Valve Acknowledges AI Slop and Cloning on Steam, Rules Out Tool Gatekeeping

Valve representatives Tom Giardino and Marc Wilkinson acknowledged at the Steam Indie Connect event in Busan, South Korea, that low-effort AI-generated games and cloning are problems on Steam, according to pcgamer.com. Both said the company is not prepared to act as a gatekeeper over which development tools studios use.

Giardino said Valve does not want to tell developers which tools to work with. Instead, he suggested that developers protect their work by building a community and continually adding features, personality and creativity, rather than leaning on a single mechanic.

Wilkinson addressed how Steam surfaces games during Steam Next Fest, saying the platform shows titles almost randomly during the first two days before switching to personalized recommendations. He acknowledged that some low-quality games gain exposure as a trade-off, and said many people at Valve are thinking about how to solve the problem.

Giardino said Valve prefers making Steam a smarter, more dynamic platform over limiting developer access, while conceding there is room for improvement. The article also cites a report of at least one developer receiving extortion threats to clone their game with AI and release it first.

Developers call for vetting tools

Digital Suns Games cancelled a planned Moonlighter demo on Steam over worries it would be cloned, and the studio's Israel Mallén suggested storefronts give developers more tools to vet access to pre-release builds. According to a SteamDB chart cited in the article, nearly 23,000 games have been released on Steam in 2026 so far.