Valve have updated the developer guidelines for releasing a game on Steam, making it clear that the scourge of mobile gaming advertising-based business models are not going to work on Steam.
If you want a shockingly good local multiplayer arcade volleyball game check out Super Volley Blast (seriously how is this game so good, it is just volleyball??)
it looks like the same indie devs have an arcade tennis local multiplayer game too calledSuper Tennis Blastbut I haven't personally tried it yet like I have the rest of these games
Lastly, check out the airhockey meets top down action team based hero game Omega Strikers. This game isn't pay-to-win and it really deserves a lot of love! Don't pass it over just because it looks like it could be another live-service casino disguised as a game.
edit 2 - does Rock Of Ages count as a sports game? It certainly has lots of balls, a clear goal for those balls to go in and a set of sensible and logical rules to how those balls get there which leads to mythical stories about heroes, sounds like a sportball game to me so what if the sportball is made of living sheep
valve would basically have to become an 'advertising company' and require these types of games to use the 'valve ad network', in addition to the storefront for in-game sales, in order for valve to profit from them.
i don't think valve is necessarily 'against' the business model, as it has proven to be rather profitable for the big hits and big players.. and valve is in the business of making lots of money. rather, it's that valve doesn't want to become that advertising company. at least, not at the present time.
Sold to consumers as “immersion” but likely makes money on the back end from advertising.
I also imagine it creates a game preservation issue if there was some sort of disagreement or failure to extend contract. I believe that’s what happened with music licenses so I’m imagining it may be similar with in game advertising?
Full disclosure this is mostly speculation, I’m not entirely sure how all of it truly works.
If you read the article, it's targeting things like "ads you must watch to progress" and "rewards for watching ads". So literally targeting the very worst of the mobile game ad industry.
Fuck that! Do the work and design fake companies and products. Thats half the fun walking around a store in any video game. Seeing the funny names and references they come up with.
I don’t want to see fucking ads for anything that’s a real product being pushed in my face in ANY MANNER in video games!
Cyberpunk games would be fine, these rules are about forcing players to watch an ad to experience parts of the game, like when a mobile game makes you watch an ad before you can continue playing after beating a level or when you can watch an ad to get more coins/gems or whatever. Having ads in the game itself isn't being banned.