Valve Addresses Increased Game Submission Delays on Steam
In a recent announcement, Valve acknowledged a substantial uptick in the number of game submissions for review on the Steam platform. The company indicated that the review process is currently taking as long as 12 business days, a significant increase from the typical timeframe of 3 to 5 days.
Impact on Indie Developers
Indie game developers have voiced concerns over the extended approval times, which have caused several projects to miss their intended launch deadlines. Valve has identified that a considerable portion of the delays is attributed to the need for re-evaluating games. In response, the company is updating its release checklist with the aim of minimizing re-reviews related to basic functional issues.
New Review Process Requirements
As part of the revised checklist, developers will now be required to test their games directly through the Steam client for a minimum of five minutes prior to submission. Valve explained, “Believe it or not, sometimes we review builds that have not ever been played through Steam. This means that even if a game runs smoothly when a dev launches their executable directly, they might have missed basic steps that would impact a user installing and playing via Steam.”
Additional Submission Criteria
Alongside the new gameplay requirement, developers must ensure that:
- Achievements are fully functional.
- All necessary common redistributables, such as DirectX or Visual C++, are confirmed for installation through Steam.
Ongoing Improvements
Valve also conveyed that additional enhancements to the build review process are underway, indicating a commitment to streamline operations and support developers more effectively.
