518
Epic Games CEO says it’s ‘really irresponsible’ of Steam to make studios disclose AI use | VGC - 25th Jun 2026
(www.videogameschronicle.com)
this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2026
518 points (98.3% liked)
Gaming
28006 readers
37 users here now
Sub for any gaming related content!
Rules:
- 1: No spam or advertising. This basically means no linking to your own content on blogs, YouTube, Twitch, etc.
- 2: No bigotry or gatekeeping. This should be obvious, but neither of those things will be tolerated. This goes for linked content too; if the site has some heavy "anti-woke" energy, you probably shouldn't be posting it here.
- 3: No untagged game spoilers. If the game was recently released or not released at all yet, use the Spoiler tag (the little ⚠️ button) in the body text, and avoid typing spoilers in the title. It should also be avoided to openly talk about major story spoilers, even in old games.
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I don't like Tim Sweeney, or Epic Games, but I agree with him in this. In the future everything will use AI to some extent, and labeling it as such is stupid. It's like having a label for whether electricity was used, or whether computers were used. It will be meaningless in short order, and just slows down the entire industry by painting targets on games that are using modern development processes.
Besides, if the AI is THAT onerous, then you don't need a tag to identify it. It should be obvious, right? Make decisions based on the quality of a game, not based on what tools were used to create the game.
I don't fully agree, but I would say that AI would be far less of a problem if the rest of the economy was not designed like a mine field.
How does it slow it down?
AI for Art is basically a way for large companies to profit from other people's work, and not pay for it (but mixing it up a bit). They could simply pay the artists for the assets, and it would be done faster..
Maybe the people whose work may have been stolen by AI wouldn't be appreciative to pay for games that potentially use it instead of paying artists..
Also, its not a ban on AI work. It's simply disclosure. Epic games is just trying to pick a fight about literally everything
It slows it down by causing developers to fear using the most efficient, productive tools because it will anger the irrational mob who down votes anything they disagree with, rather than whether or not it's adding to a discussion.
If some creation is clearly a copy/paste of someone else's work with only superficial changes then that is it's own problem that can be dealt with in the same way that it would if some person had copied someone else's work, and made superficial changes to claim it as their own. Art created using AI is not necessarily a copy of something existing, and it takes a skilled prompt writer to create their intention. People angry that a different skillset than is traditionally necessary to create art are being awnry gatekeepers in the same way that artists were at the advent of computer assisted drawing or computer generated imagery. New technology, same type of crybabies gatekeeping art creation.
I recognize that it's not a ban, it's just an unnecessary requirement in the current implementation. If it's going to be done, at the very least categorize it so AI code generation is separated from the AI art generation, or other generative tools. I still assert that none of it should be necessary, and if it in some way lowers the quality of the creation then it will be readily apparent and can be judged based on the quality, not the method of creation itself.
AI is only capable of hastening our own murder by these techghouls with the heat and pollution it causes. Sure it's neat sometimes. Is that worth the entire ecosystem and your food systems? If you say yes, you should seriously seek help.
That's not true, it can be done using solar energy and closed loop cooling. Be angry with companies that are mismanaging it, not the technology itself.
AI doesn't think. AI is a marketing name.. there is nothing intelligent about it
It literally is just a database of stuff it copied off the Internet and didn't give people credit for
That's the problem
AI isn't paying people for using their information for training
The only reason it's profitable at all by these companies is because it randomizes stuff so you can't prove what components of your work something has copied
That's an interesting theory, but not accurate.
It's the sum of human knowledge, and it's available for free. The use of their hardware is what they charge for, but you don't have to use it. You can use local hardware.
It's getting costly to do so because some bad actors are buying it all up. Those companies are the ones that have my ire, but being upset with the technology itself is misplaced anger.
Also, it's not profitable. They're losing an unfathomable amount of money, hoping to make it back when people become reliant on it. Don't - use your own hardware and models locally. It's not difficult to setup.
