Valve Reveals Its Thought Process In Regard to Games Being Shipped With AI-Generated Content on Steam

Following reports of games made with AI art being banned from Steam, Valve has revealed a bit of its thought process in regard to games being shipped with AI-generated content on its digital storefront.

Valve responded to our question about these reports, like from Kotaku, which gathered stories from various devs who were seeing their AI-infused games blocked from Steam for reasons such as Valve not being able to “ship games for which the developer does not have all the necessary rights” or for “utilizing AI tech.”

Valve confirmed it is still learning about the ever-quickly-evolving AI just as we all are. Furthermore, it doesn’t want to discourage devs from submitting games with AI-generated content for Steam, it just wants to make sure the developers have the proper rights for all the assets being used in them.

“We are continuing to learn about AI, the ways it can be used in game development, and how to factor it in to our process for reviewing games submitted for distribution on Steam,” Valve said in a statement to IGN. “Our priority, as always, is to try to ship as many of the titles we receive as we can. The introduction of AI can sometimes make it harder to show a developer has sufficient rights in using AI to create assets, including images, text, and music. In particular, there is some legal uncertainty relating to data used to train AI models. It is the developer’s responsibility to make sure they have the appropriate rights to ship their game.

“We know it is a constantly evolving tech, and our goal is not to discourage the use of it on Steam; instead, we’re working through how to integrate it into our already-existing review policies. Stated plainly, our review process is a reflection of current copyright law and policies, not an added layer of our opinion. As these laws and policies evolve over time, so will our process.

“We welcome and encourage innovation, and AI technology is bound to create new and exciting experiences in gaming. While developers can use these AI technologies in their work with appropriate commercial licenses, they can not infringe on existing copyrights.”

In closing, Valve also shared that, “while App-submission credits are usually non-refundable, we’re more than happy to offer them in cases as we continue to work on our review process.”

As Valve works on its plan for how to tackle games with AI-generated content, be sure to check out all the best deals happening right now during 2023’s Steam Summer Sale.

For more on AI, check out everything from IGN’s AI Week, where we explored all the ways that the rise of everything from ChatGPT to AI art will change games and entertainment, both for good and for ill.

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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.