Steam build review is taking up to 12 business days, Valve says, compared with its usual three-to-five-business-day target. In its original Steamworks update, the company describes checklist changes intended to help developers pass on the first submission.
Five minutes means Steam playtime
Developers must launch the game using Steam’s Play button and run it for at least five minutes. Valve says playtime from any user qualifies, subject to its recency rules. The announcement describes Steam recording that playtime; it does not ask developers to submit a five-minute video.
The distinction matters because opening an executable directly can miss problems with Steam launch settings or the content included in a build.
What else changes
The checklist also asks developers to confirm required common redistributables and flags incomplete achievement configuration. Games advertising Steam Cloud must have a partner-group member write a cloud save. Store screenshots can use several categories, but at least five must be labelled as gameplay.
Valve’s review-process documentation is the place to check current requirements. The company says it is still scaling reviews and working on further improvements; the checklist is not a promise that every submission will finish within the usual target.
What the backlog does—and does not—show
Our Food Devils launch-delay report documents a separate developer’s wait for approval. That example should not be used to infer the cause of every delayed release.
Valve attributes much of the delay in its update to repeat reviews. Its statement does not establish that AI-generated submissions caused a particular game’s missed launch.