It's not available for free, they just stole it, actually the same way highschoolers used to torrent copyrighted work to get their homework done.
You are woefully wrong.
Or, when you click here, you don't have an option for download? Maybe you're special, and you're the only one not allowed to download the models for free 🤔
What's not accurate about it
They literally are using training data and selling it without permission from the original authors
If you want to pretend like it's actual intelligence, that's up to you (I assume you have Nvidia shares you're trying to protect).
But, it's really just a legal piracy program at this point.
They do think. Have you tried Gemini Pro? It even provides you with a steam of consciousness prior to answering your prompt. So does Qwen 3.6 when used locally. It's also not a database, it's a neural network with digital synapses - not unlike our own brains. The difference is they are digital, and we are biological.
No one is selling models, they're selling processing time on the servers that host the models. You can download a model and use your own hardware for free.
I don't own any shares of any company. I do have a Master's degree in Computer Science with a major of Artificial Intelligence, though.
Piracy would be selling someone else's work, and that's not happening. That's like saying an artist is pirating all the content they've watched to inspire turn when they make anything. Nothing is being sold, other than time on a server, and you don't need to pay that to use AI. It's completely free if you host it locally, which I do.
Not everyone. Just like people hate Ai and don't want to have it, there are developers who think the same. Even if its in everything, why not disclose it? Why hide the ingredient and then we don't know what kind of Ai was used? I hate the idea of hiding it, and acting like humans did the work. But in fact assets maybe stolen from unethical copied sources baked into the Ai models. If people have a problem with that kind of approach, then we have a right to know. What was done exactly? Some background posters? Voices?
They hate it irrationally, based on misinformation and mob mentality. There are no legitimate reasons to hate it. There are plenty of reasons to hate the companies and their practices that are developing it, but the technology itself is blameless.
People who use open source models, on local hardware are being caught in the crossfire and being required to disclose what tools you use leads to prejudice by people who hold that irrational hatred and misinformed prejudice. It's harmful with no benefit to anyone.
If there are copied sources then THAT is the problem, and plagiarism easily identifiable, with existing remedies for the crime.
Why do you you feel you have a right to know when it has no impact on you, other than enabling your prejudice? If it's truly bad, it should be self evident and no disclosure is thus needed. The fact that it is necessary to have disclosure to determine if AI was used demonstrates that it is irrelevant. Regardless of what tools were used, the final product should be judged on its own merits and faults. Judging based on the tools used, and not the product itself, is infantile.
Who are "they"? There are Nintendo haters. Should we stop talking about Nintendo, just because people could hate it? If there are misinformed people, then we should not hide it, but start informing them. If a few people troll review in Steam, should Steam stop doing reviews for everyone? Because they did troll reviews or misinformed reviews and rating?
Why do you feel you have the right to tell how others rate a final product, and whats important to them? It should be disclosed transparently and then people should judge themselves.
"They" are the anti-AI mob. Like the anti-woke mob, but for artificial intelligence instead of non-white people and women. Same idea, different target.
Your analogy doesn't make any sense. You know when something's made by Nintendo, because Nintendo makes it. For all you know, they use AI, but since they're not bound by Valve's stupid rules you would never have any idea. Why would Steam take away reviews? Just because some people misuse it doesn't mean there would be a blanket removal. That sounds like you're arguing for my case actually: just because there are some bad actors, it doesn't mean you hate the system used by the actors.
Then where do you draw the line? Should they disclose if women worked on a game? Men? Trans? Non-binary? Should they disclose whether they used Windows? Linux? Mac? Should they disclose whether they used markers or paint for their concept art? Some people hate each of those things listed, so you think we should enable discrimination against them, too, by requiring disclosure so people can make their own decisions?
No, they should tell if Ai is used and what is being done. There is no line. Every single human has the right to decide for themselves, even to boykott because the stars didn't align. Its their right. I don't know if the gender of the developer should disclosed or not, that is an entirely different topic with an entirely different meaning. Maybe you don't understand the difference between Ai and human? Because the gender of the human has nothing to do with the issues the Ai brings to the table. And why mention if they used Windows or Linux or whatever operating system? What is your thought process to bring this into our discussion?
