Will advertising in my game break any of steams Terms Of Service?

[Person]

I was thinking about ways to monitise a game I was making without harming players and I had an idea with advertisements. I had the idea to lease space in the game to advertisers things like billboards, the sides of hockey arenas, in the background or wherever. However I dont want to use any pre built things for this because I wanted to make sure I knew exactly what advertisements were going into my game. Here is the problem. I basically want it so that people can pay for an advertisement, they work on whatever art they want to advertise with, and they show it to me. Then if it passes some guidelines (which I havent worked out) I place it in the game and they pay me (for example $20 a month) to keep it there. The only problem is that steam needs to make money and if part of that money doesnt go to them since they arent getting paid does this break any rules in the TOS? If so is there any way I can give them a cut so it doesn't break the TOS?

[Start_Running]

Nope. Plenty of games do that. Though if its advertising things inappropriate for the age rating of your game....well lets just say you want to make sure the advertising is age/rating/region appropriate otherwise tis the Trebuchet for youu.

[( ( < < <🤖> > > ) )]

isnt everything you need here..

https://partner.steamgames.com

[my new friend]

Submit your Steam Direct fee and request to join the Steamworks group.
https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamworks/discussions
And ask there.

[Zekiran]

I'm gonna say right now that unless those things are tangible ads for real world products, which you'd need to work out legal details with everyone involved and get those documents in writing for all of them, it's not worth doing.

It seems like you are accepting the Oscar before you've written your manuscript. Don't 'plan' for this, make your game first. Release it. Then see if people even want to play it. Then see who they are by interacting with them on your discord or here in the steam forum or wherever you decide has the right space for that. Suss out who is willing or wants to do this and has the money to blow on your product.

But ads in games are 100% garbage. Product placement aside from 'in jokes' and 'they also made my steam avatar aren't they cool' is garbage and should be avoided like the plague.

Either you game floats itself, or your game is gonna die, on its own rewards. Keeping it artificially afloat is not really a good plan.

[Sazzouu]

Depends on the advertisement.
Using your product to advertise your product (e.g. DLCs for your game) is no problem at all.

Using your product to advertise other products of you (e.g. advertising a sequel) should be fine as well.

Advertising anything third party has lots of shades of grey. What you describe can be declared as some sort of Partnership that COULD BE fine. However I would not expect Valve to just handwave it with ease. Because you basically use their plattform to advertise and they wont get any cut from the advertisment revenue...

[Zekiran]

Not to mention:

People pay to buy and play this game. If it is a live game with servers, then your options become "make people pay a modest monthly fee" to cover the charges or "eat the payments out of your profits".

Because advertising in online games *does not work* and *is incredibly invasive* when it isn't specific as Sazzouu suggests. If it's for another of your line, published by you, etc, that's usually in fitting with the product they're already playing and isn't jarring to see.

But... For a very short time - less than half a year I think - city of Heroes had "billboard ads" in the game.

They wound up being for things like running shoes and lingere or something else like that which had *absolutely nothing* to do with either the game's contents OR the people playing it.

Pretty shortly after that was put in the dumpster where it belonged, the in-house people made fun in-universe advertisements for those billboards, and no one complained ever again.

But also all that required an entire bunch of new code to insert those ads on the drive of the user's computer, because they can't be server-sided. Since also you have to remember - regional ads are important since not all products can or should be advertised in some world regions. If your game is played by people in very disparate countries, guess what: that lingerie ad might be *actually illegal*, or those shoes *cannot possibly be purchased* there.

My prior statement of "don't" stands.

[Yzal]

iirc Valve themselves advertised the Orange Box in Counter Strike.

[Spawn of Totoro]

Originally posted by Skean:

I was thinking about ways to monitise a game I was making without harming players and I had an idea with advertisements. I had the idea to lease space in the game to advertisers things like billboards, the sides of hockey arenas, in the background or wherever. However I dont want to use any pre built things for this because I wanted to make sure I knew exactly what advertisements were going into my game. Here is the problem. I basically want it so that people can pay for an advertisement, they work on whatever art they want to advertise with, and they show it to me. Then if it passes some guidelines (which I havent worked out) I place it in the game and they pay me (for example $20 a month) to keep it there. The only problem is that steam needs to make money and if part of that money doesnt go to them since they arent getting paid does this break any rules in the TOS? If so is there any way I can give them a cut so it doesn't break the TOS?

AAA developers tried this long ago. It never worked out for them and turned gamers away.

I don't think it against Valve's rules, but would likely gain you a poor reputation and turn many away from your games.

[Start_Running]

Originally posted by Zekiran:

Because advertising in online games *does not work* and *is incredibly invasive* when it isn't specific as Sazzouu suggests. If it's for another of your line, published by you, etc, that's usually in fitting with the product they're already playing and isn't jarring to see.

It depends on how the advertising is done. Product placement is a form. WSee billboards trackside in a racing game. You could use those as advertising. It's not quite invasive because... well you expect to see billboards in such oplaces and you wouldn't think it odd to see products that exist in the real world advertised.

Also just as with movies and TV series, even the brand/style of clothes your character wears, The make and model of the guns, the model of car driven, the logos seen . etc, these are all forms of advertising that can be monetized, and I think have been in one form or another.

[Zekiran]

The main problem is that unless the same team that's making the game and understands the player base is ALSO making the deals in the marketing department, as I said the ads can be entirely wrong - but "the right thing" that the advertisers want. What an ad company wants you to display rarely = what the players will actually pursue.

[76561198407601200]

They do this exact same thing in krunker io, though the billboards are usually blank stating they can advertise there. That game is somewhat known and if their billboard ads aren't doing it then I wouldn't have high hopes for yours. That being said, not sure if it goes against any terms in the partner link.

[Otomon]

You honestly think someone gonna pay 20$ or w/e a month to advertise in an unknown indie game? I dont think game advertising even worked for mayor AAA studios...for most gamers it just comes off as cringy lol

[[N]ebsun]

Originally posted by Otomon:

You honestly think someone gonna pay 20$ or w/e a month to advertise in an unknown indie game? I dont think game advertising even worked for mayor AAA studios...for most gamers it just comes off as cringy lol

People pay a lot to put their ad on your car window

https://www.wikihow.com/Sell-Advertising-Space-on-Your-Car-to-Make-Money

[Zekiran]

Originally posted by Lord Sir Dr. Santa Nebsun:

Originally posted by Otomon:

You honestly think someone gonna pay 20$ or w/e a month to advertise in an unknown indie game? I dont think game advertising even worked for mayor AAA studios...for most gamers it just comes off as cringy lol

People pay a lot to put their ad on your car window

https://www.wikihow.com/Sell-Advertising-Space-on-Your-Car-to-Make-Money

Just because a service is offered, doesn't mean anyone actually uses it or uses it to the extent that players in a game would pay for.

My old housemate had a successful race car (among the first fully electric race cars and could easily compete with traditional ones) and put ads on it. He made... maybe 50 bucks. Ever.

Marketing comes up with a lot of ideas. Most of them are junk.


Still to the OP: make your game FIRST. study your players responses, interact with them, know what the audience you have cultivated are interested in. Only then, should you even bother trying to find other ways to insert money into the game.

[MalikQayum]

you are free to advertise in your game as long as it does not have links that can be clicked.