Steam's overlords still think in-game ads are fine as long as they're "appropriate"

rockpapershotgun.com:

Cheery mom-and-pop computer game business Valve have created a new Steamworks page for their policy about in-game adverts and advertising in general, with a troubleshooter's list of dos and don'ts for developers.

As Graham pointed out to me just now, Valve's handling of such things hasn't really changed over the past few years, but I can't pass up the opportunity to chew the fat a little about the intriguingly murky, slippery-slope business of turning your virtual world into an ad platform. Also, I had already written this article by the time he pointed that out to me, and I can't bear to send all my precious words to the abyss.

Briefly, Valve say it's fine to feature ads inside games if it's "appropriate within the context of the game". Not fine: the use of paid advertising as a business model, as with ports of mobile games that make you watch an advert to unlock stuff, or that dole out rewards for willingly filling your eyes with footage of, say, crypto investors pitching a new wellness diet. If your game makes use of such strategies on other platforms, explain Valve, you will need to strip them out before selling them on Steam. They suggest switching to a single-purchase model or free-to-play with microtransactions instead.

The Steamworks Documentation post in question - spotted by GamingOnLinux - is quite cut-and-dried on the surface, but ambiguity predictably sneaks in as you start to thrash out the use-case scenarios for a store that gets thousands of new releases a year. Here's what it says about in-game ads being fine as long as they fit the context.

"Games may contain real brands, products, personalities, etc as part of gameplay, provided such portrayals are not disruptive and are appropriate within the context of the game. For example, a racing game might feature real life sponsor logos on its race cars, or a skateboard game might include characters wearing real-world brands. Note that all developers must obtain the relevant permission and/or licenses for