How much does it cost steam a single game? Maybe that is irrelevant, but if not, i doubt many of those games are going to make good sales
- Require AI tool disclosure
- Enforce that. Spot check.
- Give us a filter to show/hide AI-flagged items
For cloning, I’m not sure of the best solution. Allowing the owner and users to report it is nice. But what happens when people are coincidentally working on a very similar game and release around the same time, even without knowledge of each other?
When you say cloning are you meaning like how there’s now 200 different versions of lethal company on steam now?
Some needle-in-a-haystack game came out and got cloned to death is what I’m seeing in the news. People can’t differentiate the original one vs the clones and it’s hurt sales. Some companies are stopping open betas and other things as well to avoid it being cloned before they go to full release.
Oh damn wow
I played some of them. They very different to be blatant clones. Just cloned idea
Removed by mod
And 2048 was a direct ripoff of Threes! That’s not a new problem, but the quantity is likely to become absurd.
Yeah out of 100 vibe coded games. Iv come across like 3 that were legitimately good.
Those three where actually very very good games But they were tiny little things clearly made because the guy who made them WANTED to play them.
While the rest where just asset flips or clearly just attempting to make a cheap quick buck.
It’s just a great example of the problem. AI by itself doesn’t cause an issue. We already had this problem. Asset flips low-called a crash grabs have always been a thing.
Problem AI caused is now it’s a thousand times easier for literally every lazy f*** to do this.
Banning AI games should not happen. It is possible to make something legitimately fun and worthwhile playing with nothing but AI.
We need to solve the fact that every d****** can just s*** onto the steam store with no effort and leave something half built and abandoned.
Disclosure at a minimum. Better filtering harsher vote waiting.
My problem is every other idea I can think of unfairly smacks legitimate AI games or legitimate games that use AI as an actual proper tool as opposed to just a lazy way to asset flip.
Is not a lot of good ways to do this. To be fair, if there were we wouldn’t have asset flips in low quality cash crabs either.
People were mad at the Steam Greenlight system, so when Valve listened and opened the doors to pre-AI slop, then they started whining about their games being buried in a sea of shit. I can’t blame Valve for taking a cautious approach.
Valve may just have to grit their teeth and actually hire people to do community work 😞 RIP. Where will they get the money??
This is what they need to do. Give people the choice.
If it’s not technically doable, then we’ll do it ourselves, we’ll fight over which game is and isn’t full of slop. And, we’ll be wrong sometimes, but increasingly right. Because, soon ALL media will be full of slop, including games.
The only way to avoid it will be to play old games. Which is fine by me, but there’s always the next generation of gamers coming up who won’t be so picky.
No need to be gatekeepers, just let me blacklist entire genres, publishers and studios.
You can. Add tags/genres to your ignored list, and you won’t see any games marked with them.
The tag system has been so badly abused that you can’t do this without collateral damage though. It’s not fit for purpose. I have mixed feelings about Valve curating games… but I think they should absolutely curate the tags.
Valve should have staff manually play through 144k games to make sure all the tags are accurate?
Yes, they can afford to ensure the quality of their systems.
What you’re asking for is not trivial. Just for the backlog, assuming a single scant hour per game, is 70 new full-time positions before getting into the organizational and administrative overhead. That’s the absolute bare minimum to load up and investigate a game and categorize it and it only works for things that are clearly defined from the very beginning. Realistically there’s no way they can sift through all the assets and code in that time for, as an example, signs of AI use even if they had full access to the developer’s work files. What you’re asking for is more like a full week audit on average.
I’m pretty sure they can afford it. But I’d be happy for the tag system to continue being meaningless if they would just hoist genre out into a separate system curated only by Valve.
Been blocking EA games for years.
Individually, or is there a blocking feature I’m unaware of?
You can click on either the publisher or developer and there’s a setting to not recommend anything by them. IIRC it’s in a gear wheel in the top right of the developer/publisher page
That is good to know, thanks!
Thank you! Greatly appreciated!
As far as I can tell, you can only add about 10 tags to the ignore list. That’s way too few for me.
