Epic CEO Tim Sweeney has ignited a fresh fight over how game stores should treat artificial intelligence, arguing that Steam’s “Made with AI” labels are misguided in a world where machine learning is becoming a standard part of development. His criticism lands at a moment when players, creators, and platform holders are all trying to decide whether AI in games is a selling point, a warning label, or simply another tool in the pipeline.
At stake is more than a single tag in a storefront. The clash between Epic and Valve over AI disclosures folds into a long running rivalry over who sets the rules for digital distribution, how transparent studios must be about their tools, and whether consumer protection is best served by more information or by getting out of the way.
Steam’s AI labels and why they exist
Steam’s current approach to AI did not appear out of nowhere. Earlier this year, Valve formalized a policy that asks developers to disclose when they use AI, splitting content into “Pre-Generated” material, which covers any kind of art, code, or sound created with the help of AI tools during development, and “Live-Generated” content, which is produced by AI while the game is running. In its own documentation, Valve explains that any such content must still comply with copyright law and be consistent with how the game is marketed, and that these disclosures are meant to help players understand what they are buying, as laid out in its Pre Generated Any guidance.
That framework grew out of earlier friction, when Valve rejected some games that used AI generated assets because it was not clear whether the underlying training data infringed on other creators’ work. The current system is meant to be a compromise, allowing AI assisted projects onto Steam while flagging them for customers and keeping a paper trail for legal compliance. In practice, that has turned the “Made with AI” tag into a kind of scarlet letter for some players and a badge of honesty for others, setting the stage for Tim Sweeney’s intervention.
Tim Sweeney’s core argument against AI tags
Tim Sweeney’s complaint is not subtle. The Epic CEO has said it “makes no sense” for game stores to single out AI use, because in his view that is simply how almost all games will be made going forward. In public comments, he has argued that requiring developers to declare AI tools in their workflow is arbitrary and unhelpful, especially when those tools may be as mundane as an upscaler, a code assistant, or a texture generator, a stance reflected in his criticism that Steam should ditch its AI labels because that is how all games will be made, as reported in Epic CEO Tim Sweeney.
He has extended that logic beyond Steam, saying it “makes no sense” for any game store to flag when AI has been used in development, because the line between AI and non AI tools is already blurred. From his perspective, the requirement risks stigmatizing developers who are simply using modern software, while doing little to inform players about quality, ethics, or originality. That broader critique of store wide AI flags has been captured in coverage of Epic Tim Sweeney and his comments on how AI is woven into everyday production.
From “Made with AI” to “it doesn’t matter anymore”
Sweeney has zeroed in on Steam’s specific “Made with AI” wording as especially unhelpful. He has argued that the tag is too blunt to capture what actually matters about a game, since it does not distinguish between a studio that uses AI to prototype a level layout and one that floods its world with low effort generated art. In his view, the label risks becoming a proxy for “cheap” or “lazy” in the minds of players, even when the underlying work is anything but, which is why he has urged Steam to drop its “Made with AI” tags entirely, a position detailed in reports on Made and his broader critique of store labeling.
He has gone further, suggesting that AI disclosures “do not matter anymore” in the context of video games, because the technology is becoming so pervasive that singling it out is like asking whether a studio used Photoshop or a particular brand of keyboard. That argument, that the label has outlived its usefulness even as AI adoption accelerates, has been summarized in coverage of how the Epic CEO tells Steam to ditch AI labels and insists “it does not matter anymore,” a stance that has drawn sharp criticism from developers and gamers who want more transparency, as described in Nov.
The shampoo joke and the transparency backlash
To drive home his point about what he sees as pointless disclosure, Sweeney has leaned on a deliberately absurd comparison. If stores are going to require labels for AI use, he has suggested, why not also demand that developers list what shampoo brand they use, or other irrelevant personal details, to satisfy a hunger for information that does not actually help anyone judge a game. That rhetorical flourish is meant to highlight what he considers the arbitrariness of AI specific tags, and it has become a shorthand for his view that the industry is over indexing on how tools are used instead of what ends up on screen, a framing that has been widely quoted in discussions of his comments on Sweeney Steam While Sweeney.
The joke has not landed for everyone. Some developers and players argue that AI labels are not about voyeuristic curiosity but about giving customers enough information to make informed purchasing decisions, especially when they want to support human crafted art or avoid games that lean heavily on automated content. For those critics, Sweeney’s shampoo comparison trivializes legitimate concerns about labor, originality, and consent in training data, and risks framing any call for transparency as a punchline rather than a serious consumer rights issue.
Valve’s pushback and the “ingredients list” analogy
People inside Valve have not stayed silent in the face of Epic’s campaign against AI tags. One Valve artist has compared Sweeney’s position to saying food products should not have an ingredients list, arguing that labels are not there to shame creators but to help customers understand what they are consuming. In that analogy, AI disclosures are like nutritional information, a basic layer of transparency that does not tell you whether a meal tastes good but does give you a clearer picture of what is inside, a view captured in reporting on how a Valve artist responded to Tim Sweeney and others calling on Steam to drop the label.
