Well shit…
Those disclosures will be shared on the Steam store pages for these games, which should help players who want to avoid certain types of AI content.
I mean, this is better than most places.
I wouldn’t be surprised if, in just a few years time, pre-AI-era content of all kinds, not just games, ends up becoming cherished by people, to the point that entire fandoms and subcultures develop around preserving and promoting it.
Reminds me of how many early indie games relied on procedural generation but people got tired of it over time.
Plenty of games still rely on procedural generation to different degrees. It’s a huge selling point in many cases, and in others, it’s a pillar of their genre.
This is no different than anything else, we naturally appreciate the skill it takes to create something entirely by hand, even if mass production is available.
I feel like this is different. Even something mass produced using machinery used to be always designed by a human in the end.
It’s not like they can really avoid it. AI assisted tools will become a standard in the future (“productivity has to go up” after all) and there’s a good chance Valve already received some feedback from AAA publishers on that matter, since they’ll be the main players utilizing such tech.
The good thing here is the exsitance of a disclaimer on store pages, as it will allow people to decide for themselves, and the ability to report content straight from in-game overlay.
Full on ban was never a realistic option.
I’ll add that a blanket ban isn’t necessarily a positive thing, either. AI could be a component of developing unique NPCs, evolving bosses, changing economies, missions/quests, or procedurally generated levels (for example).
Obviously, at least some of that content would still need to pass human play testing, so it’s not like humans would be completely removed, but imagine if players had gameplay experiences that were entirely unique to them or changed based on non-RNG factors.
I agree, though, that reporting the use of AI and how it’s utilized is important for people to make informed decisions about how they spend their money.
Oh, totally. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.
Personally I’d love to see a new take on Daggerfall using AI for features you mentioned (though it would have to be an “all in” affair as Bethesda’s approach to randomly generated content these days is… not particularly impressive).
I was imagining Oblivion with AI elements, but yeah! Open world RPGs seem particularly suited to this kind of thing.
You could probably make a case that Oblivion already has AI elements. It just wasn’t advertised as the type of “AI” available now.
I mean it doesn’t matter how a game gets made to me if it’s great. If there are a huge pile of shitty games, I just won’t engage. Same as it ever was.
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Those disclosures will be shared on the Steam store pages for these games, which should help players who want to avoid certain types of AI content.
But disclosure will not be sufficient for games that use live-generated AI for “Adult Only Sexual Content,” which Valve says it is “unable to release… right now.”
The status of those training models was a primary concern for Valve last summer when the company cited the “legal uncertainty relating to data used to train AI models,” but such concerns don’t even merit a mention in today’s new policies.
Over the last year or so, many game developers have started to embrace a variety of AI tools in the creation of everything from background art and NPC dialogue to motion capture and voice generation.
But some developers have taken a hardline stance against anything that could supplant the role of humans in game making.
“We don’t ban games for using new technologies,” Sweeney wrote on social media.
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I would love to have NPCs have conversational AI.
@PerogiBoi @jherazob it would be interesting but require a lot of development to make sure the NPCs either didn’t know about spoiler information which may break the plot or don’t just hallucinate answers, which may mislead the player.
“How do you get through the haunted forest?” “You need x item to get through the haunted forest” “are you sure?” “Yes thats how heros get through the forest” the item in question doesn’t even exist in the game or has no bearing on the quest.
That isn’t the same as “made with AI tools”
As much as I don’t like it (I think art should be something hand crafted by humans) nothing Valve can do. It would take an insane amount of resources to vet all these AI games coming.
