If you read the page, verification is on the Steam/Valve level, not on the developer/publisher level. Valve has employees individually testing games, then rubberstamping them. As long as the game has controller support, 720p res support, and Proton support of its middleware, it'll be "verified" by Valve automatically.

Azure_Fang wrote:
If you read the page, verification is on the Steam/Valve level, not on the developer/publisher level. Valve has employees individually testing games, then rubberstamping them. As long as the game has controller support, 720p res support, and Proton support of its middleware, it'll be "verified" by Valve automatically.

Not necessarily. The Compatibility Review Process portion of the second link indicates that only select games will automatically be added to the compatibility review queue. Developers/Publishers may still need to manually request that their games be reviewed in order for them to become Steam Deck verified. It could happen that the game runs perfectly on the Steam Deck but because it's never manually entered for review it never becomes verified.

Azure_Fang wrote:

If you read the page, verification is on the Steam/Valve level, not on the developer/publisher level. Valve has employees individually testing games, then rubberstamping them. As long as the game has controller support, 720p res support, and Proton support of its middleware, it'll be "verified" by Valve automatically.

It is on both levels.

As with all other Deck Verified reviews, when the test data is submitted you'll receive an email notification and access to detailed Deck Verified data on the landing page for your game. Once this happens, you'll have one week to choose to publish the test data as-is or submit a new build for review, after which the data will automatically publish.

If something doesn't pass, devs have to fix it, if they want that shiny Varified rating.