AI Generated games

[Prophecy]

Seems Steam won't accept games built using AI. Thats a huge win for artists

https://www.reddit.com/r/aigamedev/comments/142j3yt/valve_is_not_willing_to_publish_games_with_ai/

Hey all,

I tried to release a game about a month ago, with a few assets that were fairly obviously AI generated. My plan was to just submit a rougher version of the game, with 2-3 assets/sprites that were admittedly obviously AI generated from the hands, and to improve them prior to actually releasing the game as I wasn't aware Steam had any issues with AI generated art. I received this message

Hello,

While we strive to ship most titles submitted to us, we cannot ship games for which the developer does not have all of the necessary rights.

After reviewing, we have identified intellectual property in [Game Name Here] which appears to belongs to one or more third parties. In particular, [Game Name Here] contains art assets generated by artificial intelligence that appears to be relying on copyrighted material owned by third parties. As the legal ownership of such AI-generated art is unclear, we cannot ship your game while it contains these AI-generated assets, unless you can affirmatively confirm that you own the rights to all of the IP used in the data set that trained the AI to create the assets in your game.

We are failing your build and will give you one (1) opportunity to remove all content that you do not have the rights to from your build.

If you fail to remove all such content, we will not be able to ship your game on Steam, and this app will be banned.

I improved those pieces by hand, so there were no longer any obvious signs of AI, but my app was probably already flagged for AI generated content, so even after resubmitting it, my app was rejected.

�

Hello,

Thank you for your patience as we reviewed [Game Name Here] and took our time to better understand the AI tech used to create it. Again, while we strive to ship most titles submitted to us, we cannot ship games for which the developer does not have all of the necessary rights. At this time, we are declining to distribute your game since it's unclear if the underlying AI tech used to create the assets has sufficient rights to the training data.

App credits are usually non-refundable, but we'd like to make an exception here and offer you a refund. Please confirm and we'll proceed.

Thanks,

It took them over a week to provide this verdict, while previous games I've released have been approved within a day or two, so it seems like Valve doesn't really have a standard approach to AI generated games yet, and I've seen several games up that even explicitly mention the use of AI. But at the moment at least, they seem wary, and not willing to publish AI generated content, so I guess for any other devs on here, be wary of that. I'll try itch io and see if they have any issues with AI generated games.

[Arthfach]

The thing about this to me is simple: It's an extension of copyright. As folks (should) know, most available AI image generators were trained on copyrighted materials, like images uploaded to galleries. And because image generators don't learn in the same way humans do (that is, an AI image generator creates a 1:1 reproduction of the source material in its database - humans literally cannot do that), the question of copyright infringement still stands.

Unfortunately, Japan has ruled that there is no infringement with AI image generation, so I worry that the US and the EU will rule the same way. Still, I suppose we'll see in the future.

[Prophecy]

Unfortunately, Japan has ruled that there is no infringement with AI image generation, so I worry that the US and the EU will rule the same way. Still, I suppose we'll see in the future.

Japan only said its fine with current laws. Anti-AI laws may be coming.

[Arthfach]

Unfortunately, Japan has ruled that there is no infringement with AI image generation, so I worry that the US and the EU will rule the same way. Still, I suppose we'll see in the future.

Japan only said its fine with current laws. Anti-AI laws may be coming.

That's a very good point. I'm hopeful with all these draft laws and regulations in the works that AI is severely curtailed and people have to draw on things they already own to feed to the machines, rather than profiting from others' work.

[Shiloh (Bee System)]

Valve has proven to be good repeatedly, on the side of consumers and indies, so I am not surprised with this verdict.

Itch.io has multiple AI generated games on it already, but all of the games I know about are free; they may not allow them to be charged for.

Either way, positive.

[Arthfach]

Valve has proven to be good repeatedly, on the side of consumers and indies, so I am not surprised with this verdict.

Itch.io has multiple AI generated games on it already, but all of the games I know about are free; they may not allow them to be charged for.

Either way, positive.

That's unfortunate about itch.io allowing AI generated games or games with AI generated content on the platform. I would guess they don't have the same capability to moderate, but still, disappointing.