It sucks pretty bad to buy an early access game on Steam only to find, belatedly, that the game has been abandoned by the developers and will not be maintained further. But even worse than finding that out by developer announcement is finding it out by, like… the game just never getting any further development. Valve is aware of this, and it appears that the company that used to develop video games but now maintains the lifeblood of PC gaming is now taking action by adding a warning to long-fallow games that this might not be moving forward.
The warning currently appears to be automated and kicks in after 12 months of silence, with the statement placed above the fold and by the early access disclaimer. This obviously won’t cause developers not to abandon their games, but it will hopefully help more people make good choices when it comes to which games are being actively improved through early access and which ones… aren’t. No word on whether or not the studio will make a page for Half-Life 3 to dash your hopes on that. (See? That joke before was leading to something!)
