Epic Video games boss Tim Sweeney spent the weekend doubling down on his extreme criticism of Valve, calling Steam’s AI content material disclosure a “political act.”
The controversial majority proprietor of Epic is all in on AI, having just lately triggered a “big pivot” of the corporate to retool it for “most AI acceleration,” Sweeney mentioned. Epic is a long-standing rival of Gabe Newell’s Valve, with the Epic Video games Retailer struggling to make a dent in Steam’s dominance over the PC gaming market even because it provides builders extra financially helpful phrases.
Sweeney is especially upset with Steam’s AI content material disclosure coverage, which requires builders to reveal the usage of AI in “creating content material that ships together with your sport, and is consumed by gamers.” This consists of content material corresponding to art work, sound, narrative, and localization. It doesn’t embrace “effectivity good points” by means of the usage of AI instruments.
On Friday, Sweeney hit out at Valve’s coverage, saying “forcing builders to write down a political assertion for use towards them by the hate mob they’re serving to manage is abhorrent.” This assertion sparked a backlash on-line, with a variety of folks — builders included — confused by the suggestion that an AI disclosure was political in any means, and insisting that Valve was solely offering readability its clients needed.
“Prospects have a proper to know what they’re shopping for,” David Goldfarb, founding father of Metallic Hellsinger developer The Outsiders and former Battlefield developer, replied. “They nonetheless purchased Arc Raiders, they may undoubtedly purchase video games they wish to purchase, AI use or no. Does it drawback small groups who must leverage AI to outlive? Jury’s out. Calling it a hate mob is far-fetched.”
Undeterred, Sweeney issued a variety of social media posts defending his place, saying AI disclosures are “simply as partisan as obligatory political essays or forcing builders to checklist their voting historical past to drive cancel campaigns and public wrestle classes.”
When one particular person challenged Sweeney on this, accusing him of being “anti-consumer” for forcing one thing customers don’t love on them, the Fortnite boss in contrast Steam’s AI disclosures to Valve forcing builders to checklist their political affiliations.
“Say there’s a giant contingent of players that don’t like democrats or, equivalently, republicans. Ought to Valve drive builders to checklist their political affiliation? Is that pro-consumer? Do you suppose that coverage would have a constructive impact on gaming?” he mentioned. As you’ll be able to think about, this assertion was ridiculed within the replies, with one particular person saying “equating AI to how an individual votes is pure cope gymnastics.”
Once more, undeterred, Sweeney claimed that Valve is hitting developer income by “undermining their enterprise with these AI hate campaigns,” insisting on “an actual financial price to Valve’s foray into pressured political disclosures.”
He continued: “a considerable variety of customers would like to have obligatory political opinion disclosures for builders, with a number of saying they take it upon themselves to floor this information in critiques because it’s not disclosed on product pages.
“The first use of each classes of disclosures is to drive cancel campaigns towards video games and deprive them of income and livelihood until they get onboard with the motion’s political objectives. Sure, blocking free option to undertake productive expertise is a political act.”
Earlier this month, Epic revealed a newly refreshed model of the Epic Video games Launcher, its Steam-like platform that gives entry to the Epic Video games Retailer, your video games library, social options, and a developer’s hub. And, consistent with the corporate’s push for AI-assisted improvement, this new model of the launcher was created utilizing generative synthetic intelligence. “Programming is difficult,” wrote Epic in a brand new weblog submit. “So, as a substitute of doing that, we vibe coded a brand new Epic Video games Launcher that’s means quicker and extra responsive than the present one, and has a brand new look.”
Epic then launched an Unreal Engine vibe coding contest with a picture of a six-fingered hand, presumably as a joke about poor high quality AI photographs.
Vibe your method to 50K.
The 2026 Epic AI MegaJam begins Nov 12: https://t.co/aAXEqj7zmE https://t.co/h3Kgs9Y5zH
— Unreal Engine (@UnrealEngine) October 22, 2026
Via all of it, Valve has achieved what it does greatest: stay quiet. The long-running joke that Gabe Newell merely sits again and waits for his opponents to make errors appears notably related right here, as Tim Sweeney continues to tweet his outrage over Valve and Steam. In the meantime, earlier this month Steam broke its all-time file for concurrent customers but once more, with 43.5 million folks logged in on the identical time.
Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg by way of Getty Photos