THE ESSENTIALS IN 30 SECONDS

  • In a November 3 Steamworks post, Valve said reviews can take up to 12 business days, against a usual window of three to five.
  • Valve attributes much of the delay to re-reviewing flawed submissions and has added release checklist items, such as a minimum of Steam playtime.
  • Valve's post does not mention generative AI; the link to AI-made games comes from developers and press commentary, not from the company.

Valve has acknowledged that it is falling behind on approving games for Steam. In a post on its Steamworks Development group dated November 3, the company said it has seen a significant rise in submissions for store page and build reviews in recent months, and that reviews can now take up to 12 business days. Its developer documentation still describes three to five business days as typical and asks studios to plan for at least seven.

Repeat reviews and a longer checklist

According to PC Gamer and GamerHeadlines, which summarized the post, Valve said much of the backlog comes from having to review the same games more than once, a situation it called "not great for you or for us." To cut down on rejected builds, it has added items to the pre-release checklist. Builds must have been run through Steam for at least five minutes in the previous seven days, developers must list the common redistributables their game needs, achievements are checked for missing names, icons and duplicates, games that advertise Steam Cloud must show a save being written, and store pages need at least five gameplay screenshots. Valve presented these steps as a starting point and gave no date for a return to the usual window.

Developers point to AI, Valve does not

The post does not mention generative AI, as both PC Gamer and Kotaku note. The connection comes from developers and commentators. Kotaku spoke to several small studios whose launches slipped: Studio Daimon's Food Devils, submitted on October 12, was still awaiting approval on its planned November 3 release date, and Wheel Make It shipped three weeks late after a slow re-review. Some of these developers suspect that a flood of AI-assisted games is swamping Valve's reviewers, although Kotaku stresses that this cannot be confirmed without more detail from the company.

Context

Steam's release volume has climbed sharply. Kotaku reports that more games came out on the store by mid-October 2026 than in all of 2025, and cites a LaunchRivals estimate of about 4,000 releases in October alone. Valve requires developers to disclose AI use in a content survey that reviewers check, but a Valve developer said recently that the company does not want to act as a gatekeeper over which tools studios use. For now, Valve's main advice is to submit complete, tested builds so they pass on the first attempt.