Fresh from Valve HQ, Steam just released some new rules for what developers can and can't include in the description sections of their game's store pages. The new guidelines, which Valve will start enforcing in early September, are intended to cut down on a recent trend of store pages bloating their descriptions with links to other games and websites.
From September onwards, developers will no longer be able to put links to other websites or Steam game listings in most of a store page's description sections. Additionally, it'll be off-limits for any embedded images to mimic parts of the Steam UI—no more jaunty gifs of a cursor clicking the wishlist button.
In a Steamworks blog post laying out the rule changes, Valve said it's "been seeing more and more store pages that are effectively advertisements for OTHER store pages on Steam." As a result, it can be confusing for users who visit a game's store page to learn more about it and find they first have to sift through links and banners for the publisher's other products. "If you have related products," Valve said, "you can set up bundles, franchises, or developer homepages."
In tandem with July's earlier updates to how demos are presented on Steam, the new rule changes will also help address the recent "prologue game" phenomenon. Lately, some developers and publishers have started releasing the demos for their upcoming games as separate Steam game listings in a bid to gain more visibility. Speaking personally, if a day comes when I no longer have to wonder if the promising game I'm looking at is a demo in a trenchcoat, the changes were worth it.
The July changes already allowed developers to give a game's demo its own store page—which thankfully is very clear about the fact that you're looking at a demo—without being charged a second listing fee. Now that store page descriptions won't be able to link to other pages, publishing a prologue game will, theoretically, be more trouble than it's worth.
"We're not banning your ability to name a product as 'Prologue'," Valve said, "but you'll find that demos have become a much better path for building an audience and directing players to your full game."
Luckily, developers won't have to worry that failing to pluck the links out of their pages will incur some kind of punishment from on high. When the rules go into effect some time in early September, Valve will roll out a Steam update that'll automatically detect and hide links in relevant sections.
