Valve mentioned at the Steam Indie Connect developer event that they are aware of AI slop flooding Steam but urge game makers to be “more original.”
Hot off the heels of writing about the worst AI Content Disclosures on Steam last week, Valve has responded to the issue at hand. Where hundreds of independent developers would once see a push in their visibility thanks to Steam Next Fest, that is not the case anymore. In the latest Autumn event, out of approximately 8,200 demos, 2,500 have declared formally using generative AI. Instead of a strong, reassuring response from leadership, Tom Giardino from Valve’s Steam Business Team said that “there’s plenty of room for improvement.”
For weeks now, just by taking a quick glance at Steam’s social media accounts on any platform, it is easy to grasp how alarming this situation is. Where it was once useful for users to find new fun demos to try, they are now buried under thousands of low-quality games made with seemingly no effort. Complaints are ramping up, but there does not seem to be a clear answer in the horizon. While Valve has implemented useful tools like the Personal Calendar for tailored recommendations, many are clamoring for a marketplace filter to avoid this type of AI-generated video game.
The Issue At Hand
Another prevalent problem that arose at the Valve event was the problem of developers easily cloning games with the use of AI-generated tools. Most recently, developer Digital Sun Games from Moonlighter fame cancelled its open beta of ReVamp, an upcoming castle defense roguelike. “We don’t want to be gatekeepers telling developers which tools they should or shouldn’t use,” and “clone games existed long before AI” are some of the quotes from Mr. Giardino. What feels like a disappointing reply for developers and gamers alike, it does not address the core issue of the matter.
Modern classics like Vampire Survivors, Hades, and Balatro, of course, already have spawned dozens—if not hundreds—of copycats. Received to varying degrees of success, the concern is not whether cheap clones exist, but if the platform should allow them at all. Take, for instance, a game like BallXPit. A fundamentally different concept, but deliberately grabbing inspiration from Balatro’s mind-bogglingly satisfying “number-go-up” mechanic. That is wholly different from a game that straight up copies Balatro with just a slightly changed color palette, as the leads at Valve so casually say.
The answer that developers should “keep growing your game by adding features, personality, and creativity that stem from your own perspective” as Giardino said is misguided at best. When the most powerful gaming marketplace in the world shrugs at a monumental predicament, it is difficult not to feel discouraged at best by the state of things.
While historically Valve has not presented any meaningful changes to its platform over the years, mostly taking a laissez-faire approach, this conundrum is one that needs to be tackled headfirst. Whether they want to or not is irrelevant. Looking at their myriad complaints online, they better act fast.
