Steam AI games row: Valve answers indie dev fears over clones
Web StoryWatch this story in 15 seconds →Key takeaways
- Valve will not ban AI games on Steam or police AI tools.
- It told developers to report AI clone extortion emails.
- It advised indies to fight clones with community and updates.
Valve will not ban AI-made games from Steam. On October 27, the company told indie developers it will not police AI tools. It also answered a new threat: extortion emails about AI clones.
What happened
Valve's Steam Business Team spoke at Steam Indie Connect in Busan, South Korea. The session took place on October 27 as part of the event. Valve co-hosted it with the Busan Indie Connect Festival Organizing Committee and KOCCA.
KOCCA is South Korea's creative content agency.
Tom Giardino and Marc Wilkinson from Valve took questions from developers. One indie developer asked about a scary new trend. Some studios now get extortion emails.
The emails say the sender will use AI to clone the game. The copy would release before the original. The sender demands payment to stop it.
TweakTown had reported one such case earlier. In that case the sender demanded 200 dollars worth of Steam items within 24 hours. Giardino said he had not heard of such cases before.
He called extortion mainly a matter for law enforcement. Still, he said Valve wants to hear about reported cases. The company will look into them and help where it can.
Giardino also stated Valve's core position on AI. "We don't want to be gatekeepers telling developers which tools they should or shouldn't use." Valve announced no new AI rules.
The company will not ban AI games or police AI tools. Clones are not a new problem, he said. Developers have always copied interesting ideas seen at Steam Next Fest.
Next Fest is Steam's online festival where indies show playable demos. AI has simply sped up the pace of copying.
Another developer raised the "AI slop" problem at Next Fest. AI slop is the nickname for low-quality games made with AI. The developer said players were unhappy with the flood of weak games.
Wilkinson explained how the festival's visibility works. For the first two days, games are shown to players on a nearly random basis. After that, personal picks take over.
The system recommends games each player is likely to enjoy.
Wilkinson said the random start is on purpose. It stops big studios from gaming the system. It gives every game a fair share of early exposure.
He admitted the trade-off means some low-quality games get seen. He said Valve is aware of the issue. He said many people at Valve are working on how to solve it.
Giardino also shared how big Steam has become. Steam launched on September 12, 2003.
It recently hit a peak of 43.5 million concurrent users. That means 43.5 million people were using Steam at the same moment.
In South Korea, total Steam revenue grew 126 percent over five years. Revenue from premium games and DLC grew 70 percent.
Revenue from in-game purchases jumped 388 percent. DLC is extra downloadable content for a game.
The team also cleared up a myth about wishlists. Wishlists do not affect how visible a game is on Steam. What drives visibility is the number of people buying and playing the game.
Some games launched with 3 million wishlists but lost players fast. They dropped off the top charts because players did not enjoy them. Other games had almost no wishlists and still became big hits.
Wishlists are better used as a measure of marketing success. Wilkinson advised developers not to chase wishlist numbers. They should focus on making a great game.
Why it matters
The extortion emails are a new and serious threat. Small studios now fear that showing a demo can be used against them. A demo is a short free sample of a game.
If bad actors copy a game from its demo, the copy could launch first. That could kill a small studio's income.
The fear is already changing developer behavior. Inven Global reported that one Korean indie studio pulled its demo offline. The studio did this after AI cloning issues.
This shows the threat is real enough to make creators hide their work.
The AI slop debate matters for players too. When low-quality games flood Steam Next Fest, good indie games get buried. Indies rely on Next Fest for attention.
A weak first impression can hurt a game's chances. That is why Valve's answers matter to both developers and players.
The news is also big because of Steam's size. With 43.5 million users online at peak, Steam is the largest PC game store. Any policy choice by Valve shapes the whole market.
Other stores watch what Steam does with AI games.
Valve's "no gatekeeping" stance keeps Steam open. Anyone can keep using AI tools to build games. That is good news for developers who use AI in honest ways.
The wider AI boom means more such tools are coming. See also: our AI boom story.
But the open door cuts both ways. Valve will not filter out low-effort AI games for players. The fix, in Valve's view, is smarter discovery.
The store should show you games you will enjoy. It should not just block games it dislikes.
That philosophy is the same one Valve used against piracy. It tries to make the real version the best version.
What happens next
Developers who get an extortion email now have clear advice. Report the case to Valve so it can look into it. Giardino said Valve wants to help in any way it can.
Valve did not name a specific reporting form. But the request was direct: do not stay silent.
Valve also gave developers a two-part defense plan against clones. The first part is community. Build a website for your game.
Talk to players and earn their trust. A loyal community cannot be copied. Building it takes time, Giardino warned.
The second part is constant improvement. Keep adding features to your game. Add your own style and ideas.
A single game mechanic can be copied fast. A game that keeps growing is much harder to copy. Giardino said launch is not the finish line.
It is the starting line. Support after release matters most.
Giardino also urged developers not to depend on Steam alone. Use consoles and other PC stores too. Use Discord and social media to reach players, which spreads the risk.
For players, the short-term change is small. No new AI filter is coming to Steam Next Fest yet. Valve says it is working on the visibility problem.
For now, the first two days of Next Fest will still feel random. The real picks arrive after that.
The bigger story is the arms race. AI tools will keep getting stronger. Clones will keep arriving faster.
Valve is betting that open tools plus better discovery beat bans. Developers who build real communities and keep improving their games should win.
The extortion emails remain the one line Valve will not ignore. Report them, and the company says it will act.
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