Valve tells developers to out-build AI clone games, won't police the tools
At Korea's Steam Indie Connect event, Valve says community and updates beat clones — and declines to restrict AI-made games.
What to know
- Valve's Steam Business Team addressed AI slop and AI-assisted clone games at the Steam Indie Connect event in Korea on October 27.
- Valve declines to ban AI tool use or clone games, instead telling developers to build community, trust, and keep adding hard-to-copy features.
- Roughly 17% of last year's Steam Next Fest demos disclosed generative-AI use, with this year's 8,000+ demos likely higher, feeding a discoverability crisis.
- Online reaction is split: some see Valve's hands-off stance as consistent with its piracy philosophy, others call it an inadequate shift of burden onto developers who want legal action against cloners.
The dispute Whether Valve should actively police/sue AI clone makers versus leaving differentiation entirely to developers. · positions read across 185 posts and comments
Valve's response shifts the burden onto developers instead of addressing the platform's structural problem.
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“This isn't much of a response, what they said amounts to that you should work harder to cultivate a community that you can then funnel into their platform.”
maxbond · Hacker News ↗
Valve's hands-off, service-quality approach is consistent with its history and is the right call.
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“It's a very Valve answer, and it's likely the correct one. It feels very similar to their stance on piracy - it's a service problem. If you make the experience good enough people wont do it.”
jjcm · Hacker News ↗
It's unclear whether AI-cloning games is even illegal, so legal remedies may not exist.
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“Is cloning the games in this way illegal? Has there been a precedent set?”
_aavaa_ · Hacker News ↗
“We don't think we're perfect and there's plenty of room for improvement. Rather than limiting developer access, making Steam a smarter and more dynamic platform is the starting point of our philosophy.”
Tom Giardino, Valve Steam Business Team · IGN ↗ · Oct 27
Tom Giardino Valve Steam Business TeamMarc Wilkinson Valve Steam Business TeamValve Steam platform operatorKorean indie developers Audience at Steam Indie Connect
How it unfolded 4 developments, newest first · click a bar or a number to jump articlespostscomments
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HN thread splits over whether Valve's stance is adequate
Commenters debated whether Valve's community-and-updates advice is a real solution or an abdication, with some comparing it to Valve's hands-off piracy philosophy and others calling for legal action against cloners.
“Valve ought to be funding lawsuits against these bootleggers. Steam can only exist if indie developers feel confident they can publish there.”
— maxbond, HN commenter · source -
The industry is already being milked dry for years. And Steam is one of the biggest Sluts when it comes to earning money (greed). They will promote any game, no problem. It;s only data. Nothing physical. And they get commision for every game sold and even commission for a game to be displayed on a platform. And the more you pay, the higher you end…
2 more of the top 3 · 185 posts in this stretch
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I thought Valve was interesting as they essentially said the accumulated community around a good game will be something that is harder to copy, and developers should make their game unique and cultivate this.So far, so good. I talk to indie devs all of the time. I remember a husband and wife setting aside a small budget for their passion project…
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Have you thought about making your games...unique in any way? Valve has addressed Steam's huge AI clone-game problem - but instead of vowing action, it suggests developers simply make their games less copyable https://www. eurogamer.net/steam-ai-clone-g ame-problem-valve-response # Valve # Steam # AI # Developers # Gaming
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Gaming press frames Valve's answer as putting onus on developers
IGN, Eurogamer and Kotaku published pieces characterizing Valve's response as shifting responsibility onto developers to make their games less copyable rather than restricting AI tools or cloners.
“Valve addresses Steam's AI game cloning problem - by suggesting developers make their games less copyable…”
— Eurogamer -
first by Eurogamer, 11d ago · also PC Guide
1 more headline
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Wilkinson defends Next Fest's recommendation algorithm
Wilkinson said Next Fest recommendations are random for the first two days before personalization kicks in, so early complaints about low-quality games reflect a temporary trade-off rather than a broken system, while acknowledging the issue.
“We recognize that the trade-off is that some low-quality games get exposed. We are fully aware of the situation, and a significant number of people are thinking about how to solve this problem.”
— Marc Wilkinson -
background
Scale of AI slop at Next Fest quantified — Reporting noted roughly 17% of Steam Next Fest demos disclosed generative-AI use last year, likely higher this year across the more than 8,000 demos hosted, underscoring the discoverability problem developers raised.
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background
Giardino rules out gatekeeping developer tools or banning AI clones — Giardino said clones predate AI but have accelerated, and that Valve won't dictate which tools developers use or ban AI-assisted clones outright, putting the onus on original developers to keep adding features and identity that can't be copied.
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Valve addresses AI slop and clone fears at Steam Indie Connect
At the Busan-area Steam Indie Connect event co-hosted with the Busan Indie Connect Festival Organizing Committee and KOCCA, Valve's Tom Giardino and Marc Wilkinson took developer questions on AI-generated slop and AI-assisted clone games flooding Steam.
“The genuine version must be the best version — counter with community and consistent updates…”
— Valve Steam Business Team -
first by HN Frontpage, 11d ago · also PC Gamer, Inven Global
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first by Eurogamer.net, 11d ago · also IGN Nordic, IGN
1 more headline
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What people are saying 21 voices from 3 sites · best of 185 · verbatim
- Is AI-cloning a game from early footage/demos actually illegal, and has any legal precedent been set?
