Game Flood Cripples Platform Review as Indie Project Waits Weeks
The PC storefront’s approval queue is buckling under an unprecedented wave of new releases, and some long-gestating indie projects are paying the price. According to third-party tracking data, the platform hosted 21,204 new games across all of 2025, yet 2026 has already surpassed that total with 24,513 titles and nearly two months still left on the calendar. Thomas Bidaux, CEO of UK consulting firm ICO Partners, noted in a November 2 tally that the previous week alone saw a record 1,656 new releases — roughly one new game every six minutes. For developers who spent years on a single title, that flood has turned launch planning into a waiting game.
Among those affected is Alfred Kamon, director of Food Devils. Kamon posted that his team spent four years developing the game and planned to launch its early access version on November 3. The build was submitted for review on October 12, but more than 20 days later no verdict had arrived. The storefront’s own documentation promises a turnaround of three to five business days, with seven as the maximum buffer, and Kamon said earlier submissions had always been on time. An urgent customer service ticket filed the previous week also went unanswered, and Kamon speculated that AI-generated low-quality releases had overwhelmed the review team, with many developers reporting identical delays throughout October.
Data cited by Japanese outlet AUTOMATON illustrates the scale of the problem: 3,670 new games arrived in October 2026, nearly double the 2,035 recorded in the same month a year earlier. The number of titles reaching 100 or more user reviews, however, stayed roughly level, while games with only a handful of reviews — or none at all — continue to multiply. Valve addressed the situation on November 4 in its official developer community, acknowledging a sharp rise in submissions over recent months and admitting that processing has fallen behind. The company said a large share of the delay stems from titles that require re-review, and that it has spent recent weeks tightening the pipeline.
Valve also updated its pre-launch checklist. Developers must now actually run their game for at least five minutes before submitting, and confirm that features such as achievements and cloud saves are fully configured, with the goal of getting more titles approved on the first attempt. Further improvements are promised. Kamon later reported that Food Devils had been automatically removed from the storefront’s personalized calendar, stripping the project of its main exposure channel and leaving the team unable to set a new release date while approval remains pending. It is a rough stretch for small studios, though at least the backlog is now publicly acknowledged rather than left unaddressed.
