Officially: Valve has taken control of the change of release dates on Steam
Valve has confirmed that Steam developers can no longer change release dates without its consent. Rumors about this appeared last week.
In an official statement to PCGamesN, Valve writes: “This innovation is intended to help developers who intentionally or unintentionally changed release dates. As a result, their game got into certain Steam ratings, misleading players and interfering with other developers.”
Now, if you want to change the release date, the developer must contact Valve and tell the reason for the transfer. If the new date is approved, then two weeks before it, the author of the game will receive a reminder from Steam.
Recall that the store algorithm automatically places games with new dates in the “Popular future products” section. And many developers have used it. They specifically changed the dates so that the game would flash on the main page more often.
Also note that Valve wants to control not only the release dates, but also the content in the Steam Workshop. Now the store moderates various custom items. So far, only the players have noted this; the company itself has not confirmed the information, according to Kotaku.
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