Steam users will be fully aware that the Steam Next Fest is currently underway, an event that happens a few times every year in which the platform celebrates upcoming games with a flurry of demos. It's often used by smaller developers to showcase their games, and is a great way to find hidden gems of indie titles that you might have otherwise missed.
Unfortunately, the festivities have been somewhat sour this year, mostly thanks to the advent of AI-generated art that is being used to advertise many of the games. For example, I checked Steam Next Fest and the second game displayed was one of those weird shop simulator games with AI art used as a thumbnail.
Steam Next Fest's abundant AI art is annoying users and other devs
Apparently, users and developers of Steam are irritated by Steam's lack of quality control. Palworld's head of publishing and communications said on Twitter (thanks Kotaku) that they “don't feel too compelled to check out demos with AI art capsules”, while No More Robots' Mike Rose called the use of AI art “crazy” on his BlueSky page, and criticized the store.
7 Stylish Boomer Shooters You Should Try From Steam Next Fest
From westerns where you catch bullets to Call of Duty zombies with a heretic spin, these are boomer shoots to try at Steam Next Fest.
Of course, Steam users will probably know that Valve changed its rules to allow developers to disclose the use of AI-generated content in their games, and while it got brownie points at the time, it seems there were little to zero consequences for not doing so, as a Reddit user pointed out in a recent thread discussing the Steam Next Fest' AI flood.
Another user points out that you can easily get rid of AI-generated stuff by filtering by popularity, but points out that this defeats the whole point of Steam Next Fest, and you won't find interesting little indie demos that way. Once again, this is a problem with Steam that directly harms the visibility of indie devs, while bigger and more lucrative titles barely suffer.
As for the rest of the thread, it's literally full of people complaining about the sheer amount of AI-generated art and asset flips that are currently festering at Steam Next Fest, and it's a problem that doesn't really have a solution. We can only hope that Valve steps up at some point and actually does something about AI art in a more meaningful way, but I wouldn't hold your breath for that happening anytime soon.
- brand
-
valve
- Original release date
-
September 12, 2003
- Original MSRP (USD)
-
N/A
- weight
-
N/A
