[STEAM] 'Why Stop at AI Use? We Could Have Mandatory Disclosures for What Shampoo Brand the Developer Uses' — Epic Boss Tim Sweeney Says Steam Should Ditch Its AI Generated Content Disclosure

[Steam 0]

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As the debate around the use of generative AI to build video games rages on, Tim Sweeney, boss of Fortnite developer Epic Games, has waded in to call on Valve to ditch its AI Generated Content Disclosure for Steam games.

Valve’s rules mean developers must disclose their use of AI-generated content on a game’s Steam store page. For example, the Steam page for Embark Studios’ Arc Raiders includes a note from the developer on how the game uses AI-generated content: “during the development process, we may use procedural- and AI-based tools to assist with content creation. In all such cases, the final product reflects the creativity and expression of our own development team.”

Activision’s Call of Duty also includes an AI disclosure: “our team uses generative AI tools to help develop some in game assets.”

Sweeney, though, believes there’s no point in having such disclosures because pretty much all video games will use AI. Responding to one X /

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user who called on Steam and all digital marketplaces to drop the “Made with AI” label because “it doesn’t matter any more,” Sweeney agreed, adding: “the AI tag is relevant to art exhibits for authorship disclosure, and to digital content licensing marketplaces where buyers need to understand the rights situation. It makes no sense for game stores, where AI will be involved in nearly all future production.”

Sweeney’s tweet has sparked much debate about the rights and wrongs of Steam’s policy here. While Sweeney may be right to say the use of generative AI during video game development is becoming more prevalent, some say removing AI disclosures would make it harder for some customers to make informed purchasing decisions.

Activision was dragged into this debate recently when Call of Duty: ****** Ops 7 players

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, primarily focusing on calling card images with a Studio Ghibli-esque styling, following

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. A member of U.S. Congress subsequently called Activision out,

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I havent really looked at the Multiplayer and Zombie calling cards as closely and im willing to bet they're using ai on those too but its only the Campaign and endgame calling cards that are this type of blatant Sora/Grok artstyle

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— Kume (@Kumesicles)

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In the case of art — particularly art sold in premium bundles or battle passes — it seems reasonable to expect a generative AI disclosure to help inform customers about their purchasing decisions. But this is not backed up by law, and Valve is enforcing this policy because it believes it is the right thing to do. And it's worth point out that using generative AI to make in-game art and selling it to gamers is of course different to the use of AI in, say, NPC behavior or animation work — something that has been a part of video game development for years.

The ever chatty Tim Sweeney then used shampoo to reinforce his point in a response to another tweet — although, as many have pointed out, letting customers know about shampoo isn’t quite the same thing as, say, letting them know they've replaced artists with AI-generated slop trained on their work.

Why stop at AI use? We could have mandatory disclosures for what shampoo brand the developer uses. Customers deserve to know lol.

— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic)

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It's no surprise to see Sweeney take this position on AI, given Fortnite's extensive use of the technology. Over the summer, Epic released AI Darth Vader into

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and announced plans to let people create their own AI NPCs. The original Darth Vader was voiced by James Earl Jones,

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at the age of 93. The AI version of his voice, powered by

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's Gemini 2.0 Flash model and ElevenLabs' Flash v2.5, was used with the Jones family's permission. Within an hour of the feature going live,

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. Epic soon patched it out.

Speaking to IGN in June,

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. "AI characters giving you the possibility of infinite dialogue with a really simple setup for creators means small teams will be able to create games with immense amounts of characters and immense and interactive worlds," he said. "What would it take for a 10-person team to build a game like Zelda Breath of the Wild in which the AI is just doing all the dialogue and you're just writing some character synopsis? That's totally going to be within reach over the next few years.”

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Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on

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at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at *****@*****.tld.

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