Valve representatives said at Steam Indie Connect in South Korea that the company has put a significant number of employees on the problem of game discoverability on Steam. It has no plans to restrict developers who use artificial intelligence.
Steam Business Team members Tom Giardino and Marc Wilkinson answered local developers’ questions about how the store operates. One main topic was the growing number of games on Steam, which makes it harder for new releases to get noticed. Giardino said developers should be free to choose the tools they use to make their games.
Participants also raised threats from people who demand money from developers and say they will otherwise release AI-generated copies of the games before the originals launch. Giardino said Valve would investigate such cases if developers reported them, but that extortion is mainly a matter for law enforcement.
According to Giardino, Steam puts less effort into removing copies and clones than into promoting original games. He advised developers to keep improving their projects with new features and original ideas that competitors would find harder to replicate.
Another participant complained about the abundance of “AI slop.” That developer had taken part in the latest Steam Next Fest and didn’t get the attention they expected. Other users on social media also criticized the festival for having too many such projects.
Wilkinson said Next Fest shows games in two stages. For the first two days, the platform shows games to users at random. After that, personalized recommendations take over, using players’ interests to help them find relevant titles. He suggested some complaints about low-quality games may have started in those opening days. The random selection gives every participant a chance to find an audience and keeps develpers from gaming the system by joining early.
“We understand that this comes at a cost: some low-quality games also receive attention from players. We are fully aware of this problem, and a considerable number of people are working on solving it.” – Mark Wilkinson.
Giardino added that Valve has heard similar complaints before. When it launched Steam Greenlight about 14 years ago, developers asked for an option to let users hide the games in the program. Similar concerns came up later with Steam Direct, the platform’s self-publishing system. Valve has consistently chosen to improve the store so interesting games are easier to find, rather than to filter out weaker projects.
“We don’t consider ourselves perfect, and we understand that there is still a lot we need to improve. Instead of restricting developers’ access, we aim to make Steam a smarter and more dynamic platform. That is the foundation of our philosophy.” – Tom Giardino.
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