That response underscores a philosophical divide. Where Sweeney sees AI tags as a stigmatizing and ultimately meaningless distinction, Valve’s defenders frame them as a minimal obligation in a market where players are increasingly wary of low effort, AI heavy releases. The ingredients metaphor also hints at a regulatory future, one where governments might require similar disclosures for AI use in creative products, making Steam’s current system a potential preview of more formal rules to come rather than an outlier.
Epic’s AI friendly posture and its rivalry with Valve
Sweeney’s comments do not exist in a vacuum. Epic Games has positioned itself as notably friendly to AI in games, welcoming projects that use machine learning tools onto the Epic Games Store at a time when Valve was rejecting some AI generated titles from Steam. That openness has been framed as part of a broader strategy to attract developers who feel constrained by Valve’s policies, with Epic Games reiterating its support for AI in video games even as Valve tightened its review process, a contrast highlighted in analysis of how Epic Games Valve have deepened their rivalry over AI and storefront rules.
That rivalry has also played out in courtrooms. Epic has backed or been involved in legal challenges that target Valve’s control over PC game distribution, including a class action lawsuit against Valve and its digital storefront Steam that alleges anti competitive practices and seeks to reshape how platforms handle pricing and access. Those legal efforts, described in a detailed look at how More Valve and Steam could be affected by Epic Games’ recent lawsuits, make Sweeney’s attack on AI labels look less like a one off opinion and more like another front in a long campaign to challenge Valve’s dominance.
How Steam justifies AI disclosure and why Sweeney disagrees
From Valve’s perspective, the AI tags are a practical response to a fast changing technology landscape. Steam’s updated guidelines explain that developers must disclose AI use so that Valve can ensure games do not include infringing content and so that customers are not misled about what they are buying. The policy notes that Steam will review AI generated assets for potential copyright issues and that developers remain responsible for any violations, a framework that was introduced after Steam announced its new guidelines regarding AI content and a tagging system that required developers to flag AI generated material, as outlined in coverage of how Last Steam updated its rules.
Sweeney accepts that AI disclosures might make sense in some contexts, such as when regulators or courts need to understand how a product was made, but he argues that store front labels aimed at players are the wrong tool. He has suggested that what matters to customers is whether a game is fun, fair, and legally sound, not whether a particular asset passed through an AI model. That is why he has described Steam’s “Made with AI” tag as useless in a gaming landscape that is shifting toward AI driven workflows, a view echoed in reports that the Epic CEO calls Steam’s tag useless as gaming shifts to an AI driven future and that he agreed with a post on X urging Steam to drop the label, as summarized in analysis of how Responding Steam Sweeney framed his agreement.
Developers, players, and the fear of low effort AI games
Behind the policy debate is a more emotional concern: that AI tools will flood stores with low effort games that undercut human labor and drown out more carefully crafted work. Some developers worry that without clear labeling, players will struggle to distinguish between projects that use AI sparingly and those that lean on it to churn out generic art, dialogue, or even entire game loops. That anxiety helps explain why Sweeney’s call to scrap AI tags has drawn sharp criticism from creators and gamers who see transparency as a minimal safeguard against a wave of automated releases, a backlash described in coverage of how his stance has drawn sharp criticism from developers and gamers who demand transparency and fear a rise in automated content, as noted in the report on Nov.
At the same time, some studios share Sweeney’s frustration with how AI labels are perceived. They argue that a “Made with AI” tag can become shorthand for “asset flip” in user reviews, regardless of how thoughtfully the technology was applied. For those teams, the risk is that a tool choice becomes a marketing liability, pushing them to hide or downplay AI use rather than talk openly about their pipelines. That tension between honest disclosure and reputational risk is exactly what makes the Steam versus Epic clash so charged: both sides claim to be defending developers, but they are prioritizing different harms.
Competition, control, and what comes next
The AI label fight also fits into a broader story about competition in PC game distribution. Valve co founder Gabe Newell has previously argued that “everybody benefits” from competition with Epic, suggesting that rival stores push each other to improve and that Valve’s relatively open approach to developers is a strength. He has referenced the Apple store as a point of comparison and hinted that Valve’s willingness to allow nearly unrestricted access to developers is part of what sets Steam apart, a perspective captured in reporting on how Newell Apple Epic framed the rivalry.
In that light, Sweeney’s attack on AI labels can be read as both a philosophical stance and a competitive maneuver. By casting Steam’s policy as out of touch with how games are actually made, Epic positions its own store as the more developer friendly alternative, especially for teams that want to experiment aggressively with AI. Valve, for its part, can point to its disclosure system as evidence that it takes player concerns and legal risks seriously. The result is a split screen future, at least for now, where one major platform treats AI as something worth flagging and another insists it should fade into the background like any other tool.
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