On October 27, 2026, Valve's Steam business team faced Korean developers at the Steam Indie Connect event in Busan, co-hosted with the Busan Indie Connect Festival committee and Korea Creative Content Agency.

Tom Giardino and Marc Wilkinson took the stage while Matt from the localization team joined the Q&A.

The session was Valve's most direct reply yet to the protests over AI-made games and clones that erupted around October's Next Fest, and the message was blunt: Steam will not police the tools developers use, artificial intelligence included.

The line that made the rounds was Giardino's: Valve does not want to act as a gatekeeper telling developers which tools they should or shouldn't use. There is no ban on AI-made games, no announced filter to hide them, and no tightening of demo access.

According to Pasquale Pillitteri's report, Wilkinson added that a significant number of people at Valve are working on the problem, without naming a solution or a date.

Since 2024 Steam has required developers to disclose generative AI that reaches players, a rule rewritten in January 2026 to exclude development tools like coding assistants.

The clone discussion began with concrete threats. A developer said indie studios have received extortion emails warning, in effect, that if they don't pay, their game will be copied with AI and released first.

Giardino said he was hearing about such cases for the first time and expressed regret. He called extortion a matter for law enforcement rather than a gaming platform, but said Valve wants cases reported so it can look in and help how it can.

Inven Global reconstructed three reports between late September and mid-October, all demanding $200, one of them doubted by the community as a possible wishlist stunt.

Giardino's prescription, as heise online reports, is to build a loyal community and ship regular updates. Clones existed long before AI, he argued — chasing demos at Next Fest and trend-chasing are old phenomena — AI has simply accelerated the pace.

A single mechanic is easy to copy, but features, personality and creativity added continuously through updates are not. He compared it to Valve's anti-piracy philosophy: instead of aggressive DRM, make the legitimate product the best version available.

That trust, he cautioned, takes time and alone is not enough.

On the flood of low-quality AI games at October's Next Fest, Wilkinson explained that during the first two days demos are shown to players virtually at random, with personalized recommendations only kicking in afterward.

Many complaints, he said, were written based solely on what was seen in those first two days. The randomness exists to prevent gaming of the system and give every game a fair chance, a trade-off that deliberately exposes some weak games.

Giardino noted the pendulum has swung: three years ago Valve begged studios to join a 50-to-100-title event, and now sign-ups run into the thousands.

For players, little changes today: there is no AI filter, so avoiding AI games means manually checking the AI Generated Content Disclosure section on each store page, knowing the notices are self-declared.

For developers, the stakes are heavier — Digital Suns Games canceled a Moonlighter demo for fear of clones, and YNOT pulled the Spookitchen demo shortly before Next Fest after learning of an AI clone, according to Inven Global and heise.

Giardino acknowledged there is plenty of room for improvement, but Valve's philosophy remains making Steam smarter rather than restricting access.