Valve "didn't like" Steam pages linking to other pages, and it's "enforcing new rules" on what devs can write on its store
Aug. 14, 2024Links to other websites will be automatically removed next month
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The only exception here, Valve says, is for separate prologue-style sections that some developers have taken to releasing on Steam as free samples in lieu of demos for upcoming games. Valve says it was “fine” to release prologues like this, “except that they were confusing for players,” and reckons that with the changes to demos it should now be “unnecessary for developers to purchase a separate appID to use for prologues,” as they can instead “use the demo appID that is already associated with their game.”
Valve isn’t banning prologues outright, but says demos “have become a much better path for building an audience and directing players to your full game.” It is, however, outright banning links to other websites and stores, and if a game already has such links on its store page, they’re about to get nuked.
“Starting in September, Steam will automatically recognize links in these sections and will make them disappear,” Valve says, in my head actively updating the targeting parameters of some sort of Steam-branded Terminator. “If those links are wrapped around text or an image, then Steam will also hide the contents within the [url] block.”
New ‘Trending Free’ Steam chart stops free-to-play games and demos from spamming other lists on the storefront.
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