Valve just changed its Steam release rules amid a flood of AI games

Indie games are missing launch dates, sometimes by weeks, due to the unexpected delays.

Valve

Valve is updating its game release rules to try to unclog a backlog of approvals due to a recent flood of new game titles, many created with AI, the company announced. That follows news that indie games are missing launch dates, sometimes by weeks, due to the unexpected delays. 

Valve's goal for new title reviews is three to five days, but it's currently taking up to 12 business days. The company instituted the new rules in part to avoid any re-reviews responsible for those longer times. "We've heard from a lot of developers and know how stressful it's been having to wait for review build updates longer than expected," Valve wrote in a community post. "More improvements are coming to the build review process, but these initial changes are a great starting point." 

First and foremost, developers must run their games through Steam for at least five minutes to ensure it works on the platform. Valve notes that it reviews builds that have never been played through Steam, meaning 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."

Valve is also requiring devs to confirm common redistributables like DirectX and Visual C++, check that achievements are ready, confirm that Steam Cloud save paths are configured correctly, and categorize screenshots as gameplay, menus, concept art or cinematics. 

Left unsaid by Valve is that the store has been flooded by AI vibe-coded games with inadequate pre-release checks. "The time seems to have spiked around September/October. Presumably [due in part to]... the overwhelming amount of slop now flooding Steam," said developer 2 Left Thumbs on X. That data was confirmed by Reddit user u/ploz, who found that 49.9 percent of games released on Steam in October disclosed AI-generated content. In June, nearly 20 percent of Next Fest game demos disclosed the use of AI. 

The delays are having consequences for developers. "Our game's trailer amassed more than 60,000 views on YouTube, and we had more than 6,000 wishlists," Cubic Earth developer structmira told PC Gamer. "Now, our Steam Community page is rapidly filling with player complaints, and we've lost all momentum.