The official Steamworks development community has revealed the Steam Game Festival will be returning this autumn with some additional submission criteria to better-focus what's available.
Steam's seasonal Game Festivals events turn the digital distribution platform into a stage for developers to show off their works in progress with demos that can build buzz and turn prospective players into early advocates. The recent Summer Festival was delayed by one week, but ultimately aired from June 16 to June 22 with an overwhelming number of games to freely sample.
The final tally of titles available exceeded 900, which may explain why Steam added a launch date-range to their autumn festival's submission criteria. Now, only games that will be released between October 13, 2020 and May 1, 2021, are eligible for the showcase, allowing individual titles to get more attention than they did over the summer event. Those hoping for a winter follow-up to promote games with a later release will likely be left out in the cold, however. The announcement also revealed that subsequent festivals would not be held until 2021, making this the last showcase of the year.
While digital distribution platforms like Steam have lowered the barrier of entry for publishing games, they have also made it easier for promising titles to get lost in the shadow of more widely-publicized releases, and this is especially true of indie titles. There are a number of promising upcoming games that deserve more buzz, and the Game Festivals are an excellent opportunity for players to discover those titles.
The Steam Game Festival: Autumn Edition will run from October 7 through 13, and submissions are open from August 19 through 26.