7 ms·

The game I've spent 3.5 years on has been rejected and retired by Steam today

97 points by lopkeny12ko 3y ago

neaden 3y ago
I'm guessing from Valve's point of view the reluctance to allow this has to do with potential rights issues surrounding chat gpt and related technologies. It's bad that their communication is so opaque and I don't like their near monopoly status but adding this feature, even if it was semi hidden away, was not a good idea. Hopefully the op on reddit is able to remove it and resubmit it.
- SenAnder 3y ago
  The problem is the op did resubmit the game without AI, but was still rejected for the same reason: I explained exactly how this worked and that there was no AI-content directly in the build, and even since then issued a new build without this mod ability just to be super safe. [...] Then, today, I randomly received an email that my app has been retired with a generic 'your game contains AI' response.
  - maxbond 3y ago
    See the comment from /u/kvxdev talking about how they had a similar experience and were eventually able to get their game accepted. https://old.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/167iied/the_game_ive_spent_35_years_and_my_savings_on_has/jyqwwz5/ https://old.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/167iied/the_game_i...
    - fnordpiglet 3y ago
      Interestingly the offer to train a model with only open material to avoid copyright issues wasn’t sufficient. It seems to be a general “AI bad, no AI for you” unthinking knee jerk. I’m worried Valve will strangle what I think is the most exciting use of AI - artist trained models generating NPC content, lore, and procedural game content to create rogue like RPG of arbitrary complexity.
      - maxbond 3y ago
        I doubt it's unthinking. Valve hews pretty Libertarian, historically they've been very reluctant to ban even egregious games. If they're disallowing something it's probably because they don't feel they have any other option (presumably because they feel they'll expose themselves to legal liability and jeopardize quality of the platform). My guess would be that they can't verify what AI you used, at least without investing the kind of resources required to actually make case by case decisions. I'm not saying this is your position, this is somewhat tangential, but I am confused why I seem to hear from people that both AI is a force of nature and companies stand in it's way at their peril, but also that it's a delicate flower and that any kind of management may strangle it in the crib. To be clear I know you aren't making both claims, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it does feel like it's coming from the same general community of people. And I'm perplexed by that. But yeah, I would also be interested to play and perhaps developing games like that. If someone is developing a game like that and they wants to hire a backend dev with experience integrating with models in a realtime context, shoot me an email. (I'm half kidding, I don't expect someone like that to happen to be in this particular thread, but only half.)
        fnordpiglet 3y ago
        Yes I’m sure their original rationale is thought out, but reading the Reddit threads attached of the various developers trying to navigate the policy doesn’t give faith that there’s thought going on in application. How do they verify copyright material isn’t in static assets? I can’t imagine it’s very thorough. I imagine most of it is based on attestation. Regarding your question, I don’t share those views but can understand how they exist simultaneously. With an open hand, like was afforded internet and technologies, it could shape the world in hard to imagine ways as did the internet. However like the early internet it could have been strangled in the crib through knee jerk regulation and prohibitions. I think AI model builders and hosters want safe harbor similar to content hosters and providers allowing the end use of the technology to be regulated but the providers to be allowed to operate on a best effort basis. For instance the copyright question here is strangling any game that uses a generative model. A reasonable legal outcome is that it’s fair use to incorporate copyright material, but the output must not violate copyrights.
throwawa14223 3y ago
While it sucks for the dev everyone buying games is better off having these rejected.
- sabellito 3y ago
  Why is everyone buying these better off?
  - maxbond 3y ago
    I think this game got unfairly caught in the crossfire (a sort of dead weight loss of consistently enforcing a policy), but it's easy to imagine Steam drowning in low-effort, slapdash games cranked out using AI. Like the junk you see on mobile, where the games are often "minimal viable ad platforms" rather than a "minimal playable games" (and one would hope for more than the minimum, anyway). Though the top level comment asserting this is probably more about copyright than quality is probably right as well.
    - chii 3y ago
      Steam is already drowning in low effort trash games. They don't surface much, since being a paid store, the ranking based on sales is pretty accurate to the quality of the game (not to mention the generous 2h refund).
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - Ekaros 3y ago
      You don't need AI for that. It is already filled with low-effort engine tutorial level junk. I was attacked for saying that entry barrier of 100$ was too low, but clearly that would have been only reasonable way to remove some.
      - maxbond 3y ago
frfl 3y ago
Unrelated, but what is sh.reddit?
- elaus 3y ago
  On desktop it seems to be an even worse version of Reddit than the default (or old.reddit.com). Three columns of 'content' and the main post text (arguably the most relevant part of the page) isn't even completely visible. (missing reddit less and less each day...)
- grilledchickenw 3y ago
  Should be no difference. It looks like different languages. There's de.reddit.com for German, in.reddit.com for Indonesian. SH is Saint Helena I guess, which is a British overseas territory, and thus English. Not sure but that's my guess.
  - capableweb 3y ago
    Would be fun and cool if submitter was linking to the Saint Helena version. I wonder what the odds would be, HN submitter + one person of ~4000 people living there, out of almost 8 billion
- RGBCube 3y ago
  It's a faster rewritte of the Reddit UI using some sort of in-house framework, basically it's just way faster than the normal one. And no, it's not related to language.
  - duped 3y ago
    Is it faster because it doesn't work on mobile?
    - RGBCube 3y ago
      It works perfectly on Firefox mobile for me, even better than the old version. Maybe don't use Safari.
acumenical 3y ago
Call me cynical but my immediate impression that the gamedev is lying and exploiting the perceived asymmetry between the indie dev and the behemoth that is Steam. Attaching your game to controversy around AI is a great way to generate discussion and serves as a form of guerrilla marketing. Maybe if the rules are "your game shall not contain AI", then don't write a ChatGPT integration for it.
- capableweb 3y ago
  > Maybe if the rules are "your game shall not contain AI", then don't write a ChatGPT integration for it. AI is such a broad term though. Either ban GPT/LLM architecture if that's the goal, or image synthesis, but be specific! Probably more than 50% of all games out there contain something one could call "AI".
  - aaomidi 3y ago
    https://www.eurogamer.net/valve-says-ai-generated-content-policy-goal-is-not-to-discourage-the-use-of-it-on-steam https://www.eurogamer.net/valve-says-ai-generated-content-po...
- thiht 3y ago
  > your game shall not contain AI Then remove all the games I guess? :)
- imtringued 3y ago
  He is definitely lying about this "Mod". Why submit third party assets?
v3ss0n 3y ago
Well, you broke the ToS.You should have made the mod off steam.
Kim_Bruning 3y ago
Oh, that explains some things. Where can I go to get games that do integrate AI/AI content?
ilaksh 3y ago
My biggest takeaway from this is that it's not a good idea to give control over games distribution to one company. We have good decentralized protocols these days.