- Will personalized Next Fest recommendations meaningfully fix discoverability, or only after the damage from the random early-exposure window is done?
- Nov 2
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Trying to figure out how to force companies to disclose AI use will ruin the entire indie gaming market. The problem is less the disclosure itself and more the fact that voluntary disclosure is not what anyone cares about. You can shout that people should voluntarily disclose AI use until you're blue in the face and it's not going to change a…
- Oct 29
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I think I don't agree, but it's nice to see another perspective. Writing code is done in languages using symbols, the same as a book and writing a comprehensible book isn't without restrictions, rules need to be followed for writing correctly. That is if you want others to understand it. You don't have to write the sentence structure a specific…
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none of the currently popular games have any AI content disclosures on them hate to break it to you, but there's very close to a 100% chance they're at least using AI for coding help vanishingly few devs aren't using AI coding at least some of the time, it's just too useful. and people aren't blind, they see what happens when you disclose AI…
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Hey! One of the Barfender devs here. First of all, thanks for the shoutout! I know your comment came from a good place, and I really appreciate it. I just wanted to clarify one thing, since the "entirely coded with genAI" part seems to have given the wrong impression. It's honestly a little disheartening to see something we've put so much time and…
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You can harden against it, and it may deter some from trying to reverse engineer the game, but it is not possible to fully protect any code you run on the user's PC regardless of if they're using AI. Malware developers, anti-cheat developers, DRM developers, etc have tried every trick in the book to hide what their code is doing, and dedicated…
- Oct 28
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Valve's take of 30% is astronomical. The company is pure profit and the absolute dictator of how people should market and sell games. It's Valve's way or the highway.They created the AI ghetto with their forced disclosure banner but are doing nothing about AI otherwise. They must do better than to basically tell developers that AI cloning is their…
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Having a stronger dedicated support team where devs can submit proof their game was cloned. The party that cloned the game has their sales garnished and given to the original dev with the ip and financial accounts of the cloner being banned. Calm down there Nintendo. You can't claim ownership over a genre. This whole situation sucks, but there is…
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People made games for decades without ai. Same can be said of coding and any other tech job. Why must you use something that is actively harming the planet and humanity? “Every one’s using it / coding is so much easier / you can make a game in five week not five years” Not one of these comments in this thread has a valid excuse why we must use…
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There's nothing valve can do. This is the appropriate response. They are a storefront not content police. If people are ripping off your game, welcome to gaming. Stardew released and now we have 30 stardew clones with every setting from horror to furry. Everyone still loves stardew though. Honestly I'm surprised it didn't happen more over the…
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Crossover point as in degree of separation? I believe I already stated that. Did you directly use an agent or a tool heavily involving generative AI, to do whatever work related to the game. So basically, using shit like chatgpt, or something which clearly behaves like it. If so, you used GenAI directly for gamedev. It can be a pixel in the game…
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art is subjective and easily evaluated and always judged by the eye of the beholder. I can draw something and someone can immediately find it absolutely inspiring, but others may look at it and consider it absolute worthless trash. which is why in the early 2000s there was that craze of parents that thought their childs scribbles on paper were…
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[Eurogamer] Valve addresses Steam's AI game cloning problem - by suggesting developers make their games less copyable https://www. resetera.com/threads/1672373 # gaming # videogames # resetera
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What a bunch of nothing and hand-waivey statements. Valve has issues with cracking down on bad behavior, and this response is rather immature and poorly planned.
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valve isn't doing the best 'linux' job to say the least...But they are currently doing 'anti-cheat' by far the less worse way and they should teach some others...I am browsing 'upcoming' games (only native to linux), something happened, there is now many more diarrhea games than before. I suspect AI reverse-engineered slop.
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I don't think it's a problem of copying, as much as the fact that the signals we use to identify quality are no longer working.Clones always existed, kids chose pokemon rather than a dollar store dragomons because pokemon became a household name by the time bootlegs appeared, legitimate shops only sold pokemon and the cartridge itself showed a…
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> Steam can only exist if indie developers feel confident they can publish there.Why though?Imagine, there will be an AI agent, which will produce new game everyday and Steam users will like it and keep buying. Steam can only exist if customers keep buying and are not annoyed by games.
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Are the bootlegs illegal?Valve could just not publish them, they don’t have to risk suing.
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> Valve ought to be funding lawsuits against these bootleggers.Is cloning the games in this way illegal? Has there been a precedent set?
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Arguably some mass market AAA games already were slop.In a future with millions of games released every day discoverability or curation of the great games will be really important (even more than it is now).So marketing wins again, I guess.
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This isn't much of a response, what they said amounts to that you should work harder to cultivate a community that you can then funnel into their platform. "Launching isn't the finish line" is obviously true but what has been happening is that people are sniped before launch based on their demo and marketing material, so it's not all that…
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It's a very Valve answer, and it's likely the correct one. It feels very similar to their stance on piracy - it's a service problem. If you make the experience good enough people wont do it.I actually think the games with the best communities are going to see an increase of play time, not a decrease, especially games with mod support or custom…