Valve on Steam AI Clones: No New Rules, Report Threats

Indie devs have been asking Valve one question all month: what are you doing about AI clones? This week Valve finally answered, and the short version is no new Steam rules. Speaking on October 27 at Steam Indie Connect in Busan, South Korea, Valve said threats to clone games with AI are a matter for law enforcement, and that the best defense is to keep making your game better than the copy.

What Valve said about AI clones on Steam

Valve's Tom Giardino and Marc Wilkinson, from the Steam business team, took questions from developers at the event (first reported by Inven Global). The key points:

• No new AI policy: Valve doesn't want to be a gatekeeper over which tools developers use, generative AI included.
• Clone threats are a police issue: one developer described an email threatening to clone their game with AI and release it first unless they paid. Giardino said he hadn't heard of cases like that before and called them closer to a police matter than a store problem.
• Report it anyway: per Shane the Gamer's account, Valve said it would look into reported cases and help where it can, but it announced no formal process.
• The advice: keep updating, build a community and earn player trust. Valve's line, as quoted by Kotaku: "Launch feels like the finish line, but it's actually the starting line."

What about Next Fest AI slop?

October's Steam Next Fest drew about twice as many demos as the one before it, along with a flood of low-effort AI games. Wilkinson explained that Next Fest shows demos randomly for the first two days, then starts curating by player preference from day three. He argued most of the complaints came from those first two days, and said a significant number of people at Valve are thinking about the problem. That's it so far: no new filters or rules were announced.

The 2nd Shift take

"Just keep improving" is fine advice for a studio with money. It's rough for a two-person team that needs a demo to get noticed in the first place, especially when, as Kotaku points out, some AI knock-offs ship before the real game does. We get why Valve doesn't want to police tools; banning AI outright would be messy and would hit honest devs too. But "call the cops" isn't a plan for a solo dev in another country getting a shakedown email. Steam can at least make clone reports fast and visible. If you're a creator building with AI yourself, do it in a way that adds something only you could make. Not sure where you fit? Take the CRAFTR Quiz.

Dev in the crew who's dealt with a clone? Come tell us about it in the 2nd Shift Discord.

Keep reading: AI Clone Fears Are Pushing Indie Devs to Cancel Game Demos · Tim Sweeney vs Steam AI Disclosures: What Valve Requires

Sources: Game Developer, Kotaku, Shane the Gamer