I mean, true, but also note that the endings aren't something you play, either.
That's just semantics.
You can't say it's playable from beginning to end if the end ain't there.
That's why you failed submission.
(A lot of games have literally no endings either, and yet are considered playable from beginning to end.)
I can't think of an-
Let me rephrase that, I can't think of a single game that doesn't have an ending that
isn't dogshit shovelware that never should have been allowed on the platform.
Even if it's just like a "The End" text over a single CG that pops up when you beat the final level, there's still something that theoretically constitutes an ending.
I can't say what was in the build of the game that you submitted to steam, but you yourself said that...
We did in fact say publicly multiple times that we 99% expected it to fail.
Which makes the state of other games a moot point.
Also, the fact that you didn't expect it to pass is kind of the issue.
You were talking about how you submitted it on schedule as though that was you meeting your deadline. But it
doesn't count if you knew beforehand that it wasn't going to pass.
That just looks like a delay with extra trimmings to try shift blame to steams certification team instead of your devteam.
You knew it was going to fail and why, so you can't say "the delay was caused by Steam's people failing us unexpectedly"
The delay was caused by you not finishing the game on time, which is kind of a tautology, but it's also true. (which is itself
also a tautology, btw)
If you'd just been up front about anther delay, you'd probably have gotten less pushback.
...Although tbh there was really no good option because you already said several times that the previous deadline (the 22nd?) was the absolute final date and it was coming out on that date whether it was done or not, which turned out to not actually be true.
Like, yeah I think people would have been unhappy to hear you directly say that there's
another delay, but I still think it'd have come across better than "Well,
technically we submitted it on time, even though we knew full well that it wouldn't actually pass submission."
Personally I don't really have any strong feelings about this game anymore. I'm pretty sure I wrote it off as never coming out years ago, so the fact that it might actually be a real playable thing by the end of the month just kinda feels like a nice suprise, rather than anything that I was excited for.
It's just that it feels weird for you to keep saying stuff like "It failed on a technicality." when you've already said that you knew it was going to fail, and why.
It didn't fail on a technicality, it failed because it
wasn't done yet.