2 sources 7h ago
Valve Says Better Games, Not Gatekeeping, Are Its Answer to AI Clones
Valve addressed AI-driven clone games at Steam Indie Connect in South Korea on October 27. Steam business team members Tom Giardino and Marc Wilkinson took questions, including one about a developer allegedly extorted over an imitating game.
Reporting from 2 sources: Automaton, Game Spark.
Why it matters
Valve is declining to police generative AI on Steam and instead pushing the burden of defense onto developers, so any near-term protection against clone games and the extortion that follows them will come from studios, not the storefront.
Key Facts
- Valve's Tom Giardino and Marc Wilkinson answered questions at Steam Indie Connect in South Korea on October 27.
- A participant asked about a case in which a developer was allegedly threatened with a clone game unless they paid money.
- Giardino said Valve does not want to be gatekeepers deciding which tools developers use.
- Giardino said clone games existed before generative AI, which has accelerated the speed of imitation.
- Giardino named community building and continuous improvement as countermeasures, citing Valve's anti-piracy stance of making the genuine version the best version.
Giardino said Valve does not want to be gatekeepers over which tools developers use, and pointed to community building and continuous improvement as the countermeasures.
Giardino said he had not heard of the extortion case before the question was raised, and expressed regret. He then set out Valve's position that whether to use generative AI is a decision for developers, not the storefront. On clones, he argued the practice long predates generative AI: imitations of concepts seen at Steam Next Fest and works riding trends have existed for years, and the technology has mainly sped up how fast they appear. His two defenses for developers are building a community with players and improving the game continuously, an approach he compared to Valve's stance on piracy, where the emphasis has been on making the genuine version the best version rather than on DRM.
Written with AI by Yomimono from the 2 cited sources below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited. See our editorial policy.
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