Steam Introduces Alerts for Early Access Games Inactive for a Year

Valve is introducing a new initiative to keep players better informed about Steam Early Access games, especially those that haven’t seen updates in over a year. This change comes in the form of a clear warning message displayed prominently at the top of the Early Access developer Q&A section, alerting potential buyers about the date of the last update.

This tweak was initially spotted by SteamDB, a resourceful community for tracking and analyzing Steam data. It adds to the transparency by providing consumers with vital information, ensuring they are aware of the game’s development status before making a purchase.

Valve has also refreshed Steamworks to include more details about this update. They elaborated, “If a game hasn’t received any updates in over a year, and no ‘update’ type event has been communicated to players, Steam will place a notice on the store page. This will appear just above the Developer Questionnaire, alerting players that there hasn’t been new activity for a while.”

The notice will kick in under two circumstances: if a game’s build hasn’t been assigned to the ‘default’ branch in Steamworks for more than 12 months, or if there hasn’t been any update event, like a Major Update, Regular Update, or Patch Notes, communicated to players within the same timeframe.

This move addresses a longstanding issue with Early Access, where titles sometimes get abandoned by developers, leaving the community without any closure or progress updates. By highlighting inactive projects, Valve is taking a step towards accountability and better consumer protection.