Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney criticized Valve for continuing to mandate AI disclosures for games sold on Steam, calling the policy "abhorrent" following his company's full-throated endorsement of gen AI in game development.
"Forcing developers to write a political statement to be used against them by the hate mob they’re helping organize is abhorrent," says Sweeney.
Steam's AI disclosures require devs who use generative AI in their games to spell out how it was used. For example, the disclosure for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 reads, "Our team uses generative AI tools to help develop some in game assets."
As early as November 2025, Sweeney was campaigning against AI disclosures for games and calling Valve's approach nonsensical in a world where "AI will be involved in nearly all future production."
This past June, he doubled down, comparing Steam's AI disclosures to a "Scarlet Letter" and insisting that they make it "much, much, much harder for a game developer to have a chance of success."
Sweeney's latest message was posted as a reply to a comment from Matt Workman, whose Twitter bio says he works in "Content & Vibes" at "generative media cloud" Fal. Workman argues that "the premise of an AI Generated Content Disclosure is ABSURD in 2026, truly embarrassing [for] Valve and Steam," and Sweeney is clearly in his corner.
This month, Epic Games and Sweeney have been especially vocal about generative AI in games and in game development. "We vibe coded the Epic Games Launcher," the company said of its reworked PC storefront last week.
Just yesterday, Epic announced an Unreal Engine game jam – an event where participants make games very quickly – that initially required AI usage and promised access to unlimited agentic support. Epic has walked that back, now saying, "you can use as little or as much AI as you want."
In the background, Steam users have been picking through a Steam Next Fest demo showcase that saw more AI-aided games than ever, and nearly double the total demo volume of the June 2026 event. Once Steam's recommendation algorithms kicked in, all the AI slop quickly sank to the bottom of the charts, but an influx of AI games has only made game stores more cluttered.
Meanwhile, some people are using AI to clone trending games in record time, with viral hits getting copied almost overnight and game developers canceling their own demos to make it harder to rip them off.
Sweeney's most recent comments have, predictably, kicked up two common counterarguments in the replies. If AI is so great, why do you want to hide it? And if the answer is, 'Because some people hate it,' why do they hate it?
This, I think, starts to color in the "hate mob" that Sweeney alludes to but does not define – at least not in a way that stops it from applying it to everyone opposed or resistant to AI. So, why would people push back on gen AI in games or want to see it called out in a store disclosure? Dozens of developers and experts have made the case to GamesRadar+.
Legally, it's a landmine. Creatively, it can hollow out essential processes. And ethically, AI providers have yet to address the tech's environmental impacts or the wealth of stolen material that their tools were trained on. To top it off, it's a famously unprofitable industry led by companies skirting by on outsized, speculative valuations in a top-heavy market that's just begging for a correction. So far, those companies have mostly succeeded in destroying the consumer market for a lot of hardware and poisoning the well for a lot of software, hurting peoples' leisure and hobbies during a cost of living crisis.
In games, much of the criticism of AI leans toward the generation of art, music, and similar assets. More developers seem to accept it as a programming boon, and AI is generally more accepted in Asian game markets than in the West (though many studios oppose it globally). Yet even if you want to argue that programming is just machine-assisted now – as even Valve co-founder Gabe Newell does, and then some – it's not hard to see why people want AI kept on a leash. (Deadlock devs are also using AI but, curiously, not nailing their entire brand to it.)
Heck, just look at Steam's updated AI disclosure terms, which read: "As an aside, AI in games is rapidly evolving and we want to get it right. Many artists and creators are rightfully concerned about exploitation and misuse. But we also realize that technology and tools are going to change a bunch over the years, and there are lots of creative game developers out there figuring out ways to ethically use AI to make great entertainment. If you plan to release a product on Steam and you think we're overlooking something important in regard to AI, we'd love to hear from you."
The backlash against gen AI in video games proves voting with your wallet works.
