Updated

Indie developers say Valve's Steam approval backlog is delaying their game releases, a problem they believe stems from an influx of AI-generated games on the platform. Eurogamer reported on November 12, 2026 that the delays began earlier that month, when Valve said approval times could now take up to 12 days because it was re-reviewing a large number of submissions. Australia Did It, a turn-based tower defence game co-developed by Rami Ismail and Aesthetician Labs and published by Mystic Forge, was due on November 10 but has been delayed while it waits for Valve's review of its latest build. Ismail said it had been in the queue since October 20 and had failed once over a controller input issue before being resubmitted. TwoMenGames also retracted the November 13 release date for its debut title Amazing Slot Survivor, and its demo returned to Steam. Ismail told Eurogamer that Valve's stricter submission guidelines would not be enough and warned that any fix could make life harder for genuine developers.