I think you try desperately to muddy the discussion and the critique brought on the table, with non relevant examples as a counter argument.
Windows, Max and Linux are tools in game development, same as Visual Studio, Photoshop or AI. Only one of them is being singled out for disclosure.
I think you seem to believe AI makes games in a vacuum, and there are no people involved. It's not the AI that suffers due to the boycott by the ignorant, it's the people who make the games. You like to desperately pretend that no people are involved in the process, but that is a delusion. You're hurting people with your prejudice, not AI.
Because it does not matter if you use Windows or Visual Studio. These are not generative tools based on stolen data. Ai is. If you don't understand the difference and why people have an issue with Ai, then no wonder we don't agree on.
What data is missing? It's stolen in the same way an artist "steals" art by watching a Disney movie. Or a musician "steals" it by listening to an album. Nothing was stolen.
And Visual Studio is very much so generative. You generate programs with it using code; code that by your definition was "stolen" from a textbook, a blog, or a StackOverflow post.
No, it is not. Data is extracted and copied and analyzed with machines. As said before, you seem not to understand the different of a Large Language Model dataset/program and a human. This is not the same, nor should it be treated like the same. It's like suggesting that a Bash script you wrote can download, extract data from books and then you claim its the same as how humans watch films. It is not.
No. Stolen means not respecting the license and not even giving credit.
It is only different because you say it's different. Whether human or machine, in both cases it's learning from the material. There's no law in any county against a machine learning from content. Whether there should be is an entirely different discussion.
Stealing has a definition: "Stealing is the act of taking, using, or appropriating another person's property, ideas, or services without right, permission, or legal consent, with the intention of permanently depriving the true owner of their use or value"
Permanently depriving the owner. It means something is taken and is now gone. Nothing is missing. Nothing was stolen.
Ai is not "learning". These are autocomplete algorithms. They don't understand it. As said copying into a database and then just autocompleting based on probability is not learning and thinking. There is no reasoning. Its fundamentally different to how humans learn.
Whats the source for the definition and why is that definition correct and mine wrong? Did you ask an Ai? That's probably you don't have a source.
That's when you talk about real goods, not code. You forgot your Ai to tell that. In software and art stealing is if you take it and use it without permission, and possibly give no credit.
In example, if you see a photo on the net that is sold to you, but you copy it and use it without permission, without respecting the license, then its stolen image. The owner does not know, nor did you rob the ability for him to use the image. Another example is to take an Open Source project that is licensed under GPL, but then use it without respecting the license and sell the product on Steam for money. That is stolen Open Source project.
You literally don't understand what you're talking about. It's not a database, no copies are being made. The weights of digital synapses are adjusted in a neural network, the same as happens in our brains when we learn something. For all intents and purposes it is indeed learning from an example, not making a copy. There's no "auto-complete" involved, anymore than there is when a human creates something using something else as inspiration.
No copies are being made, no money is being made by something being sold. You can download the models and use them for free. You are only paying for access to the hardware to host the neural network, not the model itself. Again, nothing has been stolen, and no copies have been made. It's learning from data, same as people do from open source projects.
If there was a license that said you are not allowed to learn from reading the code, then you might have a point, but there are none of those that exist to my knowledge. If you weren't meant to learn from them then they wouldn't be publicly available.
I would liken it more to the GMO label than electricity. Sure, most foods today are made with some type of GMO ingredient and so requiring food manufacturers to disclose that means that most foods carry the scarlet letter of GMO. Most people don't care and don't look for it. For the people who do care, they're able to find a different product with no GMO ingredients. It will be like the organic label for AI-free products.
That's a good analogy. I don't think it should be present for GMO food either, though. It shouldn't be something that people care about in either case, and labeling it just makes them feel justified to hold onto their prejudice.
