Valve admitted it is running behind on Steam game approvals, with wait times reaching up to 12 business days instead of the stated three to five day window. Several indie developers reported their finished games stuck in limbo for over 20 days, including the creators of Food Devils, Wheel Make It, and Cubic Earth. The developer of Cubic Earth told PC Gamer the delay cost them momentum after accumulating over 6,000 wishlists and 60,000 YouTube views on their trailer.
In a Steamworks update, Valve attributed much of the backlog to having to re-review games. The company released new submission checklists requiring developers to run games through Steam for at least five minutes before approval and to confirm cloud saves, achievements, and minimum screenshots are in place. Valve noted in the update that some submitted builds have never been played through Steam, meaning they can miss basic functionality issues that arise when installed by users rather than launched directly by developers.
The timing of the backlog coincides with a reported surge in AI-generated games on Steam. Itch.io separately announced it deleted "a couple terabytes of AI slop" from its storefront to combat low-quality uploads. A Valve developer previously acknowledged the slop problem but stated the company does not want to "be gatekeepers telling developers which tools they should or shouldn't use."