Valve takes stern stance on season passes and DLC in new guidelines

Valve is taking a stance against season passes on Steam, implementing new guidelines for developers that’ll force them to be clearer about what’s in season passes and offer refunds if those plans change.

“If you aren’t ready to clearly communicate about the content included in each DLC AND when each DLC will be ready for launch, you shouldn’t offer a Season Pass on Steam,” Valve wrote in the documentation.

SteamDB creator Pavel Djundik first spotted the new documentation, and posted about it on Bluesky Thursday.

In case you’re unaware, season passes are offered to players as a way to for them to get future DLC and other bonus features for some of their favorite games, usually by having them buy deluxe editions of new releases that cost more than just the base game. Valve says that a developer implementing a season pass is “promising future content” to the player, with a “commitment” to follow through on those promises.

However, buying a season pass can come with risks. If it changes after purchase or gets canceled, the player is often left in a strange position. They can get a refund, but how easy that is depends on the platform and if the developer or publisher is involved.

The new guidelines lay out how developers need to advertise their season passes, and it’s all about increased transparency. First, they need to announce everything that will be included with details. So instead of just writing that there will be future DLC, games need to mention what DLC and any other relevant information. There doesn’t need to be a huge amount of detail, but it needs to include basics and what the player will get from them. Developers also need to note expected release dates or windows. Finally, there needs to be at least one released DLC when it goes up for purchase.

And if that DLC in the season pass is canceled, customers will be offered a refund based on the perceived value of that content. Valve will allow developers to delay a season pass’s date only once and only up to three months later. This could be a problem for larger games that might have long delays, but Valve opened the door for discussions for exceptions.

This isn’t an outright ban on season passes. Rather, Valve is holding developers more accountable if something goes wrong and having them provide transparency to players. Developers will be punished through refunds and, in a worst-case scenario, have them remove the season pass from sale entirely.

This is yet another pro-consumer move Valve has taken in recent months. In September, it posted an update to its Steam Subscriber Agreement that says users will no longer be confined to forced arbitration if they sue the company. It’s also tweaked user reviews to hopefully prioritize helpful reviews instead of memes, and made sharing games a lot easier.

However, Valve has also come under fire for proliferating extremism, antisemitism, and white supremacy on the platform, with a U.S. senator writing a letter to Valve itself to get it to improve community moderation and guidelines.