Valve makes game dev advertised with in game screenshots

[NumLock21]

Much like judging a book by its cover that attracts the reader, the same has been happening with games, where developers are advertising their games with concept art instead of actual in game screenshots. Valve has decided to change all of this with their new Discovery Update 2.0 policy, where all games being advertised on Steam must used in game screenshots not some concept art.

 

Quote

We haven't been super crisp on guidelines for screenshots in the past, so we'd like to take this opportunity to clarify some rules in this space. When the "screenshot" section of a store page is used for images other than screenshots that depict the game, it can make it harder for customers to understand what the product is that they're actually looking at. Additionally, we're going to start showing game screenshots in more places as described above, and these images need to be able to represent the game.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/valve-steam-developers-game-screenshots,32977.html

 

 

[PRTI]

Half life 3 confirmed !

[Bouzoo]

Good. Hell not even good, it's great! Google, if you're reading this, make this happen on Play Store, the place where every 10th game may contain an actual screenshot. 

[Mohenjo]

1 minute ago, keNNySOC said:

Half life 3 confirmed !

well i mean, there is no 3s in the screenshot. No bullet number 3 or request number 3 D:

[SansVarnic]

Finally... I am so tired passing on games because I could not see what it actually looked like. In game shots are soo much more appealing and helps me decide on the purchase.  

[Misanthrope]

Yeah, that's all well and good but they'd help the consumer much more if they expanded their refund system. I should be able to refund No Man's Sky no questions asked yet they keep refusing.

[Thaldor]

This is a great thing. But I have my doubts about Valve forcing developers to use acctual game footages from the customer version and many spineless develoeprs will continue doing what they are doing now with the "gameplay" trailers with textures, effects and settings that players cannot activate within the game. It's just too easy and too common for developers use 2x, 4x or even 8x bigger textures and slapping the most advanced and performance taxing effects from the game engine on and make a trailer that looks extremely good without caring about the fact that the game acctually runs with those improvements constant 1-10FPS (usually restricted by FPS limiter) which is edited to run at 60FPS just for that "gameplay" trailer.

 

Yeah, there stands "Please show customers what your game is actually like to play.", but when the biggest developers are most usually found out doing this, I don't think the Valve is really going to enforce it strictly without a big public outcry (like with No Man's Sky).

[That Norwegian Guy]

A small step for valve, a quarter quark of a step for antkind.

[comicsansms]

Are they not capable of pressing windows key + print screen? Why would you take a picture of the screen? 

[Paranoid Kami]

This is great  Concept art and videos have absolutely nothing to do with what happens in the game you buy.

[christianled59]

Awesome. Tbh, I wish there was an option to flag "inappropriate" rather than "appropriate. I almost didn't notice this. 

[Orangeator]

Holy hell I love Valve for this! Step in the right direction no doubt.

[Doobeedoo]

Great, as it should be represented.

[Master Disaster]

14 hours ago, NumLock21 said:

Much like judging a book by its cover that attracts the reader, the same has been happening with games, where developers are advertising their games with concept art instead of actual in game screenshots. Valve has decided to change all of this with their new Discovery Update 2.0 policy, where all games being advertised on Steam must used in game screenshots not some concept art.

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/valve-steam-developers-game-screenshots,32977.html

 

 

This will be as a result of the ASA investigation into No Mans Sky.

[Notional]

Steam really needs a huge overhaul. This is a small step in the right direction.

[NumLock21]

39 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

This will be as a result of the ASA investigation into No Mans Sky.

I've read about it, but I'm having a diffficult time telling what was being false advertised. They say it was something about the concept screenshot and the game looks nothing like it? Tried to find some ingame screen shots, found one and it doesn't look too bad. Or is there more to it, than just the style of the artwork that was presented from the concept art to the actual game?

[MEC-777]

Agree with this very strongly. So many times, I've clicked on a game from the storefront to check it out, then go to check the in-game screenshots, only to find out it's not at all what it appears to be from the "concept art". 

 

Valve is doing the right thing here, IMO.

[dalekphalm]

34 minutes ago, NumLock21 said:

I've read about it, but I'm having a diffficult time telling what was being false advertised. They say it was something about the concept screenshot and the game looks nothing like it? Tried to find some ingame screen shots, found one and it doesn't look too bad. Or is there more to it, than just the style of the artwork that was presented from the concept art to the actual game?

One of the problems is that on the Steam game page (At least, at the time of these investigations - not sure if it's still posted), the first video on their page was of a "gameplay" video that showed a ton of stuff that simply doesn't exist. I think it was one of the older trailers from E3 or something.

[silberdrachi]

I don't mind story board art in the slide show, but i hate games that just show you nothing at all, or just show you menu shots (why would i want to see this?). Some of the storyboard art is cool, it just cant be the ONLY thing in the list.

 

But i totally agree with the above statement by @Bouzoo that the app stores need to get on this shit. Or just start flagging apps that BLATANTLY use screenshots from other games that have absolutely NO relation to the game that they are selling. I shouldn't be seeing damn Halo screenshots on a shitty little 99c app that turns out to be a platformer or whatever.

[dalekphalm]

4 minutes ago, silberdrachi said:

I don't mind story board art in the slide show, but i hate games that just show you nothing at all, or just show you menu shots (why would i want to see this?). Some of the storyboard art is cool, it just cant be the ONLY thing in the list.

 

But i totally agree with the above statement by @Bouzoo that the app stores need to get on this shit. Or just start flagging apps that BLATANTLY use screenshots from other games that have absolutely NO relation to the game that they are selling. I shouldn't be seeing damn Halo screenshots on a shitty little 99c app that turns out to be a platformer or whatever.

I don't mind screenshots of the menu interface (especially showing graphics and game options), as long as it's a supplement to actual in-game screenshots.

[Thunderpup]

i wonder if this also applies to screen shots taken while in game, but rendered using a different graphics engine than what is used for the actual game.