Epic President Sweeney Criticizes Steam's Mandatory AI Disclosure, Says Forcing Developers to Write Political Statements Invites Malicious Exploitation

Sweeney said: "Forcing developers to write these kinds of political statements, only to have them used as weapons against developers by the hate mobs they themselves incited, is utterly despicable."

Steam's AI disclosure rules require developers who use generative AI in their games to clearly state the specific ways AI is used. For example, the disclosure for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 reads: "The development team used generative AI tools to assist in creating some in-game assets."

As early as November 2025, Sweeney began opposing the game industry's AI disclosure requirements, saying that under the broad trend that "almost all content production in the future will incorporate AI," Valve's approach made no sense.

In June of this year, he went further, comparing Steam's AI disclosure requirements to a "scarlet letter," insisting that it would "make the path to success for game developers incredibly difficult."

Sweeney's latest remarks came in response to a comment from user Matt Workman. Workman's X profile states that he works at generative media cloud service provider Fal, where he handles "content and user vibe operations." Workman argued that "requiring disclosure of AI-generated content by 2026 is absurd on its face, and frankly embarrassing for Valve and Steam," and Sweeney clearly agreed strongly.

This month, Epic Games and Sweeney have been speaking out frequently and prominently on the topic of generative AI in games and development. Last week, when Epic introduced its revamped PC client, it joked: "Our Epic Games Store was vibe-coded."

Just yesterday, Epic announced an Unreal Engine game creation contest—such events require participants to complete game development in a short period of time. The initial contest rules mandated that participants use AI and promised unlimited intelligent agent support. Epic subsequently withdrew that hard requirement, and the updated rules state that "AI usage is entirely up to participants, with no limit on how much."

On the other side, the Steam Next Fest demo showcase has just wrapped up, and this edition featured a record-high number of AI-assisted games, with total playable demos nearly double those of the June 2026 Next Fest. Once Steam's recommendation algorithm kicked in, all the slapdash AI games quickly fell to the bottom of the charts, but the influx of AI works did make the game store's content increasingly cluttered.

In my view, this precisely explains the undefined "hate mob" Sweeney referred to—at the very least, his wording easily gives the impression that anyone who opposes or resists AI belongs to this group. So why do people oppose generative AI in games, and why do they want stores to clearly label AI content? Dozens of developers and industry experts have explained the reasons behind this to the media.

Legally, AI-related copyright issues are a minefield everywhere; creatively, AI may hollow out the value of core creative processes; ethically, AI service providers have never squarely addressed the technology's environmental impact and the massive use of copyrighted material in training data. More critically, the AI industry is already known for its difficulty in turning a profit, with leading companies barely sustaining themselves on inflated valuations, and this top-heavy market has long been due for a correction. To date, most of these AI companies have only managed to disrupt the consumer hardware market, throw the software industry's ecosystem into disarray, and, amid high living costs, damage people's leisure and hobby experiences.

In gaming, criticism of AI mostly centers on the generation of assets such as art and music. More developers acknowledge AI's assistive role in programming, and the Asian game market is generally more accepting of AI than Western markets, though many studios worldwide still explicitly oppose AI. But even if you believe that today's programming is merely machine-assisted creation—a view shared by Valve co-founder Gabe Newell, who even holds a more radical view—it's not hard to understand why people want AI use to be constrained. The Deadlock development team also uses AI, but interestingly, they don't tout AI as the core selling point of the entire brand.

Put simply, look at Steam's updated AI disclosure terms and you'll understand. It states: "In addition, AI technology in games is evolving rapidly, and we want to handle related issues properly. Many artists and creators are concerned about the exploitative use and misuse of AI, and that is entirely reasonable. But we also know that technology and tools will change enormously in the coming years, and many creative game developers are exploring ethical ways to use AI to create quality entertainment content. If you plan to release a product on Steam and believe we've missed something important in our AI-related rules, we welcome you to get in touch."