Games on Steam that have DLC are listed pretty clearly, but the same doesn’t apply to season passes. Valve is looking to change that, as the company has added support for them, and with it comes a list of guidelines for developers to follow as well.
Valve is pretty much stating the obvious when it defined season passes as “effectively a DLC pre-purchase”. But it adds that “because pre-purchases also have their own set of rules, the platform is only giving season pass support to devs and publishers with “a well-established relationship and that have a proven track record on Steam”.
Also mentioned in the Steam guidelines is that selling a season pass is a promise for future content. As such, Valve tells devs or publishers to either commit to their launch, or don’t offer them at all. Partners will be able to delay them by up to three months, but beyond that they’ll need to contact Valve directly.
Despite the seemingly stern tone, the Steam guidelines also include some pretty lax language. For instance, Valve demands that there is “a basic description of the content that’s included in each DLC”, which can be as simple as “new weapons”. Which doesn’t say much in, for instance, fighting games where the only options are new characters or stages, minus extra egregious things like frame data.
The company is also making a clear distinction between season passes and battle passes, making the latter not apply to the new Steam guidelines. In short, the latter is the track in games that gives you smaller microtransaction items like cosmetics for free, if you meet certain play thresholds or achieve certain milestones. Sure, devs and publishers of games may give creative names for either, but for the purposes of Steam’s guidelines, it’s a useful enough description.
(Source: Steam)
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