Robertcellent

This is Alfred Kamon, the Game Director of Food Devils. Today, we were supposed to release our game in Early Access after 4 years of work. I'm beyond devastated to announce that the big day we've all been anticipating will have to wait a little longer, because... Steam won't allow it. Here's a bit of context: Steam requires developers to submit a build of their game for approval (it's a standard procedure to check that the game doesn't contain malware, that it has the content described on the store, etc.). Before submitting a build, devs see a disclaimer that says "This review typically takes 3-5 business days, but please allow up to 7 business days in case feedback needs to be addressed". I can confirm that this is true under normal circumstances, and Steam has always been a lovely storefront for me and my fellow devs! Responses have always been timely for our previous games and demos. So, what's the problem this time? We can only assume it's because Steam's review queue is clogged up by AI slop, but the whole process is now taking several weeks for some developers (although the disclaimer hasn’t been updated and we still read "3-5 business days"). We submitted our build of Food Devils more than 20 days ago (!), on October 12th, but it's still awaiting approval... Even now, we don't know when Steam will give us the final OK to finally release our game. We sent another ticket last week saying that the situation was urgent and that we might miss our release date because of this, but it also got ignored. I’m sure that their staff is just too overwhelmed at the moment, but these sudden and massive delays have affected many developers throughout October, with some even being forced to postpone their releases... including us. For those who were looking forward to playing Food Devils, I'm sorry... and I share your pain... I will announce the new release date as soon as we have some news! Hopefully it'll still happen by the end of this week, but I can't make any promises as this is out of our control. In the meantime, while we're waiting, we'll keep polishing the game, working on future Early Access content and marching forward with our development timeline. I hope you'll keep looking forward to playing our game anyway. We worked so hard for years for this day, and I hope we'll be able to enjoy its launch together when the time finally comes. ❤️ Thank you for your patience, and I wish you a great day.