On paper, Season Passes have it all. But in practice, they are far from being exempt from all reproach, in particular because they are sometimes exploited by unscrupulous studios who use them as a smokescreen. Valve seems to have taken note of this: the company behind Steam has just introduced new, stricter regulations on its platform, in order to force sellers to be more transparent at this level.
For those unfamiliar with Season Passes, it is a content delivery format that can be compared to a subscription to a game-service. When developers plan to publish a large quantity of additional content (expansions, cosmetics, etc.) over a given period, they often offer an alternative which consists of paying a given amount at the start of this “season” instead of purchasing all these items individually at full Price.
Often interesting but sometimes misleading offers
These offers are generally aimed at the most loyal players who intend to purchase all of the additional content. For this audience, the Season Pass are very attractive, as they usually represent a substantial saving and tend to offer a few extra perks, like exclusive content or early access.
But for the majority of players who would potentially only be interested in part of the additional content, it is not always easy to know what to expect. And this is all the more true when developers are particularly evasive about the content of a Season Pass available for pre-order; under these conditions, it can be difficult to determine whether the investment will be profitable.
These players therefore find themselves faced with a rather annoying dilemma: is it better to check out now, even if it means paying for content that they would not have purchased otherwise? Or is it wiser to abstain, at the risk of having to pay full price for the interesting elements later?
New requirements in terms of transparency
To put an end to this confusion, Steam has updated its documentation which shows a very clear bias: Valve takes the side of the players, and it is the developers who will now make transparency efforts. ‘they want to continue selling Season Pass on its platform. More specifically, the new rules specify that all of the following elements must be explicitly specified in the product description:
- A comprehensive list of all included downloadable content (DLC);
- A minimum basic description of the content of each DLC (“new areas to explore”, “new weapons”, etc.)
- An exit period.
The latter does not necessarily have to be very precise; for example, developers can simply announce a quarter. On the other hand, this date will also constitute a commitment in due form. Good news for customers, as this will prevent them from ending up with a Season Pass skinny after paying a high price for it.
« By offering a Season Pass, you are promising future content. When launching a Season Pass, you will be asked to commit to a launch date for each Season Pass content. This launch date represents a commitment to both customers and Steam », We can read on the page which describes this new policy. “ If you are not prepared to clearly communicate what content is included in each DLC AND when each DLC will be ready to launch, you should not offer a Season Pass on Steam », insists Valve.
Obviously, the company remains aware that game development can be chaotic. It therefore leaves a little room for maneuver to the studios by allowing them to reschedule the release of a DLC included in the Season Pass — but only once, and not once more. Otherwise, all customers will be directly refunded the amount corresponding to the DLC in question.
Note that these changes do not concern Battle Passes, another model that allows players to acquire additional content as they naturally progress in the game. But overall, it is still a question of a welcome change which will help prevent certain abuses.
The full text of the new regulations is available here.
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