Steam says it’s ‘running behind’ when reviewing pre-release games because of how many re-reviews it has to do

Valve has told developers it’s “running a little behind” when it comes to approving pre-release game build submissions, because of all the re-reviewing it has to do.

Developers have to submit their build to Valve before their game can be released on Steam, to ensure it meets the storefront’s requirements.

While this process is usually only supposed to take a few days, however, some indie developers have been taking to social media and saying it’s taking longer, potentially resulting in their release dates being pushed back.

Now, in a message posted on its Steamworks development news page, Valve has informed developers that it’s being slowed down by the number of games that are failing their submissions the first time around and having to be re-submitted.

“We aim to test every game build in a timely manner, typically within 3-5 days,” the update says. “However, we’re running a little behind right now and taking up to 12 business days. Much of that delay is due to having to re-review games, which isn’t great for you or for us.”

In an attempt to remedy this, Valve has updated its documentation on release checklists, with new things it’s asked developers to double-check before submitting their game builds.

“Believe it or not, sometimes we review builds that have not ever been played through Steam,” it said. ” This means that even if a game runs smoothly when a dev launches their executable directly, they might have missed basic steps that would impact a user installing and playing via Steam.”

As such, the release checklist will now require that developers run their game through Steam for at least five minutes before submitting their build, to make sure it actually runs in the first place.

Other new requirements include specifying which common redistributables (such as DirectX, Visual C++, .NET and XNA) need to be installed, making sure achievements are ready, making sure Steam Cloud saves work properly if supported, and making sure at least five of the screenshots supplied are specified as gameplay.

“We’ve heard from a lot of developers and know how stressful it’s been having to wait for review build updates longer than expected,” Valve said. “More improvements are coming to the build review process, but these initial changes are a great starting point.”