I would like to at least open the discussion towards an addendum to the Early Access Program where, if a game hasn't gotten a significant update within the past year, any seasoned developer not employed by any company (whether it's an """"indie company""" or a corporate one, high profile or obscure) could apply to become its new developer. This of course would require an early access title to have its project file uploaded to Steam's servers in a way that would make them secure from common users and inaccessible, but if Steam already works this way then it should just be an extension of existing systems.

This would allow Steam to make even more money and for even better games to be on Steam.

An additional system for voting a game into Early Access would also be interesting so long as it was not common users voting but users who've proven themselves (somehow) for being very fair, balanced in their judgement and generally trustworthy.
A combination of the average helpfulness count of Positive and Negative reviews, matched against the balance of positive vs negative reviews with the emphasis being able to disqualify people for being overly negative or overly positive across their review history while also putting importance on the helpfulness scores of each review to also try and judge a user's general judge of quality.
Maybe if a developer also replies to their review it can help, I'd be fine with developers being able to simply put a flag on a review stating "This review helped me and I implemented their suggestion" to add extra oomph to the qualification process.

I'd like something vaguely similar to this one day, even if it isn't exactly like this because there are so many games on Steam that are genuinely just costing the company money in hosting, and I'd really like for the opportunity for (even if not me because I don't qualify as a reliable person under my own metrics) someone to be able to work on a game in the event the developer didn't just get pulled into the military and are just either dead or unexplainably is absent from working on it.

Alternatively, what if you could just have simple development rights in creating a sort of clone of that game which would be sold on the same page as the game in question just with a sort of system in place to prevent someone from crapping out shovelware to horn off the fun factor of an incomplete game?
Just allow people to make the same game from scratch, just allowing them to sell it and make money for their own hard work?

Ultimately it's the idea behind a game and its execution that makes a game fun (massively oversimplified rundown) so allowing a game to reach its end state of being awesome would, I think, just be a net positive for Steam.

This probably wouldn't apply to any game posted by say... AAA companies, or anything with an existing company of succifient level of success or maybe history, just the small fry where modification, reverse-engineering to turn a mediocre game into an amazing one ever seems to happen.

I can 100% see something getting complicated as far as copyright goes, and these types of games will probly have their devs threatening to open it to litigation because anybody who isn't reasonably absent from development is likely to engage in bad faith action like that more than not, but...

Idle Research is a really fun, great game that's currently unfinished and I don't think it's acceptable that Steam should host unfinished games. After all, Starforge is still on here and I think if anyone would want to finish either, they should be given the opportunity to.
This isn't a place for people to put their half-baked projects on, this is Steam, you're here as a developer to put finished and fun games on it, even if that fun is morally questionable because it's not up to morality to determine acceptable ways to have fun.

If Idle Research was given to someone willing to actually finish it, even if against the wishes of the original developer (again, if they've been deployed in the military that should obviously be one exception, another being medical problems!), the game could actually just make Steam even more money, people would have a more fun game to play and everybody wins.

If a dev wants to keep their space on Steam, they should tend to their project as much as they reasonably can, otherwise they should forfeit it to whoever will do so, and taking the game down is actually losing more money than saving, so I don't think that's a good idea.

I understand this will probly not be seen, or liked, by anyone but I thought I'd toss the idea up anyways. Please let me know how such a system could be improved, I really do want to hear your thoughts on this concept because I think it'd be really damn cool even if only independent developers did the voting.

The only consequence aside copyright law incidents rising is that you'd just see less Early Access titles on Steam, which I think it's actually just a bonus since it's supposed to only be for games under very active development anyways, this would essentially ensure that it remains only for highly active development cycles.

I'd also be fine with a game becoming free to play and also losing microtransaction privileges if it's incomplete for long enough without significant updating happening, and the time span for all ideas btw is 1-5 years.