'We Don't Think We're Perfect and There's Plenty of Room for Improvement' — Valve 'Thinking About How to Solve' Steam's AI Slop Problem
Valve says it is weighing changes after developers complained that generative AI games and clones are hurting discoverability on Steam.
- At the Steam Indie Connect event in Korea, Valve's Tom Giardino addressed concerns regarding AI-generated games, stating the company is 'thinking about how to solve this problem' without banning developer tools.
- Discoverability challenges persist as AI usage grows, with roughly 17% of Steam Next Fest demos disclosing generative AI use last year and the platform hosting over 8,000 demos this year.
- Valve's Marc Wilkinson noted that Steam's recommendation algorithm remains random for the first two days to prevent system abuse, with personalized recommendations kicking in later to help players discover content.
- Addressing the 'slop' deluge, Giardino said, 'We don't think we're perfect and there's plenty of room for improvement,' noting Valve aims to enhance platform functionality rather than restricting tools.
- Encouraging differentiation, Valve advised, 'Rather than relying on a single mechanic that someone can easily copy, you need to keep growing your game by adding features, personality, and creativity that stem from your own perspective.
13 Articles
13 Articles
Valve has addressed Steam's huge AI clone-game problem - but instead of vowing action, it suggests developers simply make their games less copyable
Valve has responded to the worrying trend of games being cloned using generative-AI and sold on Steam, but instead of admonishing those games or promising to do something about them, it appears to have put the onus on developers to make their games less copyable.
'We Don't Think We're Perfect and There's Plenty of Room for Improvement' — Valve 'Thinking About How to Solve' Steam's AI Slop Problem
Valve’s Steam Business Team took to the stage at the Steam Indie Connect event in Korea and took questions from an audience of game developers. During the chat, the issue of Steam being flooded with generative AI slop games and knockoff AI clones came up, and Valve said it’s still trying to figure out how to navigate this new world.
Valve admits Steam has an AI slop and cloning problem, but says 'we don't want to be gatekeepers telling developers which tools they should or shouldn't use'
Steam Next Fest is being flooded with thousands of low-effort games, while developers are becoming reluctant to share their work for fear of seeing it quickly cloned.
More and more AI slop games or clones of other games created using algorithms appear at Valve – the company is still looking for the right way to deal with this development. more
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