Late edit:
per https://sopuli.xyz/comment/14584874 & https://bsky.app/profile/steamdb.info/post/3lhsxkmaj7c2c this is not a new policy.
They should do the same on the Play and App Store.
There’s even games where you can pay to remove ads, but it will still ask you if you wanna watch an ad to get a bonus or some shit. Fuck that.
This is exactly why I don’t play games on mobile.
I absolutely don’t have the time to wade through that shit.
about a year ago, I was like, “It’d be nice to have a few mindless games on my phone”… tried like four… just ADS ADS ADS…
Even the ones where I liked the game, and wanted to just remove the ad bullshit for a price… nothing…
Yes, that’s yet another dark pattern.
You can use this site to help with your game choices.Totally don’t care for mobile games, but this, for sure, is one very helpful resource to comb through this pile of rabble.
They should do the same on the Play and App Store.
95% of “games” removed
Fortunately, very little value would be lost.
I am very sure that it’s more than 95%
At least 95% of them are shit anyway 😂
I really enjoy Apple Arcade. Quality games for the kids with no ads or micro transactions.
Is that a subscription
Yes. It’s $6.99/mo for access to a load of games with no ads or IAPs. Half of the games on there are only available on Apple Arcade, the others are editions of regular App Store games but with no ads and all the IAPs already unlocked.
It kinda sucks that Apple gatekeeps certain games behind the subscription though… I wanted to play Mini Motorways on mobile, but it’s only available through Apple Arcade. For comparison Mini Metro is a OTP of $5 iirc.
It’s Apple, ofc it is 🥲
I feel like spotify does a similar thing. Even if you have premium, sometimes i just get random ads and it’s like oh no what a glitch in the system.
I’ve been using Premium for 2+ years now and not once did that happen. Maybe something with cache?
Been a paying Spotify customer for 16 years, never got an ad.
I don’t mind the fact that apps on Android show ads. I mind the terrible inconsistency of those ads. Some have an X button at the top left, some at the top right. I’ve seen “mute” buttons in at least three different quadrants, plus some are within a small landscape window rather than taking up the full portrait-held phone. And some don’t have mute at all.
And then some have a fake-out X button that actually clicks on the ad if you try to use it.
And a couple of times I’ve gotten an ad that I literally couldn’t exit. Had to force quit the app to get back to it.
If the ads were a consistent experience, I would have a much less intensely negative opinion of them.
Steamdb mentioned it’s not a recent ban :
Valve has created a dedicated page describing that in-game ads or ad-based revenue models are not allowed in Steam games.
This has been reported as a new policy, but this has been the case for at least 5 years as seen on the pricing page, there just wasn’t a separate page.
Awesome, another win for steam
Common Valve W
Valve will let players (including kids) gamble on skins because it boosts player count. According to them.
Big publishers will still give you rewards for signing up somewhere, entering something, going to an arbitrary website and watching their stream, etc.
But for the small devs: you’re not allowed to even give a player a reward for watching an ad. The choice doesn’t even matter. It just can’t be done.
It’s a private corporation so Valve can do whatever they want though.
Would much rather pay a small developer directly than be force-fed ads, even if the excuse is that the ads pay the bills. I don’t think this is a particularly unique sentiment and there are plenty of less scummy ways to generate funding than by running advertisements.
Arguably, the whole mobile app store ecosystem became a shithole because we weren’t willing to pay a buck or two for a an app. It led to an environment where alternative forms of monetization are so common that a lot of devs don’t even bother making a premium, ad-free version.
I wouldn’t entirely agree, it’s shit because Google and Apple enable the practice by providing app Advertising frameworks and fighting back against people working against those systems (i.e. mobile ad blocking and app firewalls, either through store policy or public discouragement).
Developers are incentivised because advertising both:
- Gives reoccurring revenue, beyond what a purchase would give.
- It makes people more likely to pick them up since people easily pick things up that are cheap or even free.
Advertising basically takes away the need to sell stuff and allows poaching revenue from people even if they don’t want to support the app. I’ve known many Devs who will try to eek out more revenue by click fraud (auto clicking their own ads).
So I’m not really a fan of implying this is our fault or “devs gotta eat too”. This practice is very much corporate greed.
Makes sense. They don’t get money from ads, so they have little to loose by banning them apart from annoying some publishers, but from what we saw in the past, what will they do? Leave Steam?
Classic killing two birds with one stone: get more revenue from sales, and make customers happier.
