Steam's recent launch review times have significantly lengthened, with many indie games waiting two to three weeks or even longer, causing some titles to be delayed. Affected developers suspect that the influx of generative AI works may have exacerbated the review backlog, but Valve has not yet explained the cause of the accumulation.
It is no exaggeration to say that November is absolutely crazy for video games. World of Warcraft: Infinite launches tomorrow. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Remastered will also launch in just a few hours. In just two short weeks, the heavyweight title GTA 6 is arriving. As expected, dozens of indie games are trying to release before these blockbusters appear to avoid having their market share seized, and to prevent players and content creators who might have paid attention to smaller games from having their time crowded out.
However, many indie game developers are now worried that due to serious bottlenecks within Valve, they might be forced to release their games amidst the flood of AAA titles. The cause of this bottleneck is believed to be the massive influx of AI-generated games.
Throughout October, many indie game developers posted on social media reporting that their review process on Steam was taking longer than usual. Typically, Valve states that after developers submit their games for listing on the Steam store, they need to wait 3-5 days for review. Afterward, Valve may contact developers to inform them of any issues encountered, which requires a few more days for re-review. Only once Valve deems all issues resolved can the game be officially listed. For this reason, Valve specifically advises developers: "To allow time for necessary modifications, it is best to submit your review application at least 7 business days before your game goes live."
But recently, seven business days have been far from enough. Throughout October, many indie game developers posted on social media that their game reviews took two to three weeks or even longer to complete, with no apparent reason.
For example, the game Caravarn Carnage: Fruity Road, submitted on October 16, finally passed Steam's review on November 1:
Ashen Legacy was submitted on October 15 and finally approved on November 1, well ahead of its originally scheduled release date of November 6:
Wheel Make It was forced to delay its release by three weeks:
What exactly is going on? No one knows the exact answer. Valve has not provided an explanation either. Kotaku contacted the company for comment, and they stated that a blog post would be published later today, but we were not informed of the content nor certain of the specific release time; we will update as soon as there is news. However, affected developers have offered a guess regarding the cause of the incident: they believe it is a problem caused by the chaos of AI-generated code.
As of mid-October, the number of games scheduled for release on Steam in 2026 had already surpassed the total for the entire year of 2025, with two and a half months still remaining until the end of the year. In October alone, approximately 4,000 games were released on the platform, with nearly 50% of them using generative artificial intelligence (GI) during development.
Such a large volume of games emerging at an astonishing speed is thanks to generative AI's ability to quickly create game prototypes. Developers suspect that given such massive quantities, Valve may be struggling to cope with the sudden surge in game submissions, and small studios lacking sufficient influence to demand faster processing from Valve are suffering as a result. But since Valve has not yet responded, no one can confirm whether this claim is true.