97 points by lopkeny12ko 3y ago

I'm guessing from Valve's point of view the reluctance to allow this has to do with potential rights issues surrounding chat gpt and related technologies. It's bad that their communication is so opaque and I don't like their near monopoly status but adding this feature, even if it was semi hidden away, was not a good idea. Hopefully the op on reddit is able to remove it and resubmit it.

SenAnder 3y ago
The problem is the op did resubmit the game without AI, but was still rejected for the same reason: I explained exactly how this worked and that there was no AI-content directly in the build, and even since then issued a new build without this mod ability just to be super safe. [...] Then, today, I randomly received an email that my app has been retired with a generic 'your game contains AI' response.
- maxbond 3y ago
  See the comment from /u/kvxdev talking about how they had a similar experience and were eventually able to get their game accepted. https://old.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/167iied/the_game_ive_spent_35_years_and_my_savings_on_has/jyqwwz5/ https://old.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/167iied/the_game_i...
  - fnordpiglet 3y ago
    Interestingly the offer to train a model with only open material to avoid copyright issues wasn’t sufficient. It seems to be a general “AI bad, no AI for you” unthinking knee jerk. I’m worried Valve will strangle what I think is the most exciting use of AI - artist trained models generating NPC content, lore, and procedural game content to create rogue like RPG of arbitrary complexity.
    - maxbond 3y ago
      I doubt it's unthinking. Valve hews pretty Libertarian, historically they've been very reluctant to ban even egregious games. If they're disallowing something it's probably because they don't feel they have any other option (presumably because they feel they'll expose themselves to legal liability and jeopardize quality of the platform). My guess would be that they can't verify what AI you used, at least without investing the kind of resources required to actually make case by case decisions. I'm not saying this is your position, this is somewhat tangential, but I am confused why I seem to hear from people that both AI is a force of nature and companies stand in it's way at their peril, but also that it's a delicate flower and that any kind of management may strangle it in the crib. To be clear I know you aren't making both claims, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it does feel like it's coming from the same general community of people. And I'm perplexed by that. But yeah, I would also be interested to play and perhaps developing games like that. If someone is developing a game like that and they wants to hire a backend dev with experience integrating with models in a realtime context, shoot me an email. (I'm half kidding, I don't expect someone like that to happen to be in this particular thread, but only half.)
      - fnordpiglet 3y ago
        Yes I’m sure their original rationale is thought out, but reading the Reddit threads attached of the various developers trying to navigate the policy doesn’t give faith that there’s thought going on in application. How do they verify copyright material isn’t in static assets? I can’t imagine it’s very thorough. I imagine most of it is based on attestation. Regarding your question, I don’t share those views but can understand how they exist simultaneously. With an open hand, like was afforded internet and technologies, it could shape the world in hard to imagine ways as did the internet. However like the early internet it could have been strangled in the crib through knee jerk regulation and prohibitions. I think AI model builders and hosters want safe harbor similar to content hosters and providers allowing the end use of the technology to be regulated but the providers to be allowed to operate on a best effort basis. For instance the copyright question here is strangling any game that uses a generative model. A reasonable legal outcome is that it’s fair use to incorporate copyright material, but the output must not violate copyrights.

