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PayPalEven though Early Access can be an incredible thing to allow developers to build up their game with the community, and pull in some early funds, it can also go very wrong. And now Valve are making it a bit clearer for you if a game hasn't been updated.
As spotted by SteamDB on Bluesky, in the big Early Access box on a Steam store page that sits at the top just below screenshots and videos, it will now have some highlighted text to note if there's been a long period since the last update.
Scanning over Steam today here's an example to show from Lethal Beach, that released into Early Access in January 2024 and hasn't had an update for 12 months.
Nice to see Valve do something about games that are just languishing on the store, seemingly doing nothing, but still may have people buying into them. Currently it seems like this notice might appear once the last update was at least 12 months ago from looking over various Early Access games.
This follows on from other Steam store updates like games now need to fully disclose kernel-level anti-cheat. Valve made a few other nice tweaks last year too like dealing with publisher spam on store pages.
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12 months still seems like a long time before this pops up but a good start. Good to see Valve making changes to the store page and UI lately in any case.
4 Likes, Who?
It should warn also in Announced games (not early access) and not updated for more than 12 months:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1030300/Hollow_Knight_Silksong/
Just to force them to add a bit of info on progress status.
Last edited by xavi on 5 Feb 2025 at 12:47 pm UTC
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1030300/Hollow_Knight_Silksong/
Just to force them to add a bit of info on progress status.
Last edited by xavi on 5 Feb 2025 at 12:47 pm UTC
5 Likes, Who?
I don't think it's realistic to force developers to give any updates on unreleased games, feels a bit unreasonable just because people want it.
6 Likes, Who?
You cannot have a product listed on a store as To be announced for five+ years without some regular updates:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/367520/view/3929910003147738479
Last edited by xavi on 5 Feb 2025 at 1:45 pm UTC
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/367520/view/3929910003147738479
Last edited by xavi on 5 Feb 2025 at 1:45 pm UTC
6 Likes, Who?
Says who?
Just because you want to know more, doesn't mean anyone has to give it to you. The developer owes you nothing. Good games usually take a long time to develop, they likely just announced it initially perhaps a fair bit too early.
Just because you want to know more, doesn't mean anyone has to give it to you. The developer owes you nothing. Good games usually take a long time to develop, they likely just announced it initially perhaps a fair bit too early.
4 Likes, Who?
i do not see a victim in showing unreleased games.
spending money for abandoned games is a different story
12 month is too much.i would say 6m max! even if they can evade the system in releasing nonsense updates, like changing the main menu, or replacing sounds
spending money for abandoned games is a different story
12 month is too much.i would say 6m max! even if they can evade the system in releasing nonsense updates, like changing the main menu, or replacing sounds
1 Likes, Who?
Says who?
Just because you want to know more, doesn't mean anyone has to give it to you.
Says: myself. I also run a store. Nothing to do with videogames. I cannot put in my store a product as "To be announced" and have it there for years. My clients would ask about release year and my workers would loose their time answering them... for years.
The developer owes you nothing.The developer owe me nothing, but the store is enlisting this product for 6 years with no update. Is the store who just have to say something or put a bit of pressure, or put a message like the Early Access not-updated message you point in this post.
Good games usually take a long time to develop, they likely just announced it initially perhaps a fair bit too early.Sure, and this will be one of best. I would not have defined 5+ years as "a bit too early".
Last edited by xavi on 5 Feb 2025 at 3:16 pm UTC
4 Likes, Who?
I don't think it's realistic to force developers to give any updates on unreleased games, feels a bit unreasonable just because people want it.
Once a year?!? Even if they only say "Yes, we're still working on it in 2025.", it's at least something. If that's too much to do for your future release and your future customers, thank you, but no thanks.
I've got several games on my list that haven't seen any news in years, and I wonder if the developers are still working on it. Or if they are even developers anymore. Or if they're actually alive. Who knows.
