Steam Bans Games With AI-generated Content [Update: Valve Responds]
Developers using artificial intelligence may have a problem. Steam is banning their games.
Update
Valve has addressed recent allegations of blocking games with AI-generated content on Steam. The announcement sent to the editors of GamesIndustry.biz reads:
"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. 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."
Original post (June 30, 2023)
Artificial intelligence has become very popular recently. Most of us have probably heard names like ChatGPT or Midjourney. These programs enable you to generate text and graphics based on a typed phrase. As it turns out, some game developers are eager to use such programs, and Valve has a big issues with it and bans them on its platform.
Steam does not want games with AI-generated graphics
On the subreddit dedicated to artificial intelligence technology in video games, one user reported an unpleasant situation that happened to him. As he wrote, he was developing a game, which contained graphics generated by artificial intelligence. He sent it to Steam for verification with the plan to later change the said images. However, he received a message that read:
"Hello,
While we strive to ship most titles submitted to us, we cannot ship games for which the developer does not have all of the necessary rights.
After reviewing, we have identified intellectual property in [Game Name Here] which appears to belongs to one or more third parties."
The message went on to say that the developer has one option for the AI-generated content to be removed. The developer wrote that he had redone them, but his game was nevertheless rejected.
There is an ongoing dispute as to whether the user generating works in such tools has rights to them or not, e.g. Midjourney's terms of service state that "Subject to the above license, you own all assets created using the services, provided that they were created in accordance with the agreement [found in Midjourney's ToS - editor's note]."
Opinions among commenters in the thread on Reddit are divided. Some of them believe that Valve reacts too harshly to the use of AI in games, but there is also no shortage of voices saying that from a business point of view such behavior is completely understandable.
