Reviews, Awards and Deals Will Disappear From Promo Graphics on Steam
Starting in September, Steam will undergo significant changes that will ensure that graphic thumbnails will no longer be cluttered with unnecessary additional information.
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Valve has announced upcoming changes to Steam's rules to make game thumbnails in the store more readable.
Changes to graphic thumbnails on Steam
As of September 1, graphic thumbnails (i.e., small images with a game's logo displayed when browsing, for example, the website's news or sales list) will not be allowed to include:
- Ratings or information about them. This includes Steam user review information.
- Industry award names or signs.
- Discount information (e.g., "sale" or "up to 90% off" texts).
- Text or images promoting another products, including discounts on other titles within the same series.
- Other unrelated text.
Game developers will still be able to place information about updates and events, but this will only be possible in temporary graphics, not those assigned to a game permanently.
Examples of graphic thumbnails that will no longer be allowed on Steam. Source: Valve.
Reasons for changes
Valve motivates its decision as follows:
- Many thumbnails were so overloaded with additional information that players often had trouble with reading the game title.
- An additional problem was that the ratings were often outdated, which could mislead the players.
- The text in the thumbnails was almost always in English, which meant that users who did not speak the language were not included in the reception of these graphics.
