Valve Responds to Developers Fearing AI Slop and Clones

Agreed. Copycatting has existed all the way back to the early Atari days. In fact, Nolan Bushnell used to talk about constantly moving on to new products in order to “eat his own babies.” Swift style.

  Always wary of “the jackals” and convinced that the only way to stay ahead of the competition was to introduce new products, Bushnell wanted to discontinue the VCS and move on to the next-generation game console. Bushnell preferred moving to new technologies rather than spending time refining old ideas and letting his competitors catch up to him. He called his philosophy “eating your own babies” and said that if Atari didn’t (eat its own babies), somebody else would.

-- Steven Kent (The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon)

The issue today is the breathtaking speed with which people can rip you off by simply pointing an agentic coding harness at your original IP and laundering it into 50 copies in the span of a single weekend.

the notion of "quality" equals very much luxury for many many people... and last time I checked some 90% of the peoples of the world were not concern with it (the lux), but with making ends meet. all opportunities arising would be taken immediately, and if some kid can play a game for 5EUR and likes it, even not the certified origins, his father would not rush to get the 80EUR one (and particularly if he can afford to summon, or like prompt, something workable into existence).

same for many forms of media, and for a lot of physical objects such as luxury items fakes. and we're talking utility here, so I bet lots of people use counterfeit electric equipment because it just works.

of course then comes ingenuity and community, but copyright is so dead, that it cannot be resurrected meaningfully at all perhaps at this moment.

While OP discussed bootleggers, it's the extortion TFA mentions (quoted below) that's likely worth suing over. Indie devs can't fund a full-fledged lawsuit, local authorities don't have the reach to grief those responsible due to it almost certainly being outside their jurisdiction, and Valve may not have legal standing.

What could be done is forwarding the complaint to Valve, and ensuring that the bootlegged game put out by those attempting to make good on their threats gets removed, and the developer banned.

> The question regarding AI cloning stemmed from a specific threat. One developer shared that indie developers have recently been receiving extortion emails threatening, "If you don't pay, we'll clone your game with AI and release it first." While understanding the advice to showcase games prior to release, the developer noted that such threats could make creators hesitate and asked if Steam had protective measures in place.

> Tom Giardino expressed regret, noting that this was the first time he had heard of such extortion cases.

> [...]

> While drawing a line on the extortion itself, he kept communication channels open. He noted that such extortion is closer to an issue for law enforcement agencies rather than a game platform to solve

Legal depends on details. There are copyright, patent, and trademark laws that apply depending on how the cloning was done. Ask a lawyer for details.

The idea of a game is not protected. The specific graphics, dialog, script, and code are protected. Save the princess in an 8 level game is generic but just a few more details copied and suddenly you are an illegal clone of the NES Mario brothers script...

If you are worried talk to a lawyer about preemptively registering your copyrights (cheap) and trademarks (more expensive).

It doesn't need to be illegal for a lawsuit. They just need to make a convincing case they've been damaged.

It's a good question and the answer is mixed. Some of the problem has been directly bootlegging games in other markets like China, so stealing the code and assets outright. That's definitely a copyright violation most places, I would assume it is in China too, but the point is moot without Valve's backing because no indie is going to conduct a lawsuit in a foreign country.

A clean room knockoff isn't but I don't think the cases would necessarily even be brought or won. There's a lot of quick buck artists who see gaming as a soft target. Success is in convincing them there's risk involved rather than actually winning in court or extracting settlements.

That will still leave a lot of AI game development people feel is slop. That's probably the reality going forward. But reducing that to the people who are interested in making games (even if we are unhappy with their results) and removing the people who are revolving through the latest AI get rich quick schemes is probably achievable.

Not in the least. You can make a 2D platformer and Nintendo can't sue you for copying Super Mario (they'd like to, probably).

