Valve is making changes to deal with a ‘significant increase’ in Steam game submissions

by | Nov 4, 2026 | Technology

Valve is making changes to deal with a ‘significant increase’ in Steam game submissions

Valve announced today that it has experienced a substantial surge in submissions requiring store and page review in recent months, resulting in processing delays that have extended to approximately 12 business days compared to the standard 3-5 day timeframe.

The prolonged review periods have become a concern for independent developers, with some games missing their intended launch windows due to approval delays. Valve attributed much of the backlog to the necessity of conducting re-reviews on games that fail to meet basic standards during the initial assessment.

To address the issue, Valve has introduced modifications to its release checklist for developers aimed at minimizing re-review requests stemming from fundamental technical problems. The new requirements mandate that developers execute their games through Steam for at least five minutes before submission. Valve noted that some builds submitted for review had never been tested through the Steam platform itself, which can cause discrepancies between direct executable launches and actual user installations via Steam.

Additional requirements now include verifying that in-game achievements are fully operational and confirming the availability of necessary common redistributables such as DirectX and Visual C++, which Steam may need to install on user systems.

Valve indicated that further enhancements to the build review process are currently under development.

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