This week, gamers were expecting to get to celebrate the Steam Game Festival. Set to begin soon on June 9th and run for five days until it ended on June 14th, gamers were excited to get to hop into the festivities of demos and livestreams.
Unfortunately, it seems that the festivities are going to have to be postponed. Valve has inexplicably decided to push the Steam Game Festival back a week, with the event now taking place from the 16th to the 22nd.
For whatever reason, Valve has made no announcement whatsoever as to why, though they’re far from the only ones to have been making moves to delay or push back events in the current political and social climate.
All the developers did to explain the event was the date change itself, pushing the event back exactly a week. They’ve made no statement as to what may have led them to this decision.
That said, everyone seems to be rather certain that the event has been delayed because of the current protests against police brutality and racial inequality sweeping the United States. With protests in all fifty states – as well as across the world – the developers may have pushed back their event accordingly.
At the same time, though, Valve has made no other statement whatsoever on the protests or to speak out for the cause. This leaves them as a bit of an odd man out, as dozens upon dozens of companies have voiced their support, even if only to save face.
It would be unfair to accuse Valve of not caring or of not putting anything towards raising awareness of the protests, though. As the tweet embedded above shows, Valve expressed support by dedicating a section of Steam to help support Black creators and voices in the gaming community.
Though Valve has made no direct statement on their opinion, it’s clear that they support the protests off of initiatives such as those. Because of this, it may likely be that the protests had nothing to do with the delays.
Given that the developers were willing to dedicate such a page, it wouldn’t make much sense for them to hesitate to say that the same issue is what has led to the delay. While Valve has offered no comment or explanation, being pushed by a week could have more innocent and less politically-charged motivations.
Either way, gamers will only have to wait another week for the event, which isn’t long, as far as delays go. While it’s certainly a bummer to have an event pushed back just before it began, June 16th is still just right around the corner.
