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NewsMaterial3 min readDisconfirmAI Editorial

Valve Says AI Cloning Is Not a New Problem, Suggests Independent Developers Compete via Community and Iteration

The Steam business team at Valve stated at a developer event in South Korea that it will not ban AI tools, arguing that community trust and continuous iteration are more effective than platform censorship in resisting AI cloning. The team also explained how the random distribution mechanism during the first two days of Next Fest amplifies the visibility of low-quality AI games.

2026-10-29 16:15 GMT+8

At the Steam Indie Connect developer event in Busan, South Korea, Valve's Steam business team addressed a concern among independent developers: what is the platform's plan regarding AI cloning? Tom Giardino responded that Valve does not wish to act as a gatekeeper and will not dictate which tools developers may use; whether or not to use AI is up to each studio. However, this does not mean the platform is entirely hands-off. Since early 2024, Steam has required developers to disclose whether and how they have used AI, and Valve has stated it will follow up on reported extortion cases.

Giardino offered two lines of defense: building player trust in the studio and continuously updating the game. He called the former the first line of defense but immediately added that it takes time and is insufficient on its own. The latter is equally important. He drew an analogy with Valve's own history of handling piracy: rather than installing aggressive anti-piracy measures, Valve has always tried to make the legitimate version the best one. Giardino's logic is that a single game mechanic can be easily copied, but clones cannot catch up if features and creativity are constantly added through updates.

The premise of this logic is that the original creator's speed advantage comes from continuous creation, not from a one-time release. Giardino believes AI has merely accelerated existing plagiarism phenomena rather than creating new problems. Good demo concepts were being imitated even before AI appeared; AI simply made the process faster.

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Regarding complaints about the large number of low-quality AI games at Next Fest, another member of Valve's Steam business team, Marc Wilkinson, explained the mechanism: Steam distributes demos almost randomly during the first two days of the event, with personalized recommendations only taking effect afterward. Wilkinson noted that many complaints about the flood of AI slop games targeted only these first two days. The purpose of random distribution is to prevent developers from gaining visibility advantages by registering early, giving every game a fair chance. Valve accepts the cost that low-quality games will therefore also be randomly showcased.

Notably, Giardino's response to extortion emails was that he had heard of such cases for the first time, viewing them more as a law enforcement issue than a game platform issue, though Valve would follow up on reported cases. The Korean two-person studio YNOT withdrew the demo for its cooking game Spookitchen after discovering an AI clone, and developers of another strategy RPG reportedly received an extortion email demanding $200. These cases illustrate that for small teams, the threat of AI cloning is not an abstract acceleration of competition, but a concrete attack under time pressure.

Valve's position can be summarized as follows: the platform provides distribution infrastructure and transparency requirements, but no active protection. The burden of defense lies with the developers. For teams with an established community base and continuous development capabilities, this may be reasonable advice; however, for small studios just releasing their first demo with no accumulated player trust, the time window for this path may be wider than the speed at which clones are released.

Sources

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