Another example that Steam doesn’t maintain dominance via market abuse, but rather by being decent in a market where the competition is downright awful.
Right? If he doesn’t like it he can just go make his own store with all the AI he wants…
Legend has it that he does have his own store already, so I’m really not sure why he’s saying anything at all.
That would be an Epic fail on his part though
That’s why I used the word “decent” instead of something like “good”.
Valve (along with Itch.io) also removed several LGBTQ2S+ games recently due to some complaints from payment processors, and I think that’s terrible. (your first link is not working at the moment, so maybe that was mentioned there?) GoG, on the other hand, released some of those removed games for free.
Valve is absolutely not perfect and they have done other bad things before, but when you’re competing with Epic, or EA Origin, or whatever Ubisoft calls their shit, it’s easy to see why they dominate the market. GoG is probably the only other company that also behaves “decently”, has a good product, and is in a similar space with Steam.
Yeah man you hit it right on the head. None of these companies can be good because by nature they can’t. Decent companies can exist and they recognize customers as who are important.
Customers want a lot. Valve delivers a lot of what they want, gas lights some (I just assume), and the ones who are fucked are few comparatively speaking.
Strawmans gonna straw
who do i email to tell epic that they suck so fucking hard that i’m over here buying games on steam that i had already gotten for free on epic
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I don’t want my games to contain AI without my knowledge i dont want it to be sweeped under the rug ,that’s so stupid tbh.
I personally don’t give a shit if ai is used on something I like.
It’s unethical to present something as human-made that isn’t though. That I do care about.
Fuck right off Tim. You cunt.
And you wonder why nobody wants to use your shitty storefront.
And I want the Epic CEO to fist himself with a live pin-less grenade in his hand.
We can’t always get what we want.
Good thing he has no say in what happens on the Steam storefront…
I agree with the article, we should be less vague about what AI was used for. One game may use it for generating side quest storylines. Others might use it for writing the whole plot and designing all visuals. Gamers will always love to boycott things; at least with more detail they could see which companies are exploiting the technology and which ones are putting in some effort.
To play devil’s advocate here, it seems like I keep hearing people saying to avoid games/etc over AI content, and the actual AI content is really minor things that no one would have ever paid attention to.
I suspect as it continues to become more common, people will care less. But in the meantime admitting to even minor AI use for background assets/etc is enough to get you a bunch of negative reviews on Steam (judging from my discovery queue).
There was also how Arc Raiders got a terrible review from Eurogamer because of some disclosed AI voice lines.
avoid games/etc over AI content, and the actual AI content is really minor
There’s no gradient for how much Ai goes into a game, so a little taint qualifies as diseased.
Right. If the A.I. content is inconsequential, why not replace it remove it?
Good. Fuck “AI”. They should have to disclose exactly what it was used for and that should be displayed right at the top of the games store page, along with any extra transactions in the game, extra accounts or launchers needed.
we should be less vague about what AI was used for
I agree as well, because it very much depends on what you use AI for.
If it’s for prototyping or very minor things players wouldn’t even notice, it’s fine and I wouldn’t put that kind of use on the same level of companies who want to use AI to outright replace workers just to cut costs.
What he wants doesn’t count for shit. If Valve’s customers want that feature there, he should just shut up and let it be there.
Quit whining and put all the slop on the Epic store.
As with SO much about tim sweeney: he is touching on something very important for all the wrong reasons.
The reality is… probably 99% of games SHOULD have that disclosure by the current rules. So many modern tools have “AI” tools integrated into them these days. A LOT of the modern Adobe tools fundamentally are based on generative AI (think “magic wand” in Photoshop but better). Similarly… what is the difference between asking chatgpt to write you a script, asking someone who may have asked chatgpt to do it, and having an editor that feeds all your data to openai?
And… you can bet that Unreal Engine is going to be integrating more and more of those tools.
I very much do appreciate the intent and I make it a point to check on that when I am buying games on Steam. In large part because… the people (knowingly) using AI tend to not be using it responsibly. Its not a full deal breaker but it very much puts the game into that “ONE thing and they can piss off” territory.
But at the same time? A game I’ve been working on (on and off) for a few years has very heavy Dwarf Fortress inspirations and relies quite heavily on simulation to advance world state. And while the odds of me ever publishing that are pretty low… I do actually wonder how that would work with disclosures. And I very much assume a lot of the more crazy awesome devs are having the same concerns and just hoping nobody notices.
Right now? It is a pretty useful tool. But we are rapidly approaching the point where the devs who actually DO disclose it are the minority… and probably the ones doing things even slightly ethically.
I think this tells me that EGS is going to be pushing lots of ai developed games without any disclosure.
He sucks so much. Cheeses me that anyone heralded him as some harbinger of gaming equilibrium.
I wonder if there will be back lash over this
