Steam’s New Rule For Season Pass

Steam has been known as one of the more consumer-friendly companies out there, and this trend continues with its brilliant decision to change its rules regarding Season Passes. This includes the addition of new regulations by Steam that require studios to list the rewards of a Season Pass.

Season Passes have become one of the more common forms of additional content in games. However, for many consumers, this can be misleading. There have been more than a few incidents in the past regarding the transparency of a Content Pass, and thus, the new rule is likely to be a great change for gamers.

There have been more changes, but the most notable is that developers have to include a complete list of content, a brief description, and a release date to be mentioned as well. Interestingly, it also requires developers to have one of the DLCs in a season pass, if included, be playable unless they are a part of a pre-order.

More notably, Steam's new rules state that studios need to issue refunds for canceled DLCs. This wouldn’t amount to a full refund. However, it would be just a half-refund expected for the value of the DLC had it been bought as a standalone. This specific change might come as a blow to many game developers, especially bigger ones, where the turbulent release schedule and game reception are the ultimate deciders on whether a Steam game gets its DLCs or not.

This might also adversely affect smaller companies or individual developers that might offer season passes but ultimately have no real roadmap. Since this requires them to add a timeline and description for planned content, in the modern world of gaming, gamers will generally be happy with this as it ensures developers are transparent and open and actually deliver on promises. It also remains to be seen if Steam will continue with such changes or if this is the first and last of them.