And we shouldn't forget that nobody's forced to put their game on Steam loads of years before the release. I'm not sure this is useful in making some PR waves after all this time either.
Last edited by Eike on 5 Feb 2025 at 9:55 pm UTC
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R Daneel Olivaw 7 hours ago
This is awesome! In a time where it seems like every single company on earth is enshittifying itself to death, we pc gamers at least have Valve doing stuff like this. I know they're not perfect, but still this is a very good thing for us consumers.
1 Likes, Who?
I recently had a discussion with one of the devs that was convinced that having a Discord was enough to update customers. He could not understand that I considered it disrespectful to not update the people that paid for the game directly. The game now has a "24 month" label. At least that particular game is fully functional.
That's why it's so hard to compete with Valve. They have both this and a giant slice of the pie. They earned an amount of trust. But will it be forever? If Valve ever gets sold to investors or publicly traded, things will change and not for the better. So fingers crossed that ownership stays with people that think long term.
This is awesome! In a time where it seems like every single company on earth is enshittifying itself to death, we pc gamers at least have Valve doing stuff like this. I know they're not perfect, but still this is a very good thing for us consumers.
That's why it's so hard to compete with Valve. They have both this and a giant slice of the pie. They earned an amount of trust. But will it be forever? If Valve ever gets sold to investors or publicly traded, things will change and not for the better. So fingers crossed that ownership stays with people that think long term.
6 Likes, Who?
This is good. I would take it that if you pay money for early access games you trust that the game wont be abandoned so This sort of info is useful since we are paying for our games.
0 Likes
Once a year?!? Even if they only say "Yes, we're still working on it in 2025."
In the case of Silksong, a teamcherry dev did post on social media just a few weeks ago saying exactly that. I don't have twitter to bother bring the post up here unfortuantely.
1 Likes, Who?
"In the case of Silksong, a teamcherry dev did post on social media just a few weeks ago saying exactly that. I don't have twitter to bother bring the post up here unfortuantely."
The problem of the thousand possible communication channels. I don't want to follow them everywhere, they may find it hard to feed all of them. I do find the most important shop important enough to feed from time to time though.
The problem of the thousand possible communication channels. I don't want to follow them everywhere, they may find it hard to feed all of them. I do find the most important shop important enough to feed from time to time though.
1 Likes, Who?
This should have been done a LONG time ago, but I'm glad it's a thing now. There's been so many projects that I was interested in or even bought that had been abandoned.
0 Likes
If you were to pressure devs of completed games into updating their games, they'll just submit a new update with minimal / identical files.
There shouldn't be pressure, but it would be helpful to should show how long ago the last update to a game was, regardless of early access or full release. If you have the SteamDB browser extension, it already tells you this information next to the release date anyway.
With that said, games that were made decades ago still run fine today, microsoft has been very good with backwards compatibility, so unless a game is broken, there is no real reason to pressure devs to make an update.
Early access is different though, it's meant to be a work in progress, so inactivity is important to customers here.
There shouldn't be pressure, but it would be helpful to should show how long ago the last update to a game was, regardless of early access or full release. If you have the SteamDB browser extension, it already tells you this information next to the release date anyway.
With that said, games that were made decades ago still run fine today, microsoft has been very good with backwards compatibility, so unless a game is broken, there is no real reason to pressure devs to make an update.
Early access is different though, it's meant to be a work in progress, so inactivity is important to customers here.
0 Likes
chickenb00 2 hours ago
Updates need to be made to the store page. Updating via discord or twitter are not acceptable sole options. Optionally, sure!
I'm still waiting on Minihealer to receive an update but it's been 20 months. I've held off buying for over a year now. Early Access is disappointing sometimes...
I'm still waiting on Minihealer to receive an update but it's been 20 months. I've held off buying for over a year now. Early Access is disappointing sometimes...
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I'd like to see something like an "activity heartbeat". Plotting things like community posts, game updates & news posts into a subtle coloured graph line of the last year's worth of activity.
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