Adding to discussion of Valve's handling of Steam's growing gen AI problem, Epic Games online services product director Alexander Rehm suggests the company's solutions to clone and slop games aren't enough for most people.
Rehm waded into the news on LinkedIn last week, just days before Valve announced a change to Steam's review process in response to a deluge of games evidently fueled, in part, by generative AI. However, this won't necessarily change the outpouring of slop on Steam, as Valve says it doesn't want to dictate what "tools" developers use even if Steam does call for AI disclosures in game store pages. In fact, the idea was to speed up the review process while also enacting new requirements.
At a recent event, Valve business team members affirmed that the company is still working to solve this problem and suggested developers focus on maintaining original, high-quality games that are difficult to clone.
Rehm says this "is a reasonable strategy if you've got the runway and team to do it, and not much use if you're one or two people who shipped a single clever mechanic." This camp, of course, is where a lot of the developers on Steam fall.
The same Valve staff also fielded reports of developers being extorted by AI users who'd threaten to clone a game unless paid off. "Valve also said it hasn't seen reports of developers being extorted over AI clones and that this is a job for law enforcement, not the storefront, which to me reads like a platform that still sees this as someone else's problem," Rehm says.
"If you're building anything indie sized right now, 'keep improving forever' isn't a moat, it's a tax only the well funded can pay," he concludes.
Rehm makes some of the counterarguments that Valve's response initially prompted. How long can Valve kick the can down the road? When will material solutions arrive? How can the creators of hotly anticipated games deal with copycats beating them to launch with identical or near-identical titles? Valve has, as evidenced by its review slowdown, not found the perfect answer, and this process deserves scrutiny.
هەفتانە هەرسکردنەکان، چیرۆکەکانی ئەو کۆمەڵگایانەی کە خۆشت دەوێن و زۆر شتی تر
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.gamesradar.com/games/epic-games-online-director-says-valves-response-to-steams-ai-clone-and-slop-problem-isnt-enough-perhaps-forgetting-epics-stance-on-ai-slop
