The 3 month period is not really effective if you can avoid it in any way. Which is why it needs to be strict, like not using a publisher to speed it up, but having the 3 month period for each different game. And that replaceable placeholders do not count for the 3 months by strictly requiring the game to have something that would reset the timer, like changing the genre tags or the name of the game.

The 3 months won’t hurt developers. The time flies when you’re actually developing the game or managing Valve bureaucracy. :D

I didn’t really go to specifics in my previous comment. That would require making assumptions and make the comment too long to read. I’m sure you have an assumption as to why the idea would hurt indie developers. I’m happy just making a surface level assumption about using time to our advantage.

Indeed, cloners will find ways to flood the market, because that’s the effective way.

As someone who likes to discuss about solutions, time is something the cloners do not have. They are always trying to clone the currently trending things, so they cannot wait for three months or so for the trend to die out.

I would say a mandatory 3 month period of closed beta would help cull many bad actors, with strict requirements as what would suffice. Valve could in the meanwhile scan in case the assets are stolen from another games listed in their store.