Valve: Most games made with AI tools are now welcome on Steam
Valve: Most games made with AI tools are now welcome on Steam
New reporting system will enforce "guardrails" for "live-generated" AI content.
Well shit...
Those disclosures will be shared on the Steam store pages for these games, which should help players who want to avoid certain types of AI content.
I mean, this is better than most places.
35I wouldn't be surprised if, in just a few years time, pre-AI-era content of all kinds, not just games, ends up becoming cherished by people, to the point that entire fandoms and subcultures develop around preserving and promoting it.
14
It's not like they can really avoid it. AI assisted tools will become a standard in the future ("productivity has to go up" after all) and there's a good chance Valve already received some feedback from AAA publishers on that matter, since they'll be the main players utilizing such tech.
The good thing here is the exsitance of a disclaimer on store pages, as it will allow people to decide for themselves, and the ability to report content straight from in-game overlay.
Full on ban was never a realistic option.
15I'll add that a blanket ban isn't necessarily a positive thing, either. AI could be a component of developing unique NPCs, evolving bosses, changing economies, missions/quests, or procedurally generated levels (for example).
Obviously, at least some of that content would still need to pass human play testing, so it's not like humans would be completely removed, but imagine if players had gameplay experiences that were entirely unique to them or changed based on non-RNG factors.
I agree, though, that reporting the use of AI and how it's utilized is important for people to make informed decisions about how they spend their money.
5
Reading the entire article, it seems that they still want to tread very carefully with this whole AI ordeal. Valve isn't just opening the floodgates, as the title would make it seem.
While yes, a healthy dose of skepticism is good to have, I think if I had to trust someone to navigate AI in gaming in the gamers' favour, I would pick Valve. Or maybe I'm overestimating Gabe's involvement in the happenings of the legal department's section that is currently responsible for AI stuff.
EDIT: Shame on me, @princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone , I think I had already seen the PMG video about the Steam Marketplace and its lootboxes and the gambling sites. But because I neither play these titles nor participate in the marketplace, I forgot that these serious issues exist. And the documentary concerning actually working at Valve rocked my stance back and forth. On one hand, I love the concept, but there are big problems here as well.
Once more, a genuine thank you for pointing me at these two video documentaries, even if I had already seen one of them.
14Hey, thank you for taking the time to watch those and take a critical look at your opinions about Valve. I really appreciate you taking it onboard even if I wasn’t the most polite in my initial comment.
I do agree with the system itself having a lot of appealing aspects. I think if it were created with a critical eye focused on eliminating privilege and elevating diversity, that it could be an amazing place to work. But it’s clear the people in positions of power believe ‘diversity’ is a solved issue thanks to ‘pure meritocracy’. The only way to deal with privilege and inequality, in my opinion, is to face it head on and deconstruct the incumbent systems that allow it to exist.
2I seriously don’t understand how people can still hold Valve up as this paragon of virtue, defender of gamers everywhere.
2Oh, People Make Games have not one but two vids on Valve? I never noticed that, thanks. I'll watch them after work and possibly (because PMG really are good at the whole journalising stuff) change my stance on it.
2
As much as I don't like it (I think art should be something hand crafted by humans) nothing Valve can do. It would take an insane amount of resources to vet all these AI games coming.
13I mean it doesn't matter how a game gets made to me if it's great. If there are a huge pile of shitty games, I just won't engage. Same as it ever was.
12I would love to have NPCs have conversational AI.
12@PerogiBoi @jherazob it would be interesting but require a lot of development to make sure the NPCs either didn’t know about spoiler information which may break the plot or don’t just hallucinate answers, which may mislead the player.
“How do you get through the haunted forest?” “You need x item to get through the haunted forest” “are you sure?” “Yes thats how heros get through the forest” the item in question doesn’t even exist in the game or has no bearing on the quest.
9You might be interested in https://inworld.ai/origins , a detective game where all the characters can be interviewed in natural language and respond with AI. They seem to be doing a pretty good job so far
4
That isn't the same as "made with AI tools"
3Such AI integration will be separated into categories of "pre-generated" content that is "created with the help of AI tools during development" (e.g., using DALL-E for in-game images) and "live-generated" content that is "created with the help of AI tools while the game is running" (e.g., using Nvidia's AI-powered NPC technology).
Both are covered by the policies the article talks about, and both were arguably against the rules previously
10
I understand the statement is about in-game stuff, but I'm guessing a lot of game developers have been using GitHub Copilot and this kind of "AI tools" for months.
9So we are moving from shovelware to excavatorware?
5No, we are just moving with the times.
1
Given how many companies have been embracing AI tools it was really only a matter of time until they were allowed on Steam. At least you'll know before hand if you're going into a game with AI-generated content.
4🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:
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Those disclosures will be shared on the Steam store pages for these games, which should help players who want to avoid certain types of AI content.
But disclosure will not be sufficient for games that use live-generated AI for "Adult Only Sexual Content," which Valve says it is "unable to release... right now."
The status of those training models was a primary concern for Valve last summer when the company cited the "legal uncertainty relating to data used to train AI models," but such concerns don't even merit a mention in today's new policies.
Over the last year or so, many game developers have started to embrace a variety of AI tools in the creation of everything from background art and NPC dialogue to motion capture and voice generation.
But some developers have taken a hardline stance against anything that could supplant the role of humans in game making.
"We don’t ban games for using new technologies," Sweeney wrote on social media.
Saved 55% of original text.
2i mean github copilot is an ai tool and lots of devs use it. there's a difference between putting out a game shoddily put together entirely with an ai and using ai to complete repetitive tasks to save time.
2