Walmart sells a ton of shit I think is stupid. Sometimes I see it in the store. It really doesn’t bother me, I go to the aisle for what I want, consider the options, pick one and buy it.
I’m staunchly against smoking. Cigarettes are sold in many stores, but the packs all have warning labels on them making it very easy for me to make sure I never accidentally buy cigarettes. So far, it’s been pretty easy to avoid.
I don’t need to talk to the clerk when I walk in and ask them to hide all the products I hate, as long as everything is labeled and I can buy what I intend to buy, it’s really not a problem. It’s a store.
That’s not the issue here. They are free to have whatever games they want in the store, I don’t care.
The issue is: if you have a recommendation system in place (like the Discovery Queue, which I use and have found great games on), you’d better let me customize it so I don’t recommended yet another hentai puzzle instead of a nice boomer shooter. Just this. I just want some control on what I’m being recommended.
Account settings > Store preferences > uncheck “Adult Only Sexual Content”
That wouldn’t solve the issue of you’re fine with hentai games, just not the puzzle ones.
Thanks, but it only solves part of the issue.
Physical grocery stores are a terrible analogy for a digital gaming platform.
Here’s a better one: Every time I go online shopping, I can filter out my allergies and brands I’m boycotting. This is a really useful existing option; I’m not sure why you would want it removed.
That hurts Valve’s bottom line.
Never going to happen
It’s not unheard of Valve going things that hurt its’ bottom line.
Family sharing, for instance. I can use the same instance of The Talos Principle 2 that my kid uses instead having two copies.
That kind of touch makes me a happy customer, with way too many games on my “one day I’ll play this” list.
People pay to put a game on Steam.
The more games being sold on Steam, the more money valve gets.
Honestly if we can just prioritize giving real developers a spotlight to be seen and heard, sorting specifically by no-ai and having awards and events for no-ai, then I could see this being a potentially good thing. The low effort game devs of the past will all naturally sort themselves into slopper categories and out of the market.
The only problem is that perhaps not enough consumers are competent enough to care if a product is slop.
for me, step one is allowing me to block from sight, ANYTHING a by a supposed AAA developer. I do NOT want to see anything from ea, ubisoft, etc when searching for games.
another would be, if the game is early access and has 30 DLCs… I never want to see that companies ‘products’ again.
and honestly, that’s it for me. Idgaf about ai slop of clone games (yet), good chance they are still individuals doing it and not some massive corporation.
I will always support the smaller teams whenever possible… I never want to see anything from rockstar, Ubisoft or whatever… all trash
Good news, you can already do that
Just made a lot of people’s day
Doesn’t work. I tried that with paradox, but still keep seeing their games. I’m not sure what exactly it blocks, but it’s not games from search results.
It removes them from all the suggestion places like the discovery queue and front page. For search results IIRC you have to ignore individual titles, and set your steam search settings to default to “hide ignored items”.
I see. Sad that it’s so toothless as currently implemented.
Part of the issue with this approach is that you essentially get to something like a karma system, where well known developers are pushed to the top.
This is something Valve just spent a lot of time and effort to undo, so small, new indie devs get as much storefront space as the veterans.
Valve really are the good guys huh
60/40 honestly.
Is everything that isn’t their own games? They do fantastically being fair about.
They’re more than happy to casino it up with their own s*** though.
No one’s perfect
Well. The real problem is that there’s no way to definitively detect AI. And slop scammers are certainly not going to volunteer that information.
Slopping asset flip and cash grab games have always been a problem. That’s nothing new. AI just made it easier to do.
This is a problem that’s existed for 20 years basically. AI has only just made it more of a problem. It’s not new.
If we could have solved this problem we already would have.
AI disclosure at a minimum I agree with wholeheartedly.
But basically every other solution everyone is throwing around is more or less just f****** stupid. Someone who legitimately makes a game for themselves. That is actually fun because they made it for the purpose of them themselves playing it. Even if they used nothing but AI is still probably going to be a better game than some half-assed cash grab or asset flip made by a legitimate human with no AI.
