Valve bans almost 1000 games on Steam

Valve has removed almost a thousand games and soundtracks from its Steam storefront, moving 980 titles to its banned apps list.

As developer Alexandra Frock noted on Twitter, “a good chunk” of the removed games were linked to a single Russian publisher, Dagestan Technology, which was operating under a number of different names. 

Though some presumed the clear-out signalled preparation for Valve’s upcoming sale, a representative told PC Gamer the storefront had “recently discovered a handful of partners that were abusing some Steamworks tools” and said it had “emailed all the affected partners”.

A developer affected by the ban wrote on Reddit that “Steam sent a letter that the account was banned due to the discovery abuse of the sale of bundles” but insisted “[they] never abused this. But that was exactly what my previous publisher did over a year ago”.

In other Steam news, EA recently announced that EA Access is coming to Steam, making it the first gaming subscription service to be available on the platform. Additionally, EA will begin selling its games on Steam again, after it moved its titles off the marketplace and hosted them exclusively on the Origin store in 2011. 

The move is a result of a partnership between EA and Valve, and will began with the launch of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order on November 15th. In the following months, titles such as The Sims 4 and Unravel Two will also be available on the service. Multiplayer titles such as Apex Legends, FIFA 20 and Battlefield V will be available next year, and will include cross-play – allowing players on both Origin and Steam to play together.