Valve bans games that rely on in-game ads from Steam, so no ‘watch this to continue playing’ stuff will be making its way to our PCs

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.

Product placement is still in, so long as “such portrayals are not disruptive and are appropriate within the context of the game.” Valve gives a racing game with real life sponsors on the cars as one example of what’s okay, and it sure sounds like my dream reboot of Pepsiman could still find a home on the store, thank god. Cross-promotions are allowed too, but Valve states “under no circumstances is it okay to charge developers to participate in a bundle or sell access to a store page or other page on Steam.” Last, paid advertising campaigns outside Steam that lead to a store page are also fair game.