The problem isn’t AI. The problem is s***** people making s***** games with no integrity or intent to play their own creation.
If you want a fun game, you have to make a game you would play. How you enforce that is f****** beyond me though.
Why the fuck do you fucking censor stupid shit on the fucking internet?
You know you can swear in this goddamned place right?
Voice to text auto censors words and im too lazy to fix it? Shit, fuck, piss, cunt, bitch, slut, retard, asshole.
That help? I can start slinging harder slurs along with it if you really are that upset. Like its just words. The only this that matters is you know what im saying. If i start mixing up every letter and fucking grammer, randomly adding censors none of it actually matters so long as its understandable.
I think a lot of them will in fact volunteer that information, and there is definitely a definitive way to detect AI: ask the developers to show their work. Images have layers, 3D assets can be demonstrated. Code is only slightly more ambiguous. On top of all of that, there is an obvious quality difference.
I think a lot of them will in fact volunteer that information
LOOOOOLOLOL
ask the developers to show their work
Nothing about that is definitive. And Valve isn’t going to review it anyway.
Sloppers think it’s the future, most of them have no idea how hated they are. Their shitbots tell them “AI assisted tools allow you to do more, better, faster” and not “yeah boss everyone will hate everything we make”.
How is asking them to prove they did or can do work that they didn’t and couldn’t do not definitive proof?
I remember a thread on here a month ago or something where the developers just asked the A.I. to generate some convincing looking work to show. Like layers and stuff as you say. It was truly shameless
Was that the Agent Pond game with the cybercows? Not convincing at all, and also not a work file like psd, xcf, or clip, but yeah they tried.
You don’t have to tell developers anything except that they need to disclose AI use, and then you need to give customers the ability to filter them. For the sake of your platform. Because nobody wants to go through Next Fest and scroll through piles of slop or be duped into buying a sloppy game over and over.
I think filtering is the best thing they could give us as customers. They already have AI disclosures, but I don’t think we have the ability to filter for AI right now.
Enforce an AI label, abusers get delisted and not allowed to be on steam for 3-5 years. Allow users to block AI labeled games.
Edit: I think the ban should affect the developer and publisher too. That way the publisher makes efforts to prevent release of slop too.
100% this.
if using AI in your product adds so much value to your product, then why are you hiding it??
They can tell them to let us gatekeep. Ai needs to be labeled.
I’d say not only labelled, but at the very least if we ain’t ostracizing generative ai being used in any part of the process, we should at least have the dignity to have it quarantined. I for one don’t feel like buying and installing malware because a yahoo who cannot actually read their own code decides to upload to Steam, let alone literally any other platform.
You’re already using an operating system where generative AI was being used in some parts of the process and creative tools have had generative AI functions since even before the LLM craze.
If we are talking autocomplete for IDEs, not generative AI. Also, a lot of the predictive code lines thing are just based off of what’s most likely to come next, as ( most likely ) trained off of others work. Whereas I’d argue that is different enough from an LLM since it’s basically the IDE version of the autocomplete on your smart phones keyboard app ( if you keep it on ). For LLMs, I would argue that they generate generic code that majority of the time needs cleaned up in order to even function since it will often, especially from back before I ditched it, look at your request saying you are using a specific language version and disregard because it thinks it can just use any code from that language and it’ll work. Don’t even get me started on how generative AI companies purposefully make their “software” write code in a way that is extremely bloated snd could easily be cut down to a couple lines just so they can say how their AI ( emphasis on artificial ) can write more code faster.
If we’re talking filters on art programs like Krita, also historically not completely generative AI. Majority of them ( at least on Krita ) rely on transforming your art by whatever the code says it should do as compared to generating a new image/texture. No prompt nor a need to mass steal art online in order for these filters to work. As for even something like an autofill colourize mask thing, that relies more on some form of gap detection, which isn’t considered generative AI, AFAIK. Just an advanced bucket fill tool.
If we’re talking things like ESRGAN, sure, and I absolutely have problems with that as well, but they’re ever so slightly lesser versions of the problems I have with LLMs and such.
