Gamers call on Valve to add ‘AI games’ filter to Steam

Recently, Valve updated its Steam policy, forcing developers to disclose when Generative AI tools are used to create games. This led Activision admitting that GenAI is already in use to create assets in Call of Duty, for instance. Now, gamers have gone to the Steam feature suggestion forum to request a way to filter games that use AI from the store. 

A Steam forum suggestion thread asking Valve to give gamers the ability to hide games that use GenAI from the store has garnered a lot of attention. Hundreds of comments have registered support for the idea and users have been making good use of their Steam points to also give the suggestion a number of awards, keeping the suggestion at the top of the forum.

Valve has already added some filters for the Steam Store, such as allowing users to automatically hide adult or NSFW games, and users can hide games on an individual basis too. However, a blanket filter would work best. Many of the commenters take issue with the fact that popular AI models have been trained on pirated content, effectively stealing the work of human creators in an effort to replace them.

Valve has not yet commented on the situation, but it did recently implement a policy change to ensure developers disclose the use of Generative AI tools. This disclosure has already appeared on the Call of Duty store page, and we will no doubt see more major games from publishers like Microsoft, Sony, EA, Ubisoft, Take-Two, 2K Games, Embracer and others carrying this disclosure in the year ahead.

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KitGuru Says: As we saw with the initial pushback against DLC in the early days of the Xbox 360, and the pushback against microtransactions in premium games last generation, I feel like most publishers are simply going to ignore the backlash and push forward with their plans for AI tools. Ultimately, the use of AI tools can help a lot of studios reset to do away with ballooning studio sizes in favour of smaller teams that can work faster with AI assistance. There are ethical concerns for sure due to the fact that stolen work was used to train the biggest AI models, but if there is money to be made and a legal loophole to exploit, then I don't think the C-suite cares. 

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