Steam now warns you if an early access game hasn't been updated in a long time, but outside obvious abandonware, it's not clear what actually counts as an update

Steam has rolled out a subtle change to the store pages of early access games, seemingly in an attempt to warn players about purchasing an in-development title that might have been abandoned by its developers.

As highlighted by unofficial database SteamDB on Twitter, a message now appears when an early access game hasn't been updated in a long time, even telling potential players just how long it's been. "The information and timeline described by the developers here may no longer be up to date," the message notes.

Initially, this sounds like a pretty positive change. Steam's not outright telling anyone not to buy a game, but rather making customers aware that a title they've had their eye on might have been put on the back burner by its devs for one reason or another, or indeed left behind entirely. Take stylish roguelike Neon Echo, which was evidently canceled after mass layoffs at developer Xinyuan Studio: its Steam page now says it was updated over 20 months ago.

However, there are still a few question marks over how this system actually works. For one, it's not clear exactly how long a game has to go before it's slapped with this warning. Some games do see lengthy but consistent gaps between updates, and that doesn't mean that they're dead, as the label could imply.

Beyond that, it's also not entirely clear what counts as an update, either. As PC Gamer points out, developer Pirate Software's early access RPG Heartbound got its first "monthly development build" last week, which can be accessed separately from the main build and contains bug fixes and content changes on its beta branch. However, you wouldn't think that was the case at first glance, as its Steam page still says it was last updated "over 13 months ago."

What sort of update does a developer need to roll out in order to prevent their game from getting hit with this message? It's slightly concerning that a player could overlook a game under the assumption that it's been abandoned when the devs may well be hard at work behind the scenes.

We've reached out to Valve for further clarity on how this works, but haven't received a response at the time of writing.

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