Valve scolded for violating its own rules on the Steam store page of Deadlock

After months of horse-trading, Valve made Deadlock official in the last week. You can still play it, but you can at least look at it on Steam. Some people have complained about this because Valve appears to be breaking its own rules regarding what you can do on Steam store pages.

It's not "some quarters", but it's this guy. He's doing enough to make it count for three or four people:

3DGlyptics responded to someone who thought the complaint was funny by tweeting "I AM NOT LAUGHING and THIS IS NOT a JOKE." We don't usually use all-caps quotes, but this is funny, so I'm going with it. "VALVE SOFTWARE IS ACTIVELY VIOLATING THEIR OWN RULES - STORE PAGE SUBMISSIONS REQUIRE A MINIMUM OF 5 SCREENSHOTS - REVIEW PROCESS HAS BEEN INTENTIONALLY BYPASSED - I AM NOT LAUGHING."

I'm laughing, but this complaint is legit. The Steamworks documentation says that developers must provide "at least five screenshots" of their product on Steam store pages. The Deadlock Steam page contains no screenshots, only a single 22-second teaser, a clear violation of Valve rules.

You might think that Valve is able to get away with it because it owns Steam. It can do whatever it wants. 3DGlyptics has already beaten you to it, arguing Valve is a Steamworks Partner by precedent and therefore subject to Steamworks rules. This novel argument is based on a March 20, 2024 sale of The Orange Box during which Valve added an "over 100 awards" sticker on the header art of its Steam page.

This is also against Valve's Steam rules, which prohibits the use of review scores, award names and "discounted marketing copy" in graphical asset capsules. In this case, Valve employee Tom Giardino admitted to the mistake, and Valve quickly fixed it, ensuring it was in compliance with the rules.

It's great that 3DGlyptics at least is technically correct. We all know that this is the best type of correct. Valve, who had previously stated that it was subject to Steam rules like everyone else, now ignores Steam rules blatantly. Can anything be done? Most likely not. Even if Valve thinks it is above the petty considerations of rules - bah! - we can all hold ourselves to higher standards - much like 3DGlyptics:

3DGlyptics, which is currently working on a game called BC Piezophile (a "first-person horror game set deep under the sea"), looks incredibly weird and cool. It has no release date, but you can wishlist it now and comply with Steam's rules.

I've contacted Valve to ask for comment on Deadlock’s blatant violations of the store page and will update this post if I get a response.