Steam's review queue is delaying indie launches, and developers blame a wave of AI-made games

[zohaibahd]

In context: These days, almost anyone can get an AI chatbot to code a playable game in a few hours. The result is that social media is packed with people showing off their creations, many of which are being submitted to Steam for approval. Developers say that the growing line is now long enough to push genuine indie games past their own launch dates.

TwoMenGames is one of the studios caught up in this situation. The small team was supposed to release its first game, Amazing Slot Survivor, today. But the slot machine-themed roguelike never received Valve's approval in time. Instead, the studio posted that Steam's review was simply taking longer than expected, so it removed the release date and brought back the game's demo for now.

Rami Ismail, who co-created the indie hit Nuclear Throne, is stuck in the same line. His new turn-based train defense game, Australia Did It, was due on November 10. Yet its publisher, Mystic Forge, says the game has now spent weeks waiting on Valve's build review. So far, nobody can say when that will end.

Ismail gave Eurogamer a clearer timeline. The game entered the queue on October 20 and failed on November 5 over a minor controller input bug. His team patched it the same day. Since then, Valve hasn't sent a meaningful reply, even after several follow-ups.

Weirdly, waits like this used to be a console problem. Ismail says Steam had always been much quicker. Back then, submitting a game 10 to 14 days before launch was usually enough to fail Valve's review twice and still ship on time.

For its part, Valve admitted in a Steamworks post earlier this month that reviews were taking up to 12 business days, well past its usual three to five. It pinned much of that on a jump in submissions and on re-reviewing builds that fail basic checks. So now developers must play their game through Steam for at least five minutes before submitting.

The post doesn't blame AI, though. Valve also recently made clear it won't ban AI-made games from Steam. Ismail thinks that hands-off stance is backfiring. If bad actors can submit several cloned games a day, he argues, Valve will eventually need fees, restrictions or extra hoops that hurt genuine developers.

Valve says more changes to its review process are on the way. In the meantime, anyone planning a Steam launch should probably ignore the seven-business-day buffer Valve's own documentation still recommends and submit much earlier.

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Steam's review queue is delaying indie launches, and developers blame a wave of AI-made games

 

[Eldrach]

Valve should make a subsection called «AI Studio» - then chug all AI games in there - not accessible through the regular Steam Store..but there if you want to access them

 

[Dreadcthulhu]

One: Valve needs to hire more reviewers. They are making tons of money, they can afford more people.

Two: Valve really should raise the developer listing fee; right now its only like $100. Raise it to a $1,000 and putting up garbage (AI generated or not) becomes financially unviable. But anyone who is serious about their game will probably be able to manage $1000. If a game is $5, after Steam's cut you need to sell 286 copies to hit break even; if you don't expect to sell that much you probably shouldn't bother publishing it on Steam.

 

[LordVile95]

One: Valve needs to hire more reviewers. They are making tons of money, they can afford more people.

Two: Valve really should raise the developer listing fee; right now its only like $100. Raise it to a $1,000 and putting up garbage (AI generated or not) becomes financially unviable. But anyone who is serious about their game will probably be able to manage $1000. If a game is $5, after Steam's cut you need to sell 286 copies to hit break even; if you don't expect to sell that much you probably shouldn't bother publishing it on Steam.

1. Valve do not care what goes on the store. They get their 30% regardless of what people buy and they’re a monopoly.

2. Raising the fee just shuts out small or single devs who don’t have the money for games they’ve worked on

 

[Theinsanegamer]

1. Valve do not care what goes on the store. They get their 30% regardless of what people buy and they’re a monopoly.

2. Raising the fee just shuts out small or single devs who don’t have the money for games they’ve worked on

1. They are not a monopoly. There are a multitude of other stores and you can easily play every AAA game and a majority of indie titles without touching Steam. Just because you are jealous of their success does not mean they are a monopoly.

2. Go work another shift or two at McDonald's then. Do you want barriers to keep out ai slop games or not?

 

[demonicmaniac]

1. They are not a monopoly. There are a multitude of other stores and you can easily play every AAA game and a majority of indie titles without touching Steam. Just because you are jealous of their success does not mean they are a monopoly.

2. Go work another shift or two at McDonald's then. Do you want barriers to keep out ai slop games or not?

While I do agree with you in principle the developer listing fee isn't regionally adjusted so if you're from a poorer country it can be several months of wages until you can set aside the equivalent of 100$. That said if you are starting brand new fresh as indie you can always do itch first and branch out to steam later. It's not like you'll be found on steam anyways as a small new dev unless you have hundreds of thousands of ad money to push it and make people aware of it or manage to convince a larger streamer to showcase it to drum up interest.

 

[LordVile95]

1. They are not a monopoly. There are a multitude of other stores and you can easily play every AAA game and a majority of indie titles without touching Steam. Just because you are jealous of their success does not mean they are a monopoly.

They are by definition a monopoly and use that to suppress competition.

2. Go work another shift or two at McDonald's then. Do you want barriers to keep out ai slop games or not?

You need to extract yourself from your parents basement every once in a while

 

[BuckarooBonzaii]

Genuine developers should be first in line. AI/Vibe coding should be 2nd.