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.
I can’t believe the sentiment in the comments here.
…Y’all think spammers are going to label themselves as “AI generated” if that’s detrimental? They will not, and it’s not something that can be objectively detected.
Getting customers to moderate this is self defeating, as the whole point of spam is to get in front of buyers’ eyeballs.
Valve needs to hire staff to cull this junk, they can afford to, but they don’t want to. That’s the crux of the issue.
There’s also a practical element, where Steam is not in a position to vet every game and developer. They could have the community do it, but that then opens up a whole bunch of abuse risks.
There’s also an argument that it wouldn’t stop some of the issues in the article. Where do you draw the line with asset flip, or AI generated? If the developer used AI to make placeholders in the early access of a game, and then swapped it with removed it later on, is the game still AI generated? What if they used assets that were unknowingly AI generated, like stock sound effects?
Or if someone is ESL and used a translator that turned out to be AI powered/they just write with a similar style.
It also won’t stop people doing it.maliciously. if you’re threatening to clone someone’s game off a demo, and release it before they do, you’re probably not going to stop because you need to put a little “AI generated” flag on your game, if the rest of it didn’t stop you.
Valve makes $billions in revenue every year. If they make 30% off every developer’s sales, I think they can afford to apply some basic vetting to each one.
Indeed, cloners will find ways to flood the market, because that’s the effective way.
As someone who likes to discuss about solutions, time is something the cloners do not have. They are always trying to clone the currently trending things, so they cannot wait for three months or so for the trend to die out.
I would say a mandatory 3 month period of closed beta would help cull many bad actors, with strict requirements as what would suffice. Valve could in the meanwhile scan in case the assets are stolen from another games listed in their store.
Assets can be packed or otherwise obfuscated in all sorts of ways.
I’m less certain about the “3 month forced waiting period” thing… it sounds like a good idea on the surface, but I just wonder how it might affect small devs. Also, some spammers would still immediately schedule a listing for a clone and then vibecode it over the three months.
The 3 months won’t hurt developers. The time flies when you’re actually developing the game or managing Valve bureaucracy. :D
I didn’t really go to specifics in my previous comment. That would require making assumptions and make the comment too long to read. I’m sure you have an assumption as to why the idea would hurt indie developers. I’m happy just making a surface level assumption about using time to our advantage.
That might be true but it still seems like it might significantly hampers the trend chasing clone effect. Its not stopping the cloners from making the clones but throwing them off of the trend rhythm and making the clone less able to skim money from people. A legit dev will likely have to take into account the waiting period but that can just be part of their dev cycle now. Or maybe if your studio is partnered with an already established publisher, you can just release the game no waiting. I know that sucks for fully independent devs but there are extremely indie friendly publishers out there like Devolver Digital.
The 3 month period is not really effective if you can avoid it in any way. Which is why it needs to be strict, like not using a publisher to speed it up, but having the 3 month period for each different game. And that replaceable placeholders do not count for the 3 months by strictly requiring the game to have something that would reset the timer, like changing the genre tags or the name of the game.
I’d be behind spot-checking at the very least. I feel like Valve is trustworthy enough that most devs should be able to open-source their code to Valve.
If you get caught, you get perma-banned from Steam.
Then put a little thingie showing how many years a dev has existed (so people can put their AI-detector thinking caps on when they see a dev that’s existed for 3 months putting out a fully polished game).
With all due respect, this is exactly what I am talking about.
I feel like Valve is trustworthy enough that most devs should be able to open-source their code to Valve.
Enforcing posting code source isn’t viable for many reasons. But one is that spammers are going to hide the vibecoding anyway; this would only catch relatively innocent coding assistants from earnest devs.
It wouldn’t catch anything malicious.
Then put a little thingie showing how many years a dev has existed (so people can put their AI-detector thinking caps on when they see a dev that’s existed for 3 months putting out a fully polished game).
And again, the point of spamming is to get eyeballs in front of customers. It doesn’t matter if 99% reject it as obvious garbage; if just a few people buy it on chance, it’s worth the minimal effort for the spammer, and it encourages other spammers to come.
…And that would be catastrophic to new devs, anyway. How is anyone new supposed to enter the space and publish their labor of love if everyone assumes new devs are malicious?
Sorry if this comes off as thorny, I feel like commenters here are contorting themselves to excuse a giant corporation.
This is Valve’s storefront. They make mountains of cash from it.
It is their job to filter spam, they need to spend money to do it, and they don’t want to. There is no way around it.
It’s not thorny to me, but then I’m used to polite disagreement where I’ve found many would turn hostile, so perhaps your padding at the end was a good plan - even if not necessary for me personally.
