'A violation is upon you': Valve called out for breaking its own rules with Deadlock's Steam store page

After months of horsing around, Valve finally made Deadlock official last week: You still can't play it without an invitation, but at least now you can look at it on Steam. But that's raised complaints from some quarters because it appears that Valve is rather blatantly breaking its own rules on what you can and cannot do with Steam store pages.

Okay, it's not really «some quarters» so much as it is this one guy, but he's putting enough effort into it to count for at least three or four guys:

ATTENTION VALVE SOFTWARE. YOU ARE VIOLATING YOUR OWN RULES FOR THE DEADLOCK STORE PAGE. ATTENTION VALVE SOFTWARE. ATTENTION VALVE SOFTWARE. ATTENTION VALVE SOFTWARE. ATTENTION VALVE SOFTWARE. ATTENTION VALVE SOFTWARE. ATTENTION VALVE SOFTWARE. ATTENTION VALVE SOFTWARE. ATTENTION. pic.twitter.com/jb73cqYyG2August 24, 2024

«I AM NOT LAUGHING AND THIS IS NOT A JOKE,» 3DGlyptics tweeted in response to someone who said the complaint was funny—and for the record we don't normally do all-caps quotations, but I'm rolling with it here because, well, it's funny. «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 am laughing, frankly, but the complaint is actually legit: The Steamworks documentation states plain as day that developers "must provide at least five screenshots of your product" on Steam store pages. The Deadlock Steam page has no screens at all, just a single, 22-second teaser—a clear violation of Valve's own rules.

Now, you might be saying to yourself that Valve can get away with this because, obviously, Valve owns Steam and so it can do whatever the hell it wants. But 3DGlyptics is already ahead of you on that one, arguing that Valve has been established by precedent as a Steamworks Partner, and is thus subject to the Steamworks rules. That novel argument arises from a March 2024 sale on The Orange Box, during which Valve added a «winner of