Valve has admitted that Steam's pre-release build reviews are taking up to 12 business days, and has added new items to the release checklist developers must complete before submitting a game.
In an announcement on Steamworks Development on November 3rd, the company said it has seen "a significant increase in submissions for store page and build review in recent months" and has spent several weeks trying to scale its process to match. It aims to test builds within three to five business days, but said it is "running a little behind right now and taking up to 12 business days." Valve did not share how many games have been submitted.
According to the announcement, much of the delay comes from games that have to be reviewed a second time, which Valve said "isn't great for you or for us." The company said it knows how stressful the wait has been for developers and that more changes to build review are on the way.
What the new checklist asks for
Developers now have to run their game through Steam's "Play" button for at least five minutes before submitting it. "Believe it or not, sometimes we review builds that have not ever been played through Steam," Valve said, explaining that a game launched straight from its executable can hide broken launch options or missing content. Any user's playtime counts, as long as it falls within the past seven days or since the last build upload.
Developers must also confirm which common redistributables, such as DirectX or Visual C++, Steam should install, or say the game needs none. Steam now flags incomplete achievement setups, and games that list Steam Cloud support must write a save file to the cloud before review. Store pages also need at least five screenshots tagged as gameplay, as screenshots can now be labelled as menus, concept art or cinematics.
How Valve wants developers to pass first time
Valve said its reviewers check three things: whether the store page is clear and complete, whether the build matches what the page promises, and whether sensitive content, including mature content and AI usage, is properly disclosed in the content survey. It said it will expand its Steamworks review documentation with a full release checklist guide.
The review changes come a week after Valve staff answered developer concerns about AI slop and clone games at the Steam Indie Connect event in Korea on October 27th, where they said Valve does not want to act as a gatekeeper over which tools developers use.
