Steam rules to force cleaner store images and assets

Valve is set to introduce a series of new guidelines for the graphical assets used by developers on Steam – with text and award logos taking a hit.

Acknowledgement has been made in a new post from yesterday (July 28) that some in-store graphics are cluttered with text or writing that’s too small, or awards that are no longer accurate and predominantly English words, which the company says can be isolating.

This is why a new set of rules will be introduced starting September 1, with the new complete graphical asset rules found here.

Content on asset capsules (on the storefront) will now be limited to artwork, the game name and an official subtitle, meaning there will be no review scores of any kind, award names, discount marketing copy, or text promoting a different product.

That said, some things can be used in a limited artwork override, like mentions of seasonal events and such. The text must also be localised into any language supported by the game in these scenarios, with extra text only allowed to describe new content.

A lot of comments on the Steam forums (via Eurogamer) appear to be pleased with this upcoming change, citing the overcrowded images on the Steam storefront as confusing and annoying whilst browsing the store.

There’s currently no indication of how Valve will enforce these rules, apart from the statement that the games “may have limits to visibility within the Steam store and will be ineligible for featuring in official Steam sales and events.” This suggests that Steam will stop users from finding games that break these rules after September 1.

In other news, MultiVersus is embracing “rabbit season” as its set to nerf Bugs Bunny for the second time.