Indie developers are pointing at an unexpected culprit for launch delays: a wave of generative AI games clogging Steam's review pipeline. The developers of Food Devils — a salacious, food-themed take on the Fire Emblem formula — pushed back their release, which had been set for this week, saying they believe Valve's review queue is backed up by a flood of AI-generated submissions.

As Rock Paper Shotgun reported, the studio put it bluntly: "Steam's review queue is clogged up by AI slop." And they aren't alone — Kotaku reports other developers are blaming the same backlog for delays to their own games.

The complaint lands amid long-running tension over Steam's open-door submission model. The platform's low barrier to entry has always meant volume, but developers say the rise of cheap, mass-produced AI games has pushed the queue to a breaking point, with legitimate releases stuck waiting behind them.

There's a dark joke in it too — one dev quipped the situation was less "oh no, we are not releasing on the same day as Zelda" and more a traffic jam of machine-generated filler. For small studios whose launch timing can make or break a game, the backlog is no joke at all.