There’s a bit of a battle going on right now in the world of video games, and beyond that has gotten many people in a huff. We’re specifically talking about the rise of AI-generated art. At first, the programs that made AI art were either for fun, to see what you could create and show to friends, or to showcase how quickly the AI could do the art. It was harmless. But then, people started using it for things that didn’t make it so harmless, including ripping off art on the web, which Valve, among others, took offense to.
With the rise of AI art, writing, and more, people have had to take stances against that kind of “creative process” to maintain the “integrity” of gaming and other practices. Over on Steam, games that heavily featured AI art had been rejected by Valve, leaving many to feel that they had taken a hard stance against anything to do with that kind of AI on their platform.
However, the company later sent a message to VGC and noted that it wasn’t so much a “hard stance” as it was following the rules of copyright law. They want to make sure things are done legally but aren’t necessarily against AI-made games to a certain extent:
“We are continuing to learn about AI, the ways it can be used in game development, and how to factor it in to our process for reviewing games submitted for distribution on Steam,” it wrote. “Our priority, as always, is to try to ship as many of the titles we receive as we can. The introduction of AI can sometimes make it harder to show a developer has sufficient rights in using AI to create assets, including images, text, and music.”
They further went on to note that their “review policies” reflect the copyright laws that exist in the world. That means you need to be able to show where you got the art, music, and other assets from, and if it involves AI, it could be a copyright violation, which they don’t want to deal with on their platform.
So what does this mean in the long run? Well, it means that Valve will want to protect those whose artwork and other properties have been stolen, but they’re not fully opposed to AI being used to help make games on a larger scale.
They’re being patient, and that’s not a bad stance to take.
