While the little regulation on Steam still allows for a lot, the most common freemium models from mobile gaming still are not welcome on the platform. "Developers should not utilize paid advertising as a business model in their game,

Valve further enforced its ban on promotional advertising in games on Steam, expanding on previously established rules on the platform.

Valve makes clear companies can still advertise in games. Those awkward billboards and real-world brand cosmetics are still fine to include, although Steam does stipulate that these must not be “disruptive” and that they be “appropriate within the context of the game.”

Valve has implemented new rules around advertising, explicitly prohibiting games that force players to watch in-game

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.

First reported by Gaming on Linux, Valve has added a new advertising page to its Steamworks developer documentation. The page outlines what kinds of advertising and promotion it will allow on Steam, while explicitly banning in-game ads as a revenue model on the ubiquitous PC gaming platform.

Valve bans advertising-based business models on Steam, prohibiting forced ads and promoting non-intrusive in-game advertising.

Valve has introduced new guidelines to their Steamworks documentation, very clearly outlining a no-tolerance stance on in-game advertising.

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 has reiterated its stance against exploitative in-game advertising, threatening to ban any game that uses these mechanics.The Latest Tech News, Delivered to Your Inbox