Valve has released the list of the ten most played demos from the recent Steam Next Fest. The showcase featured more than 4,000 playable demos, yet only a single game among the most popular explicitly disclosed its use of artificial intelligence tools in development. This comes amid a significant increase in AI disclosures across Steam releases.
The top played list includes Bandai Namco's "Sword Art Online RPG, Echoes of Aincrad," an offroading simulator from the creators of "Art of Rally," a Soulslike extraction RPG, a new 6v6 shooter from the studio behind "Splitgate," and a co-op game described as "friendslop." Other notable inclusions are "Casualties: Unknown" and "Over the Hill," though "Mortal Shell 2" and "Valor Mortis," a first-person Soulslike by the "Ghostrunner" developers, were notably absent.
Of the 4,397 demos listed on SteamDB during the festival, 551 carried the "AI Content Disclosed" user tag. This indicates a widespread adoption of AI tools in game development, as over 300 games released on Steam in the week prior to the festival, with 120 of those including AI disclosures.
The sole game on the top played list with an AI disclosure was "Embers of the Uncrowned," a new Nexon MMO. Its disclosure states that "AI-based tools may be utilized to support in-game visual content creation, marketing materials, live chat translation features, and partial in-game dialogue and script localization," while asserting that "the final product is a reflection of our own development team's creativity and artistic expression."
The prevalence of AI disclosures has led some players to develop habits of seeking out these tags, potentially impacting their discovery of new games. The article suggests that Valve might consider implementing a filter for AI disclosures on Steam to improve the user experience, given the apparent player sentiment towards AI in game development.