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It would appear that Valve is now banning games on Steam that are using any assets made via AI, like art, text, and more.
PSA: Valve has been quietly banning newly submitted Steam games using AI-created art assets – if submitters can't prove they have rights for the assets used to train the algorithms: https://t.co/WhWpJpaFjl pic.twitter.com/5KhzJESYxk
— Simon Carless (@simoncarless) June 29, 2023
Simon Carless, an industry veteran and founder of GameDiscoverCo, found a post on Reddit's r/aigamedev. The post, posted by user u/potterharry97, mentioned that they “tried to release a game about a month ago.” Said game had “a few assets that were fairly obviously AI generated.” According to them, they did this because they just wanted to submit “a rougher version of the game.” As such, they put in “2-3 assets/sprites that were admittedly obviously AI generated.” However, Steam messaged them back regarding the said game. They said that they “cannot ship games for which the developer does not have all the necessary rights.”
One section in the message went in-depth on Valve's stance on AI-generated assets:
After reviewing, we have identified intellectual property in [Game Name Here] which appears to belongs to one or more third parties. In particular, [Game Name Here] contains art assets generated by artificial intelligence that appears to be relying on copyrighted material owned by third parties. As the legal ownership of such AI-generated art is unclear, we cannot ship your game while it contains these AI-generated assets, unless you can affirmatively confirm that you own the rights to all of the IP used in the data set that trained the AI to create the assets in your game.
This is in reference to how AI generation works. Modern artificial intelligence is “trained”, that is, large amounts of data are inputted into them. This training teaches the AI everything it needs to accomplish its task. For example, the user can input a large number of labeled images (based on their contents or appearance) into the AI, which can then generate an image based on the parameters the user wants. The problem with this comes from the data inputted into the AI. An ongoing controversy in the AI world is that users have been training their AI using images, art, photos, or text that they do not have a copyright for.
This is likely what Steam meant when the developer “does not have all of the necessary rights” for a game. The developers must prove to them that they own all of the assets in the game. This, apparently, now includes the data set the developer used to train their AI that makes assets for the game. Potterharry97, after receiving the message from Valve, decided to improve the assets he used so that “there were no longer any obvious signs of AI”.
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However, after resubmitting the game, Valve still did not publish the game, giving potterharry97 the following explanation:
Thank you for your patience as we reviewed [Game Name Here] and took our time to better understand the AI tech used to create it. Again, while we strive to ship most titles submitted to us, we cannot ship games for which the developer does not have all of the necessary rights. At this time, we are declining to distribute your game since it’s unclear if the underlying AI tech used to create the assets has sufficient rights to the training data.
The user wrote in his post that it appears that Valve “doesn't really have a standard approach” when it comes to games on Steam that use AI art and assets. In fact, they brought up that they have seen “several games up that even explicitly mention the use of AI.” They then told other developers to “be wary” of Valve's policies regarding AI generated assets in games.
Reactions to the post are a mixed bag, to say the least. Some of the commenters weren't sure about the authenticity of the post, which led to the user posting screenshots of the messages from Steam. Others were saying that this was “a bunch of BS”, stating that this should be a “case-by-case basis, not a blanket ban.” Yet others were talking about copyright laws, and how it's only normal that Steam would be weary of any AI-generated assets like art thanks to it.
The legality of AI-generated assets is still an ongoing debate in modern times and likely will continue to be one for quite some time. While it is true that this groundbreaking technology, it's still a gray area thanks to data sets used to train these programs. Until these debates are put to rest, we will likely keep seeing cases like this happening.
That's all the information we have regarding Valve banning games with AI-generated assets on Steam. Check out our gaming news articles for the latest in gaming news.
