Steam Introduces Warnings for Early Access Games Inactive for a Year

Valve has made a significant move to keep Steam users informed about the status of Early Access games. Now, when browsing games that haven’t seen any updates in over a year, users will see a prominent notice.

SteamDB was the first to notice this update. Essentially, a warning now appears at the top of the Early Access developer Q&A section, clearly indicating the last time the game received any updates. Valve has also elaborated on these changes through Steamworks.

They explained, “If more than 12 months have passed since a game was last updated and communicated to players via an ‘update’ event, Steam will notify users on the store page. This notice will appear just above the Developer Questionnaire.”

This notification is triggered under specific conditions: if it’s been over a year since the game was last updated in the ‘default’ branch on Steamworks or if the developer hasn’t posted any type of ‘update’ event to inform players of changes over the past year. This includes events categorized as Major Update, Regular Update, or Patch Notes.

Ever since its inception, the Early Access section has had its share of titles that were seemingly abandoned by developers. This new warning is a step towards tackling that long-standing issue, ensuring gamers are well-informed before they invest time or money.