There are more demos at every Steam Next Fest, but Miffy has lost the desire to wade through the flood of AI titles.
The Steam Next Fest is actually a really cool thing. Small developers get the chance to promote their games, players can try out tons of titles for free, and we at GlobalESportNews can report on games you haven’t already seen 200 times.
That’s why I usually look forward to the Steam Next Fest with great anticipation. Sometimes I get to try out games on my wishlist and recommend them to you, but other times I discover completely new things. The latter, however, is becoming increasingly difficult with every Next Fest, and there’s only one reason for that: AI slop.
My Problem with Generative AI in Games
I don’t demonize generative AI outright. There are certainly areas of application where it’s very useful, including for my work. This primarily includes things like creating and summarizing transcripts and assisting with research. But when it comes to creating things and being creative, I want GenAI to be somewhere on a diesel-powered cruise ship beyond the polar ice caps—far, far away from me.
Just like the articles you’re reading here on GlobalESportNews.de, I believe that images, videos, and games should also be made by hand. I want to admire the artists and developers for what they’ve created and brought to life through hard work and passion.
So when I see one AI-generated piece of artwork after another on the Next Fest website, it turns my stomach. Where people used to put thought into how best to present their game, there are now soulless, run-of-the-mill images that blur together into a mass in my mind. This makes me doubt developers’ respect for their own game. And yes, I know: human graphic designers are expensive. But in my eyes, they’re definitely worth the investment.
Because even if GenAI is “only” used on the game’s store page, it instantly kills my interest in the game. And I’m by no means the only one.
Even if the AI content disclosure at the bottom of the page explicitly states that there is no GenAI in the game itself: Who’s to say that’s actually true? We simply don’t know how strictly Steam checks games for this.
By the way, I’m also aware that asset flips and shovelware were already a major problem in the gaming market before the AI boom. But AI is currently causing this segment to grow to unimaginable proportions.
10,000 game demos—but at what cost?
As early as the last Next Fest in June, Steam users were voicing outrage in online forums about how dominant games with obvious AI components have become. Even then, I could understand the outrage, but I was determined to focus on the positive aspects.
Games like the laid-back Over the Hill or the artillery simulation Iron Nest managed to win over countless players with their demos and can now look back on a truly strong launch. Over the Hill has secured an overall rating of 92 percent on Steam based on 2,700 reviews, while Iron Nest has even reached 97 percent based on more than 14,500 reviews
What I’m trying to say is: Steam Next Fest is great, but it’s getting harder and harder to even see how great it is. With every edition of the festival, the number of featured demos increases—but unfortunately, so does the number of titles that use AI in some form.
SteamDB is a good way to gauge just how big the AI trend really is at Steam Next Fest. According to the overview, this time around around 10,000 titles are participating in the event. If you filter this list by the “AI Content Disclosed” parameter—that is, games that indicate they use AI content—you end up with a total of 3,656. This tag is assigned by SteamDB as soon as a game discloses the relevant content. There is no such tag on Steam itself.
My Wish for Steam
So what good does it do me that the number of participating demos keeps rising if I have to dig deeper and deeper to find the games that truly deserve my attention? In my opinion, Steam needs to finally take decisive action here. Even though developers have to fill out questionnaires when submitting their games, there’s no guarantee that their information is accurate.
What’s missing is at least one user-independent tag that allows you to hide games and demos containing AI content right in the launcher itself. That way, people like me could at least set the problem aside while browsing Next Fest. On top of that, it would also make it easier for me to find promising hidden gems that I can recommend to you.
