In a recent interview with PC Gamer, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney once again spoke out about Valve's mandatory disclosure policy for generative AI on the Steam platform, criticizing this approach as "extremely irresponsible" and believing that it makes developers' chances of success "much smaller and more difficult."
According to previous reports, Valve requires that games that use generative AI during development or distribution must be clearly marked on the Steam store page. This is regarded as an "AI usage notification" measure for players. Sweeney has publicly stated before that this approach "makes no sense for game stores," and this time he further elaborated on his position in a new interview. At the same time, Epic's own Unreal Engine 5.8 and the upcoming Unreal Engine 6 will add more new features related to generative AI, highlighting the company's vigorous push to implement AI tools in the game development pipeline.
Sweeney said in the interview that the controversy surrounding AI images and AI content is largely a public relations war. He believes that there is currently no realistic solution for "making a complete game by entering a line of prompts". What is more important is the integration and adaptation of traditional tool chains and AI auxiliary tools. He revealed that Epic's internal art team is already using generative AI to "reduce tedious chores" such as some repetitive, time-consuming aspects of 3D modeling and texture production.
In his view, prohibiting developers from using productivity-enhancing tools is completely incompatible with the current situation of the entire industry. For example, Sweeney said that when making a certain in-game prop, you don't necessarily need to spend a huge budget to model it from scratch. "You may spend a million dollars to build a model of a flower pot in order to make the most exquisite flower pot in human history, but you can also use a high-resolution camera to scan the real flower pot." He emphasized that the real value does not lie in "that perfect flower pot" but "in building the scene, building the game, and building the narrative."
It is under this logic that he believes that the application of AI can substantially reduce the production costs of games and game assets, but Steam's AI disclosure system has pushed many developers into a "very disadvantageous position." Sweeney said that if developers want their games to get the widest possible exposure, they almost have to log on to Steam, but what comes with it is being marked with a "scarlet letter" of AI use on the product page, which in his eyes is like an "indictment" or "mark of shame."
He pointed out that once a game is marked as using AI on the Steam page, it is likely to encounter a wave of "AI-hating communities" who will collectively try to "kill" the work through negative reviews or public criticism, which greatly increases the developer's business risks. Based on this, he directly called Valve's AI disclosure policy "extremely irresponsible", believing that it will greatly reduce the opportunities for many small and medium-sized teams and independent developers to stand out in the market.
Sweeney's views come after an analysis of the sales performance of AI games on Steam showed that games flagged as using generative AI could have sales up to 53% lower. This confirms his judgment that "players' wariness of AI will be converted into actual purchasing behavior." However, the same analysis also pointed out that when AI is used by large studios, player backlash tends to be more intense, and such works are more likely to encounter negative feedback in reviews.
In addition to statistics, there have been many cases of controversy surrounding AI art and development processes in the industry. The report mentioned that after some successful games were found to use AI to generate materials (whether final assets or intermediate resources in the development process), they triggered a strong backlash from the player community, forcing the relevant manufacturers to publicly apologize or provide explanations. Several independent game developers have also spoken out against the use of generative AI in game art, including teams such as Pocketpair, the developer of "Pallu", and Fireshine Games, the publisher of the indie hit "Far Far West."
On the other hand, the development team of "Vampire Survivors" recently announced that they will re-evaluate their partnership with "Fortnite" because Epic showed a "highly dependent on AI development process" promotion content on social media. This reflects that even developers who cooperate with Epic may be wary of their AI strategies. These cases reflect the current highly differentiated attitude towards AI in the game industry: On one side, large companies are promoting the AI-based tool chain, while on the other side, many developers are worried that creative work will be diluted and player trust will be damaged.
Although he continues to defend AI in his public remarks, Sweeney does not agree with the idea that AI can replace artists. He emphasized in the interview, "You can't just give the computer a prompt word and let it spit out a grid model and get an excellent work of art." "Excellent art comes from excellent artists, who will use all the tools at hand to complete the work." In this statement, he tried to position AI as a tool to improve efficiency, rather than the ultimate solution to replace the creative subject.