Valve's Steam is banning award logos and review scores from store images, which game developers have been including in their game artwork to entice more players.
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A gamer of the eSports outfit Team Vitality types on a keyboard in the training room on January 16, 2019 at a "Gaming House" in Berlin's western suburb Halensee.
Games on Steam would no longer include any review scores and award citations in their artworks once the ban takes effect.
Valve's Steam Bans Award Logos, Review Scores in Store Images
As per the latest news story by PC Gamer, the game artworks on Steam have been heavily overcrowded with all sorts of promotional stuff, such as review scores, discounts, and award names.
It sure does help game developers tell Steam users what they could expect from the game faster.
But PC Games notes that this additional information, which fills most of the key art of games, gets annoying at times. Not to mention that some of them have become misleading, such as review scores from sketchy sites and non-existence award names.
And as such, Velvet announced that it is banning review scores, awards names, and marketing copy from the store images beginning September 1.
Steam Bans Award Logos, Review Scores on Images: Here's Why
According to a recent report by The Verge, Valve notes that it is their "goal to make it as clear and straightforward as possible for customers to find games to buy and play on Steam."
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LOS ANGELES, CA - JUNE 13: Gamers compete in PC gaming at the 'Nvidia' booth during the Electronic Entertainment Expo E3 at the Los Angeles Convention Center on June 13, 2017 in Los Angeles, California.
LOS ANGELES, CA - JUNE 13: Gamers compete in PC gaming at the 'Nvidia' booth during the Electronic Entertainment Expo E3 at the Los Angeles Convention Center on June 13, 2017 in Los Angeles, California.
The owner of Steam further says that it has noticed that game developers have been heavily stuffing their graphical asset images with review scores and award logos.
The giant gaming firm states that it seems that their guidelines for Steam have not been so clear, wherein there were no "clearly-defined rules" on artworks.
And as such, Valve observed it has resulted in "a confusing and sometimes even inaccurate experience for customers."
The blog post of Valve notes that in some cases, the game logo in the artwork has been reduced to a very tiny size to make way for award names and review scores.
In turn, the gaming firm highlights that some games have become entirely hard to recognize, Valve says.
The blog post also points out that some "graphical asset images are so cluttered with award logos and ratings that it is distracting and hard to read."
In other instances, the text on the artwork is written in English, preventing Steam users unfamiliar with English from understanding what it says.
Furthermore, the Steam owner argues that the store pages have their own sections for scores, reviews, and even awards, which game developers could readily use.
However, The Verge notes that most players would no longer see these parts of the gaming listing when looking for a game to play next.
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Written by Teejay Boris
