Steam is forcing games to be more clear about what's in their season passes - and only allowing devs with "a proven track record" to sell them

Nov. 21, 2024

This is great for you, but might make things tricky for some indie devs

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Steamis implementing new rules around season passes that should make DLC more consumer friendly but may also be a thorn in the side to a lot of indie devs looking to use the season pass model.

Pavel Djundik, the creator of SteamDB, a website that tracks the Steam analytics of a lot of games, shared news of the updated policy over onBluesky.

By now, we’re all familiar with season passes. A game comes out and as soon as you load the main menu you’re offered the chance to spend another $30 on a nebulous season pass that promises access to all future DLC, or at least one year of it. I’ve never been a fan of this as you often don’t know what you’re actually paying for beyond “three expansions”, which could be as little as some new weapons, a new map, and one actual story addition. Well, it turns out Steam has had enough too.

Valve writes, “If you aren’t ready to clearly communicate about the content included in each DLC AND when each DLC will be ready for launch, you shouldn’t offer a Season Pass on Steam.” It’s quite stern wording, and makes the company’s stance clear.

If a developer fails to release the DLC in time or if customers are unhappy with it, Valve may offer refunds, so it’s not playing around with these new rules.

While this is a great move for consumers, it seems like it’ll be harder for indie devs to get in on the action, although I’m not sure many indie games do season passes anyway. Valve says, “a season pass is effectively a DLC pre-purchase”, and so it “will not offer a Season Pass except in a few rare cases with partners with which we have a well-established relationship and that have a proven track record on Steam.”

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This shouldn’t discount indie devs entirely, but it may mean they have to release a game or two, or offer some standalone DLC first before Steam will allow them to offer season passes."

You can read over all the fine details of this new policy onSteam’s partner page.

While you’re here, you should check out thebest Steam gamesyou can play right now.

I’m Issy, a freelancer who you’ll now occasionally see over here covering news on GamesRadar. I’ve always had a passion for playing games, but I learned how to write about them while doing my Film and TV degrees at the University of Warwick and contributing to the student paper, The Boar. After university I worked at TheGamer before heading up the news section at Dot Esports. Now you’ll find me freelancing for Rolling Stone, NME, Inverse, and many more places. I love all things horror, narrative-driven, and indie, and I mainly play on my PS5. I’m currently clearing my backlog and loving Dishonored 2.

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