A post on Reddit from an independent developer suggests that Valve’s Steam platform will no longer publish titles containing AI-generated art.
A self-published report on Reddit from user potterharry97 claimed that Valve would no longer publish titles that contained AI-generated art. The developer outlines their plot: “My plan was to just submit a rougher version of the game, with 2-3 assets/sprites that were admittedly obviously AI-generated,” with further plans to improve the AI-generated content before release. Valve said the developer needed to prove they had all the necessary rights to continue development.
After the developer re-submitted their title after improving the AI-generated assets, Valve declined the app again, and they cited a gray area around determining usable AI tools. Valve says, “as we reviewed [Game Name Here] and took our time to better understand the AI tech used to create it” while citing the primary need for the developer, with “Again, while we strive to ship most titles submitted to us, we cannot ship games for which the developer does not have all of the necessary rights.” The primary need for the developer in this instance would be access to all the rights for used AI-generated content.
Interestingly, the Steam platform still gives fans access to AI-generated titles that include ‘AI-generated’ in their description. AI Roguelite from Max Loh is described as “the world’s first text-based RPG where every location, NPC, enemy, item, crafting recipe, and game mechanic is 100% determined by artificial intelligence,” this makes it challenging to determine exactly where Valve draws the line on game development with AI.
It’s also worth mentioning that the Reddit post developer says, “It took them over a week to provide this verdict, while previous games I’ve released have been approved within a day or two, so it seems like Valve doesn’t really have a standard approach to AI generated games yet,” detailing more of his experiences publishing with Valve, and how inconsistent he says it seems. Fans can head over to the Reddit page to read the whole report.
