Steam users demand a 'No AI' filter as AI-generated games flood Next Fest

Steam users are pressing Valve for a way to hide AI-generated games from its storefront, arguing that the current Steam Next Fest is so crowded with low-effort, machine-made demos that the event has become difficult to browse. According to IGN, the loudest requests are coming from the Steam subreddit, where users say this edition of the festival feels noticeably worse than previous ones.

What users are asking for

In a post on the Steam subreddit cited by IGN, a user named ScalesGhost said they enjoy the Discovery Queue, the personalized recommendation feed Steam surfaces during events, but want the option to hide any game that discloses AI-generated content, along with the ability to exclude specific tags such as incremental games. Other users echoed the complaint in a separate thread about AI's effect on the festival: one wrote that they used to scroll through looking for interesting games but no longer wanted to participate, while another said they hoped a measurable drop in engagement would push Valve toward stricter submission guidelines.

As IGN points out, the building blocks for such a filter largely exist. Steam already requires developers to disclose when a game contains AI-generated content, and the storefront has long supported a detailed tagging system that powers user-side filtering. The catch is that AI is not currently a tag. For the requested filter to work, Valve would have to elevate that disclosure into a first-class, filterable category, something IGN describes as not a huge technical lift but a policy choice, complicated by the fact that Valve cut back the number of user-defined tags in May.

IGN also ties the apparent surge of quickly produced titles to recent advances in AI coding tools and a burst of AI-assisted modding activity, which has made it easier than ever to generate promotable art and even playable builds with minimal human effort.

Why Valve may not act quickly

Valve has historically taken a hands-off approach to curation, IGN notes, letting its recommendation algorithm surface popular titles while burying low-quality submissions. By that logic, the flood of hastily generated demos tends to sort itself out within days as genuinely popular demos rise to the top. IGN's own advice to readers is that most people may be better off ignoring the event for a couple of days until that filtering happens naturally.

A wider shift in game development

The frustration lands amid a broader industry drift toward AI-assisted production. According to IGN, Epic delayed an upcoming Star Wars shooter last week in order to pursue what the company called an "AI-first" direction, and Epic's CEO publicly touted that the Epic Games Store launcher had itself been "vibe coded." Capcom, meanwhile, is reportedly using AI as part of its REX program to continue improving the RE Engine, the technology behind titles such as Resident Evil: Requiem and Pragmata.

Why it matters

This episode turns an abstract debate about AI-generated content into a concrete platform-policy question. Steam already collects the one piece of information that would make user-side filtering possible, the disclosure of AI-generated content, yet offers buyers no way to act on it. If Valve added an AI tag and filter, it would set a precedent for how large digital marketplaces treat machine-generated goods: transparent enough to disclose, but neutral on whether customers can opt out.

It would also be a departure from Valve's long-standing algorithmic, laissez-faire curation philosophy, which has so far avoided making value judgments about what belongs on the store. And there is a real tension for developers: a blunt filter risks hiding studios that use AI in limited, ordinary ways alongside genuinely low-effort output, which means any implementation would need nuance. With major publishers openly moving toward AI-first pipelines, the pressure on storefronts to give consumers an explicit choice is only likely to grow.