Valve knows Steam has a clone problem. It just doesn't plan to stop developers using AI to make games, and it isn't announcing new rules to deal with the copies.
That's the short version of a Q&A two members of Valve's Steam business team, Tom Giardino and Marc Wilkinson, gave Korean developers at a Steam Indie Connect event in Busan, South Korea. VGC reports the session took place on Tuesday. There's no Valve blog post or official statement behind this story: the quotes come from a transcription by Korean outlet Inven, which we couldn't check directly. Everything below is attributed to PC Gamer, VGC and Game Developer, the outlets that reported it.
What Valve said about AI and clones
The headline quote, as reported by all three outlets: "We don't want to be gatekeepers telling developers which tools they should or shouldn't use." According to VGC, Giardino framed AI use as a decision for each developer to make.
The darker part of the session was about cloning. PC Gamer reports that at least one developer described an extortion threat, quoted as "If you don't pay, we'll clone your game with AI and release it first," and Game Developer also reports the emailed threat. VGC says Giardino told the room Valve would look into such cases if they were reported, but stressed that extortion is more a matter for law enforcement.
His advice to developers worried about copycats was to build something harder to copy. "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," he said, as quoted by both PC Gamer and VGC. He also pointed out, per PC Gamer, that games were being cloned long before AI arrived, just more slowly. According to VGC, Steam generally focuses less on removing copies and more on giving weight and discoverability to the original.
Game Developer was blunter in its framing: Valve is placing the onus on developers to protect themselves, not taking action itself.
Why Next Fest feels like a slot machine at first
The other complaint was about Steam Next Fest, the regular demo festival that has become a showcase for small games and, lately, a magnet for low-effort ones. VGC reports a developer at the session said their game saw poor engagement in the last Next Fest and that players online were grumbling about how many low-quality games dominated it.
Wilkinson's answer explains something a lot of players have probably noticed without knowing why. According to both outlets, for the first two days of Next Fest Steam shows games to players more or less at random. Only after that do personalized recommendations kick in, surfacing games each player is more likely to enjoy. VGC reports the randomness is there to give every developer a fair shot at visibility and to stop developers gaming the system by entering early.
The catch is obvious, and Wilkinson named it himself: "We recognize that the trade-off is some low-quality games get exposed." He added, per both outlets, "We are fully aware of the situation, and a significant number of people are thinking about how to solve this problem."
So if your first scroll through a Next Fest felt like a lucky dip with a lot of duds, that's partly by design. Coming back after day two is when Steam starts sorting by taste.
No policy change, at least not yet
Nothing announced at the session changes how Steam works today. PC Gamer notes that one developer, Israel Mallén of Digital Suns Games, had previously suggested storefronts give developers tools to vet who gets pre-release access, such as account age, playtime or review history, but says changes of that sort don't sound imminent. Giardino's own summary, as reported by VGC and PC Gamer: "there's plenty of room for improvement," but "rather than limiting developer access, making Steam a smarter and more dynamic platform is the starting point of our philosophy."
VGC adds that Giardino pointed to history: when Steam Greenlight launched 14 years ago, and again when self-publishing through Steam Direct arrived, people asked to filter out the new wave of games. Each time, he said, Valve's aim was to improve the store so better games rise, not to filter out bad ones.
The scale of the problem is real. PC Gamer, citing SteamDB, says nearly 23,000 games have been released on Steam in 2026 so far. For players, the practical upshot is that discovery is still Steam's job and filtering is still largely yours. For small developers, Valve's message is to build a community early and keep growing the game.
Riley's take: "Make your game harder to clone" is sensible advice and a slightly awkward answer to someone who's just been sent a ransom note. Valve's random-first Next Fest design is fair in theory, but when the random pile is this big, a fair shot can feel a lot like a lottery ticket.
Reporting notes