The only defense against copies has always be the same, be better than the copies in thing the consumer likes. You can't copy a Mario game, you can't copy a Kojima game, you can't copy a game that has been masterfully done and polished. If slop is gonna eat your lunch, it's only because your game is as good as slop.

It’s not, but the commenter you are replying to wants it to be

In the same vein that having the same name of functions is a copyright violation. People don't understand that good things are meant to be copied so that consumers have the best product

> Why though?

Valve takes a 30% cut of all sales through their platform which is responsible for the majority of their revenue. This is dependent on it being a mutually beneficial relationship for developers and a near monopoly on PC customers eyeballs.

Fantastical examples aside Valve is still dependent on developer good will. The balance of that to the near monopoly is a much more valid point about how far Steam can strain that relationship.

The developer or publisher would bring the case. Valve would fund it.

Valve has ignored the quality problem of submissions for years. Lazy asset flips of demo levels have been common for years. It's less of a hedge and more of a restatement of what their position has been since they opened the floodgates. AI just made the bad stuff look better than it used to, so people have to relearn how to filter.

As far as I can tell, "slop" doesn't have a clear definition. It seems to just mean "AI used poorly or obviously". Nobody cares if a developer of a game uses AI as long as it's done well. They might not even know.

The idea that there is a future where game devs don't use AI, while the rest of the industry does, is absurd. We do know that AI will be widely embraced in gaming, because the alternative is, what? The honor system?

Maybe you would like Hardspace Shipbreaker? That's a good game with unusual mechanics. Or maybe Factorio if you enjoy Terraria. Maybe Ark Raiders or Valheim if you like action multiplayer games?

I think its easier to discover a game with a good story then a game with novel mechanics, but they exist.

>Given I am not a story based gamer, but a gameplay focused one, I just see no true innovation anymore.

Denshattack!, ballxpit, blue prince, balatro, outer wilds, pipistrello... There's plenty of quality there too!

It's true that the average quality we're exposed to is lower, because there's so many random pet projects and big players take fewer risks. Relying on word of mouth or gaming reviewers you trust is important nowadays. But I'm convinced it's a matter of discovery rather than existence.

This is crazy to me. The amount of great games under $20 that you can get these days is overwhelming. (But it helps that Roguelikes are my favorite genre - Have recently been playing Diceomancer, Combolands,Plan B, Emberwards,Iron Nest, Against the Storm, to name just a few)

Part of getting older is naturally being less interested in new things - be it movies or music. If you find yourself scrolling through Steam not finding anything you like, it could just be a feeling of fulfillment with what you already like?

The average quality of games has always been bad. You probably aren't old enough to remember all the bad games on the Atari 2600.

>I sit in front of the steam shop for an hour almost on a daily basis

I'm going to go out on a limb and assert that you're an outlier lol

I've never used the Steam for browsing for games to buy. I've only bought stuff there after finding the games some place else (reviews, word-of-mouth). Using it for that has been a terrible experience since the day they opened the floodgates, since there's just too many damn games out there, even ignoring the slop (even without AI, there's still the Unity asset flip to flood the store).

Steam can't not have a store front, but it wouldn't matter to me if they removed 95% of it and just reduced it to a search bar with and a list with some basic results to know I'm actually buying the right game (think $Name, $Dev, $Date-of-release, $Probably-some-other-values-to-prevent-obvious-copycats). I'd use it in functionally the same way as I do know, and I wouldn't by any less because of it.

I don't want to say you're holding it wrong, but I question your tactics if your goal is to find new games you want to play.

yeah i have same experience but not sure if its just me getting older. the youngest game i play regularly is still 5 years old

The contrary, marketing was already important on Steam since the indie boom of some years ago. Now it's something you cannot escape if you want to earn money from indie games.

True, even some orders of magnitude larger.

I'm hopeful that the jewels will rise to the top on their own merits, but with millions of games released every day it's gonna be difficult.

Maybe I'm a romantic but I hope there are some genius game designers in the world that now can release their dream games with the help of AI.