ads.
We need ad blockers that work on a firewall level to block the ads loading on PC.

PiHole is worth doing.

I have one on my network and while it's initially a little finicky (I had to unblock comment sections for example) and can take a little bit to iron out the kinks, it works great.

Works to block ads on my phone too. I actually didn't realize my Weather app had any ads until I left my house and they popped up, doing one of those whole screen takeover things. I keep meaning to reconfigure my VPN so I can have it even when I'm out and about, but I ultimately don't use my phone for much when I leave the house, so I haven't done it.

We're militant about avoiding ads in our house.

 

[neogunhero]

We're militant about avoiding ads in our house.

View: https://youtu.be/N7qWAPVJfj0?si=I-SThBs9xmDB6-I4


Personalized ads are quite literally the enemy of the people and are a major factor into why we don't have any real privacy and anonymity online anymore. I've been taking steps to fight back myself, and have been seeing a lot about PiHole and OPNsense to create a personalized firewall for my home network.

 

[Pifanjr]

PiHole is worth doing.

I have one on my network and while it's initially a little finicky (I had to unblock comment sections for example) and can take a little bit to iron out the kinks, it works great.

Works to block ads on my phone too. I actually didn't realize my Weather app had any ads until I left my house and they popped up, doing one of those whole screen takeover things. I keep meaning to reconfigure my VPN so I can have it even when I'm out and about, but I ultimately don't use my phone for much when I leave the house, so I haven't done it.

We're militant about avoiding ads in our house.

I tried PiHole, but I just put it on my desktop PC so it didn't work if that was turned off and at some point it stopped working for some reason.

Now I just use Firefox with an ad blocker which removes 99% of all of the ads. I think the YouTube app is the only one that occasionally shows me an ad. I do have NewPipe on my phone, but then I have no way to sync which videos I've seen when I want to watch YouTube on my PC/laptop. It's still really nice for when I want to listen to music.

 

[DXCHASE]

we don't have any real privacy and anonymity online anymore.

Honestly, i dont think we really ever did. The ads in our apps has gotten worse over time with how targeted they are, but i dont think there has been any real privacy and anonymity outside of using vpns and stuff like that in a long time.

 

[BeardyHat]

I tried PiHole, but I just put it on my desktop PC so it didn't work if that was turned off and at some point it stopped working for some reason.

Now I just use Firefox with an ad blocker which removes 99% of all of the ads. I think the YouTube app is the only one that occasionally shows me an ad. I do have NewPipe on my phone, but then I have no way to sync which videos I've seen when I want to watch YouTube on my PC/laptop. It's still really nice for when I want to listen to music.

Yeah, the advantage of DNS blocking is that it'll block stuff on your phone and on computers without ad blockers. You do still need something like uBlock in order to block YouTube ads and some other stuff, so there's a layer approach to ensuring you get nothing.

Also, not sure if you're on Android, but you can use Firefox on Android with uBlock and it'll block YouTube ads and still allow syncing.

 

[Pifanjr]

Yeah, the advantage of DNS blocking is that it'll block stuff on your phone and on computers without ad blockers. You do still need something like uBlock in order to block YouTube ads and some other stuff, so there's a layer approach to ensuring you get nothing.

Also, not sure if you're on Android, but you can use Firefox on Android with uBlock and it'll block YouTube ads and still allow syncing.

Thanks, I'll have to try using YouTube in the browser instead of the app.

 

[neogunhero]

Honestly, i dont think we really ever did. The ads in our apps has gotten worse over time with how targeted they are, but i dont think there has been any real privacy and anonymity outside of using vpns and stuff like that in a long time.

It's true, but these days people are most concerned with the sheer amounts of data that is collected on them, as well as the methods used to collect this info. Personalized ads aren't important to me, but if done ethically that prioritizes privacy and safety, I can see the appeal in them. But you have stuff like this going on...

Siri “unintentionally” recorded private convos; Apple agrees to pay $95M

Apple users may get $20 each for up to five Siri-enabled devices.

arstechnica.com

...and it just makes you want to throw away all your technology, crawl into a cave, and live the rest of your days there.
Also somewhat related:

A 2023 study concluded CAPTCHAs are 'a tracking cookie farm for profit masquerading as a security service' that made us spend 819 million hours clicking on traffic lights to generate nearly $1 trillion for Google

Is that good?

www.pcgamer.com

 

[ZedClampet]

It's true, but these days people are most concerned with the sheer amounts of data that is collected on them, as well as the methods used to collect this info. Personalized ads aren't important to me, but if done ethically that prioritizes privacy and safety, I can see the appeal in them. But you have stuff like this going on...

Siri “unintentionally” recorded private convos; Apple agrees to pay $95M

Apple users may get $20 each for up to five Siri-enabled devices.

arstechnica.com

...and it just makes you want to throw away all your technology, crawl into a cave, and live the rest of your days there.
Also somewhat related:

A 2023 study concluded CAPTCHAs are 'a tracking cookie farm for profit masquerading as a security service' that made us spend 819 million hours clicking on traffic lights to generate nearly $1 trillion for Google

Is that good?

www.pcgamer.com

Thanks to you, I've been saying, "I want a half-price PC with an RTX 5090 in it" for the last hour. So far nothing.

 

[neogunhero]

Thanks to you, I've been saying, "I want a half-price PC with an RTX 5090 in it" for the last hour. So far nothing.

“Dear Apple, I’ve been good this year so far… maybe you can bless me with an ad for a $100 4K monitor?” I say repeatedly into my phones mic