Steam Next Fest is Great, But The Slew of Gen-AI Art and Games Isn’t
Steam Next Fest, Valve’s biannual showcase event for upcoming game demos, has been increasingly dominated by generative AI content, according to participants exploring the platform’s offerings. The event, traditionally a discovery space for indie games and upcoming titles, has seen AI-generated material appear across multiple forms: cover artwork, written descriptions, promotional videos, and in some cases, entire games developed using AI tools.
Participants report that this proliferation of AI content significantly impacts the browsing experience, making it harder to discover authentic indie games among the thousands of demos available. The author describes encountering a “plague” of generative AI that overshadows the event’s core purpose as a platform for genuine game discovery.
While Valve may not be directly responsible for all AI-generated submissions, the platform’s curation and presentation of these demos at Next Fest has inadvertently elevated their visibility and prominence. This development reflects growing industry-wide tensions around generative AI in game development and marketing—concerns about authenticity, creator displacement, and consumer experience.