Steam Next Fest is on for PC right now, and this event has really highlighted a new trend in the community about AI in game development. A browser extension made by @MurphyObv now identifies games that mention AI with a red tag in Steam Next Fest’s demo feed. This new extension has stirred up a bit of controversy in the gaming community, as the way these games are tagged is rather blunt and often miss the point entirely.
Community tool flags all AI mentions in red during Steam Next Fest
This is important because consumers are using these tags to weed out low quality content. The tagging method current in place is a bit nonsensical, as all mentions of AI are bundled together, regardless of how it’s used.
This extension is aimed at games in the Steam Next Fest demo feed. This demo feed is where devs show off upcoming games to get feedback from players. The extension looks for any mention of AI in the game description or developer comments.
If an AI mention is found, the game is tagged in red to notify players. While this is simple to implement, it doesn’t account for varying uses of AI. Games using AI for simple processes like testing or even localization get tagged along with games that were just built from AI models.
The main issue here is that this tagging method is so black and white. The extension will tag any game where the author mentioned AI, no matter the quality or amount of use. This can result in games that are using AI for some small part of backend processes getting the same treatment as games that are mostly using generative AI models.
Players are reporting this being a big point of confusion in the demo feed. You don’t know what kind of AI is used, or how much of the game is based in AI.
The problem with the current solution, as some are arguing, is that it’s lumping everything together. As one article author put it, any game where authors mentioned AI was under attack. So these tags seem to be pretty hard to get through.
The same author said there’s one major problem with the current solution. And that’s that it tags all AI mentioned games in red. But at the same time, not all AI games are considered low quality “neural slop”.
This is important. Some dev’s are using AI in a responsible way to improve their processes without sacrificing their game.
Source: IXBT
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