What Happened
Valve disclosed that the time needed to review new games for Steam has increased from the usual three‑to‑five business days to as much as twelve business days. The company said the change reflects a "significant increase in submissions for store and page review in recent months" and acknowledges that it is currently "running a little behind" its normal schedule.
In a post released on the same day, Valve also announced that it is revising the release checklist that developers must follow before a game can be approved. The goal of the new requirements is to cut down on re‑reviews caused by basic functional issues that can be caught earlier in the submission process.
Details of the New Review Process
The updated checklist adds several concrete steps that developers must complete before Valve’s review team evaluates a build:
- Minimum Steam run time – Developers must launch their game through the Steam client for at least five minutes. Valve noted that some builds are currently being examined without ever having been played via Steam, which can hide problems that only appear during a typical user installation.
- Achievements readiness – All in‑game achievements must be configured and ready for activation.
- Common redistributables verification – Developers need to confirm that any required components such as DirectX or Visual C++ runtimes are correctly identified so that Steam can install them for players.
Valve indicated that additional improvements to the build review workflow are planned, though specific details were not provided in the announcement.
Background and Developer Concerns
Indie developers have recently voiced frustration over the lengthening approval times on Steam, with some reports suggesting that the delays have caused games to miss their intended launch windows. The Verge article cited these concerns, noting that the backlog has become a pain point for smaller studios that rely on precise timing for marketing and community engagement.
Valve’s statement attributes much of the delay to the need for re‑reviews. When a game fails basic functional checks after an initial submission, it must be sent back to the developer for correction, which adds extra cycles to the overall timeline. By tightening the pre‑submission checklist, Valve hopes to reduce the frequency of such re‑reviews.
Potential Impact on the Steam Ecosystem
The extended review window could have several effects on the Steam marketplace. For larger publishers with dedicated compliance teams, a twelve‑day review period may be manageable, but smaller indie teams might need to adjust their development schedules to accommodate the longer lead time.
Requiring a five‑minute Steam run could also improve the consistency of the user experience, as games will be tested in the same environment that end‑users will encounter. Ensuring achievements and redistributables are set up beforehand may reduce post‑launch support tickets related to missing content or failed installations.
Overall, Valve’s adjustments aim to streamline the approval pipeline by catching avoidable issues earlier. If successful, the changes could restore confidence among developers who have been wary of unpredictable launch delays, while maintaining Steam’s reputation as a platform that balances accessibility for creators with quality control for consumers.