You raise good points, but it’s one of those “Don’t let the Perfect be the enemy of the Good” things. No system can catch 100% of these problems that you correctly point out. At least, none that I can imagine nor that you propose.
Right now, Valve is the “best” video game distributor - apart from maybe GoG. I hope GoG dethrones them as the only reasons Valve is “better” are Linux support and market dominance (ergo convenience), and perhaps the AI craze will be the wedge issue that GoG takes a firm stance against, at which point they’d be in a good spot to take over.
Unfortunately, I strongly suspect the vast majority of consumers simply do not care if a game was developed with AI.
All that to say: I agree they should be doing more, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Right now, Valve is the “best” video game distributor - apart from maybe GoG. I hope GoG dethrones them as the only reasons Valve is “better” are Linux support and market dominance (ergo convenience), and perhaps the AI craze will be the wedge issue that GoG takes a firm stance against, at which point they’d be in a good spot to take over.
Again, I emphasize: you are talking about this as if picking a team.
These are storefronts, run by corporations. I don’t care if Valve is percieved as “good” or not, I care about the current and future transactional services they will offer me, and how they will affect the market as a whole.
And this is bad. Its toxic for game devs, bad for me as a shopper, and unhealthy for the future of gaming.
Vavle do not deserve excuses and hand-waving just because one thinks they are a ‘lesser evil’ in some other context; every service should get criticized a-la-carte. They are not people, they do not get passes.
The mindset of loyalty and “thrones” and “who is nicer” is exactly the sort of anthropomorphic mindset they want you in. Its the goal of advertising. They want you loyal to their storefront, so at some point, it becomes an irrational factor that influences your shopping choices… Hence this comment section.
All that to say: I agree they should be doing more, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Indeed.
But I’m not going to apologize for Valve in the same breath eather, and I am appaled so many commenters here are. They would be skewering them if this was some other strorefront doing the exact same thing.
Again, I emphasize: you are talking about this as if picking a team.
Yeah, I mean, gotta buy video games from someone. Valve’s one of the least shitty corporations by far, so they get my money.
Vavle do not deserve excuses and hand-waving just because one thinks they are a ‘lesser evil’ in some other context; every service should get criticized a-la-carte.
Why don’t you think I’m open to a-la-carte criticism? I’ve expressed plainly that it’s valid. Do you want me to fight you about it or something?
They are not people, they do not get passes.
I would say people don’t get passes either; I could quote Stannis the Mannis, but I won’t.
But I’m not going to apologize for Valve in the same breath eather, and I am appaled so many commenters here are.
Are you ranting with me or at me here? I never “apologized” for them.
I can’t believe the sentiment in the comments here.
…Y’all think spammers are going to label themselves as “AI generated” if that’s detrimental? They will not, and it’s not something that can be objectively detected.
Getting customers to moderate this is self defeating, as the whole point of spam is to get in front of buyers’ eyeballs.
Valve needs to hire staff to cull this junk, they can afford to, but they don’t want to. That’s the crux of the issue.
There’s also a practical element, where Steam is not in a position to vet every game and developer. They could have the community do it, but that then opens up a whole bunch of abuse risks.
There’s also an argument that it wouldn’t stop some of the issues in the article. Where do you draw the line with asset flip, or AI generated? If the developer used AI to make placeholders in the early access of a game, and then swapped it with removed it later on, is the game still AI generated? What if they used assets that were unknowingly AI generated, like stock sound effects?
Or if someone is ESL and used a translator that turned out to be AI powered/they just write with a similar style.
It also won’t stop people doing it.maliciously. if you’re threatening to clone someone’s game off a demo, and release it before they do, you’re probably not going to stop because you need to put a little “AI generated” flag on your game, if the rest of it didn’t stop you.
Well, I’m not advocating for LLM assisted game development to be banned, or those with a but if diffusion. That’s what the tag is supposed to be for.
I’m strictly talking spam and clones. Clearly dysfunctional games, misleadingly advertised.
Valve makes $billions in revenue every year. If they make 30% off every developer’s sales, I think they can afford to apply some basic vetting to each one.
Indeed, cloners will find ways to flood the market, because that’s the effective way.
As someone who likes to discuss about solutions, time is something the cloners do not have. They are always trying to clone the currently trending things, so they cannot wait for three months or so for the trend to die out.
I would say a mandatory 3 month period of closed beta would help cull many bad actors, with strict requirements as what would suffice. Valve could in the meanwhile scan in case the assets are stolen from another games listed in their store.
Assets can be packed or otherwise obfuscated in all sorts of ways.
