Valve told developers it has "a significant number" of people working on Steam's discovery mess, but it won't police AI tools. The same week, Epic's boss called Steam a "social walled garden." Here's the full picture.
It’s been a loud week for Steam. Valve answered developers’ complaints about AI-made junk games and copycat clones flooding the store, and Epic CEO Tim Sweeney took another swing at Valve on X. Both stories hit PC players where they shop, so here’s everything in one spot.
What happened at Steam Indie Connect
On October 27, Valve’s Steam Business Team, Tom Giardino and Marc Wilkinson, took questions from Korean developers at the Steam Indie Connect event in Busan, South Korea, as first reported by Inven Global. Two problems came up:
- AI clones and extortion. One developer said indie devs are getting extortion emails that say, in Inven’s translation, “If you don’t pay, we’ll clone your game with AI and release it first.”
- AI slop in Next Fest. Another developer said they took part in the latest Steam Next Fest, got poor engagement, and saw players complaining about the number of low-quality games in the event, per VGC.
What Valve said
On AI tools: Valve isn’t going to ban them. “We don’t want to be gatekeepers telling developers which tools they should or shouldn’t use,” Giardino said, via Inven.
On clones: Giardino said clones existed long before AI, and AI has just sped them up. His advice to devs was to build a real community and keep growing the game: “Rather than relying on a single mechanic that someone can easily copy, you need to keep growing your game by adding features, personality, and creativity that stem from your own perspective.” VGC reports he said Valve would look into extortion cases if they’re reported, but called extortion more of a matter for law enforcement.
On Next Fest: Wilkinson explained that Next Fest shows games at random for the first two days so every developer gets a fair shot, and only then switches on personal recommendations. “We recognize that the trade-off is some low-quality games get exposed,” he said. “We are fully aware of the situation, and a significant number of people are thinking about how to solve this problem.”
On the big picture: Giardino said Valve’s goal has never been to filter out bad games but to make good ones rise. “We don’t think we’re perfect and there’s plenty of room for improvement,” he said. “Rather than limiting developer access, making Steam a smarter and more dynamic platform is the starting point of our philosophy.”
Other Steam news from the same talk
Inven also pulled these numbers and tools from Valve’s presentation:
- Steam recently hit a peak of 43.5 million concurrent users.
- A new Wishlist Data API lets developers pull wishlist data by period, country and language.
- The Personal Calendar, which recommends upcoming games that players with similar taste have wishlisted, moved from a Steam Labs experiment into an official store feature. Games need an official release date to show up in it.
Meanwhile, Tim Sweeney
The same week, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney jumped into an X thread started by Kiaran Ritchie, a former principal animation programmer at Epic, who complained about Steam’s 30% cut, per PC Gamer. Sweeney’s reply:
“Valve has held gaming back for years by locking developers’ PC games into Steamworks’ social walled garden where players can’t talk to other players on iOS, Android, Xbox, […] Switch, or even other PC stores.”
X slapped a community note on it saying many games use Steamworks only for authentication and handle crossplay themselves. Sweeney called the note “fake,” saying Steam Datagram Relay “isn’t related to the things I cited: social, and players talking to each other across platforms.” He later agreed that Valve “doesn’t kidnap you and force you to use Steamworks,” but argued it’s impractical for developers to avoid it.
PCGamesN points out that Valve’s Steam Datagram Relay networking can work across platforms when a game also launches on Steam, but it doesn’t automatically give players cross-platform chat or friends lists. Epic offers its own free Epic Online Services for that, which works outside the Epic Games Store.
OnPoint’s take: Both of these guys have a point, and PC players are the ones stuck in the middle. Valve refusing to gatekeep tools is fine, but “make your game better than the clone” is weak comfort for a small dev getting extortion emails. Steam needs better filters, and it needs them now, because a Next Fest full of junk hurts the good indies most. As for Sweeney, the 30% cut debate is fair, but Steam is still where PC players want their libraries. This is exactly why Xbox’s approach on PC matters: Xbox on PC and PC Game Pass sit right alongside Steam on Windows, giving players another real option instead of one locked front door. More competition on PC is a W for everybody. Let me know in the comments if you’ve noticed the junk on Steam.
Sources
- Inven Global: Valve Responds to Developers Fearing AI Slop and Clones (Oct 27, 2026)
- VGC: Valve has ‘a significant number’ working on Steam’s visibility dilemma but says it won’t gatekeep games made with AI (Oct 28, 2026)
- PC Gamer: Valve admits Steam has an AI slop and cloning problem (Oct 28, 2026)
- PC Gamer: Epic Games chief Tim Sweeney claims ‘Valve has held gaming back for years’ (Oct 28, 2026)
- PCGamesN: Tim Sweeney argues Steam has held gaming back, but Valve’s tools tell a different story (Oct 27, 2026)
Image: OnPoint 4 Gamers illustration
What should Steam do about AI junk games?
Vote and see what other Xbox fans think.
Like having a say? Get OnPoint Weekly or argue it out on Discord.
