Steam is a pretty great platform overall, giving us PC gamers access to a huge catalogue of beloved video games from basically every genre you can think of, all with the addition of some nice social features.
Owners Valve were also pretty good about responding to the arrival of AI in the gaming industry, adding a label at the bottom of store pages which disclose if the developer used AI during the production of the project.
It was absolutely a consumer friendly approach to do so, giving those of us who have no time for the use of AI the chance to make an informed choice when buying our next game from the storefront.
Now, it seems like they have quietly rolled out a number of changes to that system, with more nuance and detail around what approach the individual developers have taken to AI use in their games.
Steam Updates Gen-AI Labelling on Store Pages
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As first reported by KitGuru.com, via a post on BlueSky from GameDiscoverCo, Valve has now updated their AI processes form to allow studios and indie devs to specify more clearly how they have used the technology in their projects.
Previously, the store simply asked developers "Does this game use AI," which in all fairness is very broad, given legitimate implementations of AI tech, like in controlling the behaviour of NPCs.
Instead, they will now be asked three questions as follows:
- "Does this game use generative artificial intelligence to generate content for the game, either pre-rendered or live-generated? This includes the game itself, the storepage, and any Steam community assets or marketing materials.”
- “Do you use Al to generate pre-rendered content for your game, its store page, marketing materials, and/or community assets?”
- “Do you use AI to live-generate content or code during gameplay?”
This hard focus from Steam on Generative AI isn't a bad thing at all, as it's that area in particular that most people (myself included) have a problem with, particularly due to how it is affecting the job market and climate.
The more worrying angle is that they only need to disclose if AI is used in something that consumers will actually interact with, which doesn't really protect workers in the earlier parts of the development process (like with concept art, for instance).
It's a bit of a scary world out there right now, so here's hoping this doesn't blur the line between what is and isn't acceptable when it comes to AI use in video game development.