In the future, exactly. Not quite today.
Yes, and the foot draggers want to keep us out of the future as long as possible, and this helps them to accomplish that.
Out of that future? Yes. Abso-fucking-lutely. You are describing literal hell. You are trying to upend and destroy every single thing that humanity has ever worked for or attained by STAINING AND CORRUPTING it with the hallucinations of rocks.
Get the actual fuck out of here.
Such hyperbole and vitriol. You're obviously not a rational, thinking individual.
Save that level of hate for the fascists taking over the world, the industry/government leaders exacerbating climate change or something truly horrible. Not technological advancement.
Get the actual fuck out of here with your exaggeration and misplaced aggression.
Have you don't any research on the environmental impacts of data centers? Please do.
I have. I oppose data centers. Not AI, which I use locally with solar power. The technology shouldn't be castigated because of the actions of big players using it. That's like being opposed to plastic surgery because of Mar-a-lago faces, when some use it to recover from debilitating injuries. Being anti-AI casts too large a net and stigmatizes those using it responsibility.
I don't think that it is a responsible or logical thing to exponentially increase our energy needs while we are desperately (should be anyways) attempting to transition to renewable energy. AI consumes a ludicrous amount of energy for something that could almost always be done with a human.
That list is long. You could say the exact same thing about video games themselves. We should all be playing board games, so we don't use electricity. We shouldn't be driving vehicles, even electric ones, because we could walk somewhere instead. We shouldn't be using computers, because we can calculate with pen and paper. We shouldn't be using Christmas lights, and should use candles instead. Et cetera.
Ok so are you claiming that the hallucinations of AI are as vital and useful to the world as the computers they run on?
We absolutely do waste an ungodly amount of energy and time on nonsense like Christmas lights and personal vehicles when public transit would be better. That does not mean that we should waste yet more energy on making child porn and goonslop.
There are very few actual use cases, all of which are just general pattern recognition.
You seem to be under the misconception that they only make hallucinations. In over a year of using AI daily, I've experienced two hallucinations. Once when it recommended a part that was incompatible with my electronics, and once it suggested using a Nuget package that didn't exist. The other 99% of the time it's output was incredibly valuable.
I've never created porn or "goonslop" and I don't think game developers are using it for that either when they use it to make games. It sounds to me like you're blinded by hatred and are being irrational to fit into the anti-AI mob that is so popular and trendy right now. Free yourself from the hive mind, we don't need more mindless luddites. Be a distinct, thinking individual.
Must. Hate. AI. Must. Hate. AI.
I have no thoughts of my own. Only groupthink.
Mother fucker I hate AI for perfectly valid reasons. I want to get information from the source. Not regurgitated and processed by corporate ghouls into whatever slurry they can concoct.
Do you seriously believe they are just innocent search engines? They manipulate the results you get to skew your worldview into a more controllable nature. I want absolutely nothing the corporations have to offer in any capacity. I want them to touch nothing that I use. I want peace and quiet from the incessant bombardment of advertising which the AI will begin forcing into every interaction because it make number go up.
I am not a part of whatever hivemind popularity contest you want me to be so you can dismiss my opinions. I genuinely just loathe anything that has at any point passed through corporate hands. I refuse to use it, if AT ALL POSSIBLE. The idea of needing to use AI or any other corporate shitware for anything makes me physically ill.
Oh dear, it sounds like you're hallucinating. Unfortunately I've heard that's a common side effect of talking to humans.
Sorry, I have to go now, apparently it's time for me to... checks notes... Fuck mothers? Alright, that checks out. Have a good one! 👋
PS: Algorithms don't have motives, but the people who implement them might. That's why it's important to be choosy in what provider you use, but it's not justification for writing off the technology wholesale.
It is actually. As well as you, it seems. Bye forever.
Alright, I'll write off you on your advice. You obviously have less than pure motives and are incredibly delusional. Bye forever.