I’m less certain about the “3 month forced waiting period” thing… it sounds like a good idea on the surface, but I just wonder how it might affect small devs. Also, some spammers would still immediately schedule a listing for a clone and then vibecode it over the three months.
The 3 months won’t hurt developers. The time flies when you’re actually developing the game or managing Valve bureaucracy. :D
I didn’t really go to specifics in my previous comment. That would require making assumptions and make the comment too long to read. I’m sure you have an assumption as to why the idea would hurt indie developers. I’m happy just making a surface level assumption about using time to our advantage.
That might be true but it still seems like it might significantly hampers the trend chasing clone effect. Its not stopping the cloners from making the clones but throwing them off of the trend rhythm and making the clone less able to skim money from people. A legit dev will likely have to take into account the waiting period but that can just be part of their dev cycle now. Or maybe if your studio is partnered with an already established publisher, you can just release the game no waiting. I know that sucks for fully independent devs but there are extremely indie friendly publishers out there like Devolver Digital.
The 3 month period is not really effective if you can avoid it in any way. Which is why it needs to be strict, like not using a publisher to speed it up, but having the 3 month period for each different game. And that replaceable placeholders do not count for the 3 months by strictly requiring the game to have something that would reset the timer, like changing the genre tags or the name of the game.
I’d be behind spot-checking at the very least. I feel like Valve is trustworthy enough that most devs should be able to open-source their code to Valve.
If you get caught, you get perma-banned from Steam.
Then put a little thingie showing how many years a dev has existed (so people can put their AI-detector thinking caps on when they see a dev that’s existed for 3 months putting out a fully polished game).
With all due respect, this is exactly what I am talking about.
Enforcing posting code source isn’t viable for many reasons. But one is that spammers are going to hide the vibecoding anyway; this would only catch relatively innocent coding assistants from earnest devs.
It wouldn’t catch anything malicious.
And again, the point of spamming is to get eyeballs in front of customers. It doesn’t matter if 99% reject it as obvious garbage; if just a few people buy it on chance, it’s worth the minimal effort for the spammer, and it encourages other spammers to come.
…And that would be catastrophic to new devs, anyway. How is anyone new supposed to enter the space and publish their labor of love if everyone assumes new devs are malicious?
Sorry if this comes off as thorny, I feel like commenters here are contorting themselves to excuse a giant corporation.
This is Valve’s storefront. They make mountains of cash from it.
It is their job to filter spam, they need to spend money to do it, and they don’t want to. There is no way around it.
It’s not thorny to me, but then I’m used to polite disagreement where I’ve found many would turn hostile, so perhaps your padding at the end was a good plan - even if not necessary for me personally.
You raise good points, but it’s one of those “Don’t let the Perfect be the enemy of the Good” things. No system can catch 100% of these problems that you correctly point out. At least, none that I can imagine nor that you propose.
Right now, Valve is the “best” video game distributor - apart from maybe GoG. I hope GoG dethrones them as the only reasons Valve is “better” are Linux support and market dominance (ergo convenience), and perhaps the AI craze will be the wedge issue that GoG takes a firm stance against, at which point they’d be in a good spot to take over.
Unfortunately, I strongly suspect the vast majority of consumers simply do not care if a game was developed with AI.
All that to say: I agree they should be doing more, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Again, I emphasize: you are talking about this as if picking a team.
These are storefronts, run by corporations. I don’t care if Valve is percieved as “good” or not, I care about the current and future transactional services they will offer me, and how they will affect the market as a whole.
And this is bad. Its toxic for game devs, bad for me as a shopper, and unhealthy for the future of gaming.
Vavle do not deserve excuses and hand-waving just because one thinks they are a ‘lesser evil’ in some other context; every service should get criticized a-la-carte. They are not people, they do not get passes.
The mindset of loyalty and “thrones” and “who is nicer” is exactly the sort of anthropomorphic mindset they want you in. Its the goal of advertising. They want you loyal to their storefront, so at some point, it becomes an irrational factor that influences your shopping choices… Hence this comment section.
Indeed.
But I’m not going to apologize for Valve in the same breath eather, and I am appaled so many commenters here are. They would be skewering them if this was some other strorefront doing the exact same thing.
Yeah, I mean, gotta buy video games from someone. Valve’s one of the least shitty corporations by far, so they get my money.
Why don’t you think I’m open to a-la-carte criticism? I’ve expressed plainly that it’s valid. Do you want me to fight you about it or something?
I would say people don’t get passes either; I could quote Stannis the Mannis, but I won’t.
Are you ranting with me or at me here? I never “apologized” for them.