I am well aware that some forms of it have existed for long before LLMs, but they were much more tame and weren’t being used to destroy the internet and planet to the degree it’s being used now.
If we are talking autocomplete for IDEs, not generative AI
They’ve been using small-ish LLMs for that for a few years for now actually, started with github copilot in 2021, but then other plugins became available and Jetbrains started including their own.
I don’t mean intellisense that we had 10 or 20 years ago already where it suggests based on namespace visibility or whatever, I specifically mean where it suggests based on the context of your entire method or even file, not just the single statement
I was wrong though, apparently older content-aware fill is not generative AI, merely transformative. So I guess for example Photoshop has only had AI (generative fill, generative expand) for 3 years. Still, it’s getting likelier and likelier that people working on different projects in different domains use AI features without even realizing it’s AI.
If we’re talking things like ESRGAN, sure, and I absolutely have problems with that as well, but they’re ever so slightly lesser versions of the problems I have with LLMs and such.
Yes, stuff like that is mostly what I was referring to. Anything ML, neural network and so on. Not promptable, but still trained on a bunch of data that most likely is other people’s art.
What about experienced developers who use AI, do they still count as a yahoo who cannot actually read their own code?
I think it’s a difficult situation because a programmer that has been making software before AI was even a thing is not the same as a vibecoder that doesn’t know what a variable is.
Depends. If they continue to use it on a regular basis, I give them a couple months before their ability starts to decline and theb apply yahoo to them. Otherwise if it’s more of a one off thing, I still personally do not trust the code but wouldn’t call them a yahoo yet.
I think we’re reaching a point where there is going to be so much stuff around be it games, tv, movies, music, etc all made by AI and all just garbage, that it will make curating a huge deal. Like we’ll need to have services whose sole purpose is to sift through the marketplaces and find quality stuff to then present to people. So you’ll have a two tiered system where on one hand you can browse “everything” and it’s just a deluge of stuff and then on the other hand you can go to a curated marketplace that only lists stuff that is known to be high quality. But it’s going to take time for those curated places to pop up, and in the mean time we are gonna be swimming in slop.
Rotten Tomatoes -> Bots and Tomatoes. Is it AI slop or hot?
Hot or Bot
Like in the pre-search-engine internet you would have indexes, or whatever they were called, listing useful websites.
Yikes. On the one hand, curated lists sound like a breath of fresh air right now. On the other, that’s AI setting us back 30 years.
My search engine even labels AI slop websites, that it pulls from open-source lists like https://github.com/alvi-se/ai-ublock-blacklist. So yeah every day I feel like the need for curated lists is getting stronger even for “useful websites”. Too much noise these days.
Neal Stephenson explores these ideas in a few of his books. Basically that there is so much false information online that the biggest advantage you can have is good software for sifting through it.
Pretty much this. I am reminded of when reality TV first came up, it was thought that it would be a passing fad lasting maybe a year or two. People get exited by it at first, then get bored of it craving something with more substance. It never happened. Turns out the slop machine hit a level good enough that many would lap it up. Survivor is going into it 51st season right now.
But while this stuff can be produced (be it text, TV, software), you can curate it. Those curated lists will become the new social treasure like how some movie critics could become minor celebrities in themselves. Yeah there will be AI bots trying to do that as well, but if they fall flat, so to will their respect.
You’re going to see the media organic content labels, just like groceries have “regular” and “organic”. There’s demand for such a certification so it wouldn’t surprise me to see that in the near future.
So basically the current steam curators system but you have to pay to see what they curate. And valve wins again
Well I think there could also be a place for like niche curators. Like a blog that goes and finds all the strategy games that are actually good and posts reviews of them. If your a fan of that type of game you follow them, they try all the shitty ones so you don’t have to, and point you to the good ones. Same with other niche things.
That is a built in feature in steam
That’s fine and I like that. We, the gamers, we can decide and it should be like that. We just need Valve’s assistance by helping us with thorough AI disclosures. We can do the rest by controlling slop and clones with our wallets and filters.
