So I just saw this rock, paper shotgun article (Originally reported at Kotaku) about Valve officially banning frowning upon the use of screenshots on store pages that are not in-game. From Valve's message to the Steam developers network:

“We haven’t been super crisp on guidelines for screenshots in the past, so we’d like to take this opportunity to clarify some rules in this space. When the ‘screenshot’ section of a store page is used for images other than screenshots that depict the game, it can make it harder for customers to understand what the product is that they are looking at. Additionally, we’re going to start showing game screenshots in more places as described above, and these images need to be able to represent the game.”

“We ask that any images you upload to the ‘screenshot’ section of your store page should be screenshots that show your game. This means avoiding using concept art, pre-rendered cinematic stills, or images that contain awards, marketing copy, or written product descriptions. Please show customers what your game is actually like to play.”

The example Valve used was concept art of Dota 2, that was on the store page, is now gone, or at least will be soon. I think this is important. Obviously consumers should know better than to trust images from game developers/publishers, but for the casual game-player, they may not feel the need to take the time to check if the screenshots match the actual game.

Say what you want about how people should have known better about No Man's Sky (I certainly should have known better) but the store images from the E3 trailer for that game are some serious nonsense. I don't know if they break this new policy, but I sure think they represent "concept art or pre-rendered cinematic stills...".

Here's hoping this policy encourages more transparency on the part of developers. I also hope Valve actually tries to enforce some of this.

For comparison, here are some shots from my playing of that game, that represent the final product in a realistic manner, without making it look bad. They don't show it teeming with life, having very long draw distances or nicely formed creatures. The 2nd image from the left is a testament to the beauty of procedural creation. But they show that the world's have variety which is the main draw of the game.

Gallery

TBH I'm not sure this is going to work great because which game with a budget can't pay for decent screenshots of their game? I know a few publishers (especially of Japanese ports) fail spectacularly to show their game in the best light in screenshots (if you're not taking screenshots using High/Ultra settings for your game at a decent res then what are you even doing?) without really worrying about it influencing sales but on the other side we have stuff like EA's recent "uses in-engine assets" etc trailers that are not real-time footage of the game.

Hell, just check out Dead End Thrills or any of the other game photography sites for how they get some great screenshots of the actual game but are in no way representative of what the game will actually look like to play. That's great stuff but it's not something that the average consumer would look and and be able to quickly understand it's not something they'll ever see in the game at playable framerates.

On the other side of this, this means removing all screenshots of the FMV quality in a game. So that's literally a blanket ban on any screenshots for an FMV-based game where there is nothing but FMV to show? Surely there is space for that sort of thing when showing what a game is like, FMV is the actual thing you'll be seeing when you play the game even if other sections of it are purely real-time rendered 3D work. It seems like the screenshot system would be better served if they just flagged it with extra details so the developer could note things like "taken from final build of game using real-time [30+] fps on standard consumer hardware" or "taken from FMV portion of final build game" or "concept art" or whatever - Valve can work on how to best make it transparent what's going on. But those are all categories of stuff that help people decide on a purchase and should be on the store page, even if labelling is important to avoid confusion.

This nonsense has been going on for all time. This is something we've been dealing with since the '80s and screenshots on the back of games for a different format than the game inside the box. We can make things better with flagging content to give more info but this seems to ban some stuff that helps make purchasing decision without stopping stuff that's clearly deceptive (eg shots of games taken at seconds per frame performance levels).

They are just protecting their own ass from backlashes like the ridiculous no mans sky stuff. It will hurt games marketing for lower budget games that use heavy concept art to get players interested (which i mean is what you do lol). It will hurt pre-orders and marketing for games not yet finished and still in early development as well. And if a game has cut scenes how is it wrong to use those for marketing, they are technically in game. Its also impossible to enforce for unreleased games, as who knows whats in it yet besides developers.

Ugh just imagine how the "graphics downgrade" crazies are going to flip their shit when a marketing image uses a shader no longer in the game because it was cut for performance. Smh

There should be a disclaimer on the screenshots instead.

It's a bit strange to actively say that devs putting nice screens is misleading. Top publishers such as Valve spend thousands on pre rendered trailers that don't give a true representation of actual game play.

Seems like they are trying to get in front of a potential legal issue if they don't take an official position.

Trying to bring some clarity about the source and intent of screenshots seems like a smart move, but this would be a pretty tough thing to take a hard line stance on. There are just too many situations where I think it may be tough to judge what should or should not be permissible, so at some point, a large part of this still has to come down to it being the responsibility of the developer/publisher to not actively try to misrepresent the game and mislead people.

I actually like the idea suggested by @shivoa of the uploaded screenshots being tagged with additional information about their source and context. I think that would allow for more flexibility in the marketing of a game, especially in cases where a game is being marketed far ahead of release, but it would provide additional info that could help inform consumers.

That being said, the one part of this that I think is clear cut and should absolutely be enforced is getting rid of the extra text and overlays slapped onto some screenshots. I'm somewhat willing to tolerate it on iOS/Android where it's become very common, but I still hate seeing it when it shows up on Steam.