Steam and Advertising

 The big man cracks down.

A few weeks ago Steam made a pretty interesting change to the way they allowed advertising to be shown on their platform, which I found a curious sentiment, but decided not to cover on the off chance that this would be one of those rules that Steam speaks about and then never enforces.  If you're curious, there's actually quite a lot of those rules floating around the ether ever waiting for their long-proposed time in the sun. (Such as that 'no NFT games' rule; which is more: "No hosting NFT's on our infrastructure but you very publicly link elsewhere and we don't care from there") I wanted to wait until a few Steam sales went by to see if this is a standard that is going to be held up, and it so far looks like it is. Whether due to actual crackdowns or merely the threat of crackdowns, Steam games are posting store artwork as bland and boring as ever with no eye-popping flavour text, just as papa Steam intended it.

As part of a move to "make it as straightforward as possible" for Steam users to sink their life savings into video games, Steam has turned around and declared it against their rules to stray too far from core artwork when it comes to advertising on their storefront. Which is to say, no more ancillary bubble-gum text plastered over the art declaring a percentage off on a sale, or celebrating some vague award win from a publication that no one has ever heard of before in the "Most likely to probably win some awards at a more legitimate outlet" category. No more writing about a big new update, no more slapping half covered breasts on the front of- oh wait... no, actually I think that's accepted, depending on the type of audience you're trying to facilitate. (But no nipples! They'll nuke you from orbit if they see a protrusion of any sort!)

Now I'm all for advertising standards and restrictions where they're needed. Those gaudy lawyer billboards that the American's allow to go up is just one example of what happens when advertising standards are left to slip out of control, and without Nasa's joint 'ownership' of space it would be a literally matter of time before Amazon built itself drones to carve out Jeff Bezos' face on our Moon. Advertising standards stop children's shows from taking advantage of children's underdeveloped brains to sell toys to them during the running of a show. Advertising standards are the bulwark that helps keep ordinary people sane in a world cut up and sold off by executives and ads companies. (Which is one of the reasons I can never take the 'hard work ad executive' trope in animated/real life movies seriously.) But at the same time, I don't really feel there's anything inherently upsettingly wrong with the Steam banner ads sales techniques.

Back in the day you'd get games proudly displaying it anytime a publication so much as looked their way in award season, games that were just super excited to knock off huge bits of their prices that they couldn't wait for you to look down in the by-line to see the adjusted price, (not when you can see it in bright red letters on a yellow background!) and games that just wanted to let you know how excited they were that the game has just gotten an update. In fact, it was the bright shiny letters announcing the Sorcerer update to the Baldur's Gate beta which talked me into buying that game and I'm so very glad that I did. Has that ever also swung me around into buying a game I regret? Not necessarily, but I have been struggling to justify my purchase of Kynseed every time I load it up and get bored after less than an hour in game. (I'm sure the inherent magic of the game will strike me eventually. I've just got to stick with it.)

But yeah, I'd be lying if I didn't say that the text advertisements aren't distracting to a possibly unfair level. Why should everyone else have to rely on the boring same palette of colours printed atop Steam Blue whenever it comes to a summer sale when the eye is drawn much easier by contrasting colours slapped ontop one another? It's eye catching, it's heart racing, and it is a tad exploitative to the eye's attention. Where I an outside regulator I would certainly consider the psychological tactics being put in play to squeeze one out over competitors as a worrying trend. But as someone actually imbedded in the community, I know that the trend is laughable next to the whole 'loot box industry' which literally employs the help of psychologists to tickle the right dopamine triggers in the players head to trigger addiction. Why bother with a firm stance on anything when you just ignore that whole situation?

Well Steam have actually tried to justify their decision, beyond the nebulous assertion that all these graphical packets are just so 'confusing' to the tiny pea brains of their customers. They said that the graphics have become so important to advertisers that game names can be shoved into obscure corners so that players end up not even knowing what the game itself is called! (You know, unless they read the plain text steam title next to, or under, every game on the storefront. But again, remember; pea brains!) They say that some graphics present review scores that are out of date at the time they are seen. (Which is why people have to see the store page, with the real time user reviews, but again. Pea. Brains.) And in addition graphics packages tend to only be in English, which alienates speakers of other languages. I don't have a pithy retort to that one, but I think the alienation of other language speakers on steam runs a bit deeper than a few graphics boards. But I digress.

New rules dictate that review scores, award names, discount bumpers and graphics promoting other games or sequels (wait, were people actually doing that? how is there even that much space on a tiny game billboard window?) must be banished to the shadow realm never to return. Developers are still allowed to celebrate seasonal events, however, which means that Baldur's Gate 3 can get away with their cool new class themed banners with each updates. (Great, I can't wait for the Dragonborn banner!) They've also dictated that the text can only pertain to new content which... uh oh, there we are getting vague again, Valve! What exactly does new mean? New on a cosmic scale? Because I hate to break this to you; in comparison to the big bang that started the universe, 13.8 billion years ago, everything on Steam is brand spanking new, buddy! (>Tutt< >Tutt< >Tutt<, will Gabe Newell never learn?)

As of September the 1st these new rules have been in effect, and if you check out any of the recent steam sales, you'll notice it's a bland ghost town out there. Tumbleweed is just blowing past all these dry banner ads totally lacking in all Pizazz and Pazow, and not a single hint of Kachigga, anywhere to be seen! So if this is the future that you wanted for your storefront Steam, sterile and bland, then I congratulate you in your rousing victory. You must be so very proud of yourselves. I, on the otherhand, will rue the day that ugly and garish banner adds were expunged from the accounts of scrappy indie games anywhere that were just so excited to slap up how they received the 'most likely to not get so much as an honourable mention at any award show ever' award in their meagre product lifespan. If you want to step on the necks of the little man, Steam, go right ahead! Like most Americans, we are self made people. We put ourselves through development hell. Working on Itch.IO as talentless script kiddies, we provide games for those with no money to buy real games with. We believe in entertainment, it's what we build our careers on. But we also have our dreams, a dream that many of us have, a dream to run our own viral marketing campaign for our games. Well we... we scrimp and we save and we finally save up enough to buy a slot on the Steam store, a tiny foray into advertising for our fledgling games companies. We always get told that America is the land of opportunity and, we believed it... until... this... On September 1st Steam cracked down on our marketing, we were confusing their customers and hurting their brand. They're rich, powerful, and we're just indie devs. So who do you think the journalists sided with? So now, our little billboards, come down. But let me tell you something, if they want a fight... well there is none because they've already won... bugger...