Interestingly, PC video game platform Steam just significantly rewrote - but did NOT remove - its 'does your game have AI in it?' dev disclosure form. The headline is that Valve's making it clearer that 'AI powered tools' (like code helpers) do not trigger the need to disclose any use - "Efficiency gains through the use of [AI powered dev tools] is not the focus of this section." Otherwise, devs still have to disclose two different types of AI use: - "AI to generate content for the game", whether it be the game itself, the store page, or marketing materials. (A freeform box allows devs to describe this purely in text form of their choosing.) - "AI content generated during gameplay" - a simple tickbox on whether the game itself generates AI-created "images, audio, text and other content". Valve's labeling decision is an outlier on game platforms, but fits with their internal rules on how they would want to be informed if they were a player.
I imagine they’ll continue to loosen their requirements for AI disclosure. It’s easy to forget that their initial policy was to not allow any AI content at all! cc Travis McGeathy
Good change. AI generated captions for an internal meeting that helps your hard of hearing or non-native speaking coworkers during development should not be categorized the same way as generating art assets in game.
Valve should just make a checkbox like tags: Pre-Release Art Marketing Animation Coding Writing In-Game Calls Sound / SFX Music Voice Acting Translation THEN it would be very clear how and where the GenAI was used. Boom. done. Transparency. But at least this shows that Valve knows their disclosure form still exists, haha.
this feels like a really thoughtful middle ground that actually makes sense for developers. the way they've separated efficiency tools from actual content generation shows they understand how teams actually work. it's refreshing to see a platform think through the nuances instead of just blanket policies, and putting players first in these decisions feels like the right call.
I expect this will continue to change in the future, But I do think that being more specific is important since AI can be used in so many ways, to so many degrees. I don't see helping with code in the same category as generating artwork or dialogue, but I guess that's not everyone's take. Let us know how AI was used and we can make our own decisions as to whether we consider it proper or not.
Makes much more sense and is actually in favor of devs. The AI supported tools are a way of the future. It will soon be impossible anyway to make the distinction if AI has been part of the tools.
In a moment when even Unreal Engine has its own AI assistant chat bot, this makes a lot of sense.
It seems like it's not just for code but essentially all offline usage of AI tools
This is a great move on Valve's part, transparency is great for everyone. I appreciate the clearer distinction too.
Where does the line get drawn on the marketing side is my question. Everyone's use cases on that side goes to creative assets. But what if you use LLM to scrape reviews for sentiment, do competitive analysis, customer segmentation, etc. Does that count? Or is it viewed more as "code helpers" on the dev side.