Coded Vibes

Steam And The Rise Of A.I. Slop

In late October, Valve Corporation stirred up the ire of internauters with what some interpreted to be a non response pertaining to the rise of A.I. generated games on their platform. At a conference with developers at the ‘Steam Indie Connect’ in South Korea, Valve’s representatives advised video game developers to expend their resources building their communities and continuously improving their offerings. A task that many vibe coded games and their developers may not be able to accomplish in any meaningful capacity. One would assume that this was common sense. However, this did not sate the thirst of online masses who are baying for the blood of any who take even mildly positive positions on generative A.I. and its usage within the video game industry. Shortly after news of the conference and Valve’s response broached the mainstream, townsfolk of The Great Republic sharpened their pitchforks and knives and took to the information superhighway to voice their displeasure. Even the well respected industry analyst, Matt Piscatella, voiced his frustration at the response. 

...townsfolk of The Great Republic sharpened their pitchforks and knives and took to the information superhighway to voice their displeasure.

While the frustration is understandable on the part of many independent and smaller developers, outright bans on A.I. generated content as suggested by some is not a solution and an incredibly dark path to follow. While Steam can take steps to mitigate over-saturation of the market with low quality content, ultimately, great quality sells products. Steam cannot and should not take the position of being the arbiter of what constitutes as a high quality product and what does not. That should be left up to its users. The greatest tool Valve has given developers is the community feedback page. Every legitimate purchaser has a right and a forum to voice their praise or frustrations about any product purchased. In fact, the number of hours put in playing a particular title is often visible to the public on the comments posted. Perhaps, it may be worthwhile to enable users to filter content based on their preferences. However, as A.I. usage is rampant in the video game industry this may not be very helpful as different developers use generative A.I. and other A.I. tools in varying degrees. However, low quality “slop” is often self evident. 

Some developers have expressed fear at having their work stolen and replicated with minimal effort. While a very strong possibility, especially with the advent of A.I. decompilation, copyright laws and patent laws exist for this very reason. In such cases, Valve much like any other platform follows the DMCA guidelines. Content suspected or is alleged to have infringed copyright laws is often pulled down by platform holders then reinstated/permanently taken off once the dispute has been resolved. It is worth noting that vocal corners of the gaming republic have been extremely loud about the patenting of gameplay mechanics. WB’s ‘Nemesis System’ comes to mind. Whenever a “vibe coder” decompiles and replicates gameplay mechanics they haven’t necessarily recreated the original game. The conceptual idea, artwork, script, and more still remain solely with the original creator free to iterate and ideate as they please. 

However video games have the innate advantage of being pieces of art.

As an analogy, the rise of cheaper Chinese knockoffs in the naughties and 2010s had many manufacturers see their marketshare undercut from them by poor alternatives that flooded the marketplace. Often produced at unsustainable margins that made it harder for the original manufacturers to compete. While these knockoffs saturated the market, original products retained their value and place. Video games have the innate advantage of being pieces of art. While they thrive on gameplay, the gameplay often serves a narrative purpose. This can’t be easily replicated without understanding the original game makers intent. Each story path has to lead somewhere and each gameplay mechanic has to serve a purpose in the broader narrative. “A.I. Slop” games may have the look of said art but their artistry is only surface deep. Mere imitations and not really true competition. Worthless junk that may in the interim clutter the marketplace but inadvertently elevate gems that virtually glow in the dark.

Video companion piece here.

Image credits in order of appearance: Image by Michael Hourigan from Pixabay; Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay