The upcoming games section on steam features a host of games by indie developers but this system can be easily manipulated
Steam provides a comprehensive list of games that are going to be released or are released every month which dictates a lot of player choices but it seems that it can be manipulated easily.
No More Robots founder Mike Rose posted on Twitter after he found out this bug that lets developers change the release date of the game which slingshots it to the top of the list.
Doing so severely damages the games of the month which should rightfully be showcased as seen in the case of Eugen Systems’ Steel Division 2, even though the game isn’t due for another month. It currently sits atop of the upcoming games list on steam.
The thread continues down to explain in detail of how
Eugen responded by saying that they “did not manipulate the system” and that the older date in the backend was due to a mistake.
As this twitter post caught heat, Tom Giardino from Valve replied, “You have great timing. This was a big topic of discussion yesterday, and it frustrates us for the same reasons it frustrates you. But it’s also super important that devs get to control their own release timing so we don’t want to mess with that.”
Valve is currently looking at various solutions to fix this problem without upsetting the game developers.