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Let the people play what they want, even if it is slop! And the stealing/inspiring part - i get it, it is frustrating and not fair, but not the AI is the problem here, it’s just a tool - the problem is with the copycat’s reasoning (that is to make a quick buck and don’t give a damn about broader consequences for the future). If the game is a shameless copy it already is prone to be copyright claimable (although i don’t believe in legal batles, especially for small developers or not wealthy individuals that clearly are disadvantaged from the start), if it is not - let the Poeple decide. Of course it poses a threat of oversaturating the market - i don’t care, it’s not new - Steam has been oversaturated with non-AI-porn-game-slop for years now and nothing bad happened.
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They should make it easy to avoid it though by requiring AI use disclosures by developers and then including a filter for users to automatically filter AI like you can filter adult content out.
Giardino suggested that developers can protect their work by first building a strong community around it, and then focusing on continual improvements: “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.”
Not every game needs a fuckload of features. Not everyone has the time and skill to create and manage a community around their own game.
Steam could at least allow people to vote on whether some games are complete clone garbage or not, have the weight of the vote rely on the account level + age. Or let people indicate the original game on a clone’s page. Like any community feature, I can see this being a vector for abuse, but this AI bullshit is absolutely ruining online trust
Dear Steam,
Please put a filter tool in so that we, the player, can choose to filter out AI slop.
Thank you.
Solid win for those of you who like to wade through 200 AI slop titles before finding something good.
I think the problem with a ban is that the creators of AI slop will stop disclosing or tagging it.
Allowing it with tags + letting users filter it out might be the best way to reduce it?
And before that, wading through 200 asset flipping games before finding something good.
Ironpineapple’s job gonna be very interesting for the next few years.
I’ll take slop by 1 person, over AAA garbage any day
Try 10000 slop by 500 people
still better then AAA nonsense in my eyes.
Honestly, the few times I’ve come across a good slop game. Day have been some of the best little indie games I’ve ever played.
AI has giving people who can design a good game. The ability to now also make those games by themselves.
Not everyone can be toby fox and do everything sadly.
The problem is those few games are made by people who made those games for themselves because they wanted to play them. Then they decided to share them but first and foremost they were still for the author.
Hey guys, just made it way too easy to put out s*** that you don’t want to play yourself in an attempt to make a quick buck. To share that’s always been a problem but it’s just gotten worse.
That’s a pretty low bar… :)
Let’s hope GOG takes a better approach
Well that’s disappointing. How about in regard to vibe coded games?
They don’t adopt enough games for it to be problem.
Let’s hope that works in their favour
Nope they already using Ai.
This is the exact same attitude they had to the deluge of unity store asset flips (well they actually tried to blame unity for that, but I digress)
Steam gets their money either way.
And that’s what Lord GabeN needs to buy another super yacht for himself, and more Aston Martins for his son to race.
I am starting to think that having hard technical or imposed market limits might be a good thing, or at least the lesser of two evils.
It you had to build a game on before the era of cheap middleware engines, there was a natural barrier to entry. The Nintendo seal of approval used to mean something at least even if the game was still trash.
But now, you can flood the space with minimal barrier to entry and we are being flooded with junk. But those that control the access and making big money off this so they turn a blind eye.
A few months back, there was a reddit post for my local town, it was about self publishing their new game on Steam. Anyway, about a dozen others posted links to their projects all releasing within the next few months, all of them copies or low effort projects. This is a single town, in a single country, that is releasing potentially dozens, possible hundreds of games a year. The market is flooded because we have made it so easy to pump this junk out and there is little interest in putting even vague restrictions on it.
The crash is coming and we will all know why it happened.
It’s been coming for a long time. Steam always had a slop problem since the greenlight days.
The reason so much shit got onto the platform was by exploiting the trading card system, and Valve allowed it.
Eventually Valve realised they could get more money by just skipping the vote, and allowing people to just pay to get their games on the platform.
Pretty much. They already had this tendency, it is just accelerating and now the technology has kicked it into turbo.
They better have a Slopless Award for the next steam awards
