Now, you can only post news announcements if you have Steamworks access

Officers can do it too by default, which does not require Steamworks partner access, officers&moderators are set in community hub user management: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/games/<APPID>/membersManage

Moderators can also be granted access to post announcements; it can be edited here: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/games/<APPID>/permissionsEdit

You likely know this, but to remind: golden star next to the nickname when they leave comments in the hub = officer, bronze = moderator, green [developer] label = Steamworks access. Unfortunately, if they don’t post it’s hard to distinguish between those two roles externally :(
What officers can never do is to answer reviews as a developer, it requires the same level of access as having [developer] label.

Sorry, but I’m still quite surprised that you don’t know some basics of Steamworks despite having Steamworks access yourself (so you can experiment on some unpublished AppID) and most docs being public. For example, that you’ve learned of app transfer only recently.

BTW aside from transfer it’s possible to manage apps jointly from several partners: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/gettingstarted/managing_apps/sharing
In that case the main partner continues getting the money but users from another SW partner can change almost anything in the app.

Also note that it’s possible to have app not linked to the pub/dev page — after each new app is created linking needs to be invoked manually (i hate this). And after that i can manually unlink specific apps if i want — sometimes some retired legacy garbage gets in the list. So it can’t be used as a sure proof.
Also if i gather several admins in a Steam group on which the pub/dev/franchise page is based — then it’s possible to link several names and apps to one page despite them being managed by different partners.

Warhammer franchise is a good example:
https://steamhost.cn/franchise/warhammer
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/groups/warhammer/members
Note how unusually many admins they have — at least one per Steamworks partner.

And reminder: developer&publisher&franchise are simple text fields under Steam page admin, unfortunately there’s no validation! I assume at store page review step there’s some checking by Valve, but since you’re not required to prove anything — only the most obvious cases might be caught, like if you set developer as Microsoft. But after the review at any time i can set for example "Atomik Fabrik" as "developer" of any title i manage — nothing prevents that. Unless the real owner of that brand/name notices and complains — this name may stay for years. Imagine if several Steamworks partners negotiate to use one name so it’s harder to tell them apart? (and as mentioned above — they can even potentially link everything to one creator page)
And i see no requirement in docs about changing dev/pub name after app transfer — it’s purely between those entities.

So unfortunately it’s very hard to be absolutely sure in anything without having Valve level of access and seeing all that inner kitchen :( Of course it doesn’t mean your activity is in vain, but this needs to be kept in mind.

If you'll have Steamworks-specific questions — feel free to add me, or you can find me in Steamworks Development group chat. I really hope your grasp of Steamworks concepts improves. Thanks for your hard work!

Originally posted by GE-0:

And reminder: developer&publisher&franchise are simple text fields under Steam page admin, unfortunately there’s no validation!

And i think it’s reasonable to push Steam to implement some reasonable checks for that. Though i’m not sure exactly how to approach this problem, but for a start they should disallow setting those fields empty after store page becomes public >_>

But they probably don’t require any formal proofs like registered trademarks to be friendly for indies — who might not have anything registered. :( So yeah, it’s a huge complex mess to fix.
The only real way — is being hired by Valve and becoming a dirty devs investigator inside, with complete access, seeing all those Steamworks partners :) Maybe they should dedicate more efforts and resources for that.

The lack of validation is what lead to the whole fake Palworld/Helldivers 2 scam. Valve allowing developers to do this completely open to exploitation and abuse, as history has shown.

This is the kind of thing developers should be allowed to do, but they should have to pay money to do so. Maybe not a lot of money, but enough to discourage asset flippers from transitioning 300 games to having a blank developer/publisher field.

Originally posted by Obey the Fist!:

asset flippers

thats the issue with all of this:

- valve allows people to sell things here that shouldnt be allowed to.

I know of experiments where people tried to get away with the worst stuff, the least amount of effort, and valve just didnt care.

People deliberately tried to find Valves "red line", but they couldnt go low enough.

Also: changing stuff like names etc. should be a manual review by valve, because game names dont change usually.

Originally posted by ¥aeko:

People deliberately tried to find Valves "red line", but they couldnt go low enough.

Also: changing stuff like names etc. should be a manual review by valve, because game names dont change usually.

Yeah, Valve even allow NFT games even though it's against their rules.

Heck, there's a curator:

https://steamhost.cn/curator/44775230-Blockchain-NFT-Games/?appid=2594600