Players have been asking for the ability to filter out games made with Gen AI.
We've added an automatic tag on SteamDB based on the AI gen content disclosures on the store pages.
I’m not sure how I feel about that. If they use an LLM for troubleshooting an issue, does that mean the game must be thrown out? What if they use an LLM for repetitive tasks like creating config files, then the game is no good?
What about shovelware games that are just asset flips without any use of an LLM, are those games okay?
I don’t think it’s necessarily as simple as using generative AI in any way means the game is bad.
I use LLMs at work, does that mean that another developer who refuses to try LLMs is immediately a better developer than me? I’m not so sure it’s that simple.
Agreed. People overrect both ways - management wants AI everywhere, and users don’t want to hear of it.
It’s a tool that can be very helpful if used correctly.
As someone in the industry (asset side) I feel there are some legitimate uses for Gen AI but they’re the kind of uses where if done properly you wouldn’t notice:
UV seams and unwrapping, its a skill but it adds nothing to to the creative process in many cases. That said there are some caveats though to pull them off you wouldn’t want to use AI anyway.
Using tiny UVs and the way game engines interperate them to create gradients and colour mixes on tiny textures (Current AI can’t do this)
Texture Atlases, especially non-uniform ones; this is a 50/50 case, you can get super creative with them (Again its too specific for AI) but there are many more cases where it would also be super convenient if I could apply a bunch of seperate materials to faces and then have the AI unwrap and overlap the UVs which us the same materials to create the most efficient Atlas possible, this one kind of already exists as a non AI tool and results in no machine input on the end product, it just saves some texture space and thus potential performance.
A basic AI texture generator is generally welcome for minor/throwaway assets, A lot of us are already using node based procedural texturing which is both a skill and an art form or texture libraries (or node libraries). Its not something I’d want to use on a main character or even large props but it would be super handy for small or out of the way details that just don’t merit the production time to give more than a glance.
Ban the games that make them enormous sums of money?
One of the ones listed is Call of Duty. Valve is not turning down 30% of that pie.
In any case, I suspect it’s now here to stay, certainly in limited amounts. You can either pay somebody to create all those assets in house, make them with AI, or outsource to a third party (who will almost certainly do it with AI).
I figure it eventually ends up like CGI or make-up. You can do it well and check it and nobody really notices it, or you do it badly and then your protagonist has a variable number of fingers in cutscenes.
It would be nice if Steam just banned games made with Gen AI in the first place.
I’m not sure how I feel about that. If they use an LLM for troubleshooting an issue, does that mean the game must be thrown out? What if they use an LLM for repetitive tasks like creating config files, then the game is no good?
What about shovelware games that are just asset flips without any use of an LLM, are those games okay?
I don’t think it’s necessarily as simple as using generative AI in any way means the game is bad.
I use LLMs at work, does that mean that another developer who refuses to try LLMs is immediately a better developer than me? I’m not so sure it’s that simple.
Agreed. People overrect both ways - management wants AI everywhere, and users don’t want to hear of it.
It’s a tool that can be very helpful if used correctly.
As someone in the industry (asset side) I feel there are some legitimate uses for Gen AI but they’re the kind of uses where if done properly you wouldn’t notice:
Ban the games that make them enormous sums of money?
One of the ones listed is Call of Duty. Valve is not turning down 30% of that pie.
In any case, I suspect it’s now here to stay, certainly in limited amounts. You can either pay somebody to create all those assets in house, make them with AI, or outsource to a third party (who will almost certainly do it with AI).
I figure it eventually ends up like CGI or make-up. You can do it well and check it and nobody really notices it, or you do it badly and then your protagonist has a variable number of fingers in cutscenes.