Valve’s October 2026 Steam Next Fest celebration was more annoying than fun this year as over 16.000 demos flooded the online marketplace, many of which consisted of AI games. With fans calling for AI filters, and billionaires demanding the removal of AI disclosures, it’s clear that Steam needs a lot of work to function in a world of AI.
In a discussion at the Steam Indie Connect developer event, thanks Inven, Valve employees discussed the current state of game discoverability in the face of AI. In recent weeks, developers of original ideas have been threatened with AI clones from so-called AI bros (or Slop Kiddies as some modders now call them).
Steam Business Team member Tom Giardino explained that clone games have always existed, and while more present now, they always will. Despite this, Giardino urged developers not to give up on growing their community before launch, even urging them to engage with fans, built trust, and create more feature rich games.
“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,” the Valve employee said.
Additionally, if developers are directly threatened by others, they explained that they will help when possible. “If you report such cases to us, we want to look into them further and help in whatever way we can,” Giardino told developers.
On the topic of Steam Next Fest and the flood of AI games, Steam Business Team employee Marc Wilkinson explained that the first “two days” of the event is more likely to push slop games. Steam Next Fest has a weighted discoverability system which only kicks in after two days with the most-played and positively reviewed demos rising to the top.
Depsite this, Giardino explained that “the pendulum [is] swinging to the opposite side” with earlier events featuring too many games, and recent events having too many. However, there are no plans to ban AI games as they “don’t want to be gatekeepers telling developers which tools they should or shouldn’t use”.
Nevertheless, they did touch on the calls asking for AI games to be blocked out, adding that the same features were called for during the Steam Greenlight days. Also, it’s worth noting that some games with AI use are very popular, such as Arc Raiders which features generative AI voices and other systems as well.
With that said, Valve is working on improving discoverability for high-quality games on Steam. “We recognise that the trade-off is some low-quality games get exposed,” Wilkinson explained of the current system. “We are fully aware of the situation, and a significant number of people are thinking about how to solve this problem.”
“We don’t think we’re perfect and there’s plenty of room for improvement,” Giardino said. “Rather than limiting developer access, making Steam a smarter and more dynamic platform is the starting point of our philosophy.”
Let’s be honest: as much as we hate it, GenAI is here, and it’s down to consumers to draw the line where they feel comfortable. That’s where AI disclosures come in, and Valve has done well to enforce developers to inform players on where and how they use AI. (Take that, Tim Sweeney.)
