Steam Review Delays Push Indie Games Past Launch Dates as Submissions Surge

Studio Daimon planned to launch its game Food Devils in early access on November 3 after submitting its build on October 12. Game director Alfred Kamon wrote that the title was "still awaiting approval" and that a support ticket warning of a missed release date had gone unanswered. In October, publisher 2 Left Thumbs said the launch of its game Wheel Make It slipped "by nearly two weeks" while it waited for build reviews.

Valve's developer guidance says a review of a game's store presence "typically takes 3-5 business days to complete." It advises studios to submit at least seven business days before they want a page to go live. Valve did not immediately respond to The Verge's request for comment.

More Games Competing for Review

The number of games on the platform has grown sharply. October's Steam Next Fest featured 7,240 games, a 65.2% increase on June's edition, according to How to Market a Game, as cited by The Verge. A Reddit user's analysis found that 49.9% of games released since Valve began asking developers in 2024 to label AI use now carry an AI disclosure.

"We can only assume it's because Steam's review queue is clogged up by AI slop," Kamon said. That is the developers' explanation, and Valve has not confirmed it.

Itch.io is facing similar pressure. The indie games platform said last weekend that the number of game pages created each day had doubled in the past two months, and later posted that it had deleted "a couple terabytes of ai slop."

Why It Matters

Generative tools have cut the cost of making and submitting games. Storefronts that review each title by hand now have to absorb that extra volume. For small studios that plan marketing around a fixed date, a stalled review can mean a missed launch window. Steam is the main PC games store, so how Valve handles the backlog will affect release planning across the indie sector.