Steam Bans Developers from Using “Bullshots” in New Game Screenshot Policy

Steam has received complaints about the practice of putting fake screenshots. Titles like No Man’s Sky and many games from Gearbox have been guilty of this practice, which has come to be known colloquially as “bullshots.”

These screenshots misrepresent what the game looks like, by offering an idealized, doctored image of the game.

In a developer-facing post on Steamworks (via Facepunch), Valve told its developers to use real screenshots and not fake ones. We assume however that it’s okay for developers to use built-in screenshot systems or Nvidia’s Ansel to take cool pictures, as they contain a snapshot of actual gameplay.

Additionally, Steam is tired of developers who use screenshots overlaid with award text and concept artwork that have nothing at all to do with the gameplay experience and has advised developers to keep the section filled with screenshots only and nothing else.

Here’s what they wrote:

“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.

For elements such as marketing copy, awards you’d like to show off, or descriptions of your Deluxe Edition, we ask that you use the specific spaces already available on your store page to put that content rather than including it in your screenshots.

Dota 2 is an example of where we were doing it wrong ourselves. We’re now in the process of updating Dota 2 to use screenshots of the game rather than artwork.”