throwawa14223 3y ago

While it sucks for the dev everyone buying games is better off having these rejected.

sabellito 3y ago
Why is everyone buying these better off?
- maxbond 3y ago
  I think this game got unfairly caught in the crossfire (a sort of dead weight loss of consistently enforcing a policy), but it's easy to imagine Steam drowning in low-effort, slapdash games cranked out using AI. Like the junk you see on mobile, where the games are often "minimal viable ad platforms" rather than a "minimal playable games" (and one would hope for more than the minimum, anyway). Though the top level comment asserting this is probably more about copyright than quality is probably right as well.
  - chii 3y ago
    Steam is already drowning in low effort trash games. They don't surface much, since being a paid store, the ranking based on sales is pretty accurate to the quality of the game (not to mention the generous 2h refund).
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - Ekaros 3y ago
    You don't need AI for that. It is already filled with low-effort engine tutorial level junk. I was attacked for saying that entry barrier of 100$ was too low, but clearly that would have been only reasonable way to remove some.
    - maxbond 3y ago

frfl 3y ago

Unrelated, but what is sh.reddit?

elaus 3y ago
On desktop it seems to be an even worse version of Reddit than the default (or old.reddit.com). Three columns of 'content' and the main post text (arguably the most relevant part of the page) isn't even completely visible. (missing reddit less and less each day...)
grilledchickenw 3y ago
Should be no difference. It looks like different languages. There's de.reddit.com for German, in.reddit.com for Indonesian. SH is Saint Helena I guess, which is a British overseas territory, and thus English. Not sure but that's my guess.
- capableweb 3y ago
  Would be fun and cool if submitter was linking to the Saint Helena version. I wonder what the odds would be, HN submitter + one person of ~4000 people living there, out of almost 8 billion
RGBCube 3y ago
It's a faster rewritte of the Reddit UI using some sort of in-house framework, basically it's just way faster than the normal one. And no, it's not related to language.
- duped 3y ago
  Is it faster because it doesn't work on mobile?
  - RGBCube 3y ago
    It works perfectly on Firefox mobile for me, even better than the old version. Maybe don't use Safari.

acumenical 3y ago

Call me cynical but my immediate impression that the gamedev is lying and exploiting the perceived asymmetry between the indie dev and the behemoth that is Steam. Attaching your game to controversy around AI is a great way to generate discussion and serves as a form of guerrilla marketing. Maybe if the rules are "your game shall not contain AI", then don't write a ChatGPT integration for it.

capableweb 3y ago
> Maybe if the rules are "your game shall not contain AI", then don't write a ChatGPT integration for it. AI is such a broad term though. Either ban GPT/LLM architecture if that's the goal, or image synthesis, but be specific! Probably more than 50% of all games out there contain something one could call "AI".
- aaomidi 3y ago
  https://www.eurogamer.net/valve-says-ai-generated-content-policy-goal-is-not-to-discourage-the-use-of-it-on-steam https://www.eurogamer.net/valve-says-ai-generated-content-po...
thiht 3y ago
> your game shall not contain AI Then remove all the games I guess? :)
imtringued 3y ago
He is definitely lying about this "Mod". Why submit third party assets?

v3ss0n 3y ago

Well, you broke the ToS.You should have made the mod off steam.

Kim_Bruning 3y ago

Oh, that explains some things. Where can I go to get games that do integrate AI/AI content?

ilaksh 3y ago

My biggest takeaway from this is that it's not a good idea to give control over games distribution to one company. We have good decentralized protocols these days.