Steam AI games: do players actually refuse to buy them

Owning the Intellectual Property and Consumer Attention is the gateway to power. AI solves none of this.

Consumers don't hate AI, they hate paying to consume AI. This is a distinction that apparently the former executive at Square Enix couldn't comprehend.

I'll liken the situation to this. You are an artisan selling premium steaks in a world of consumers gleefully eating free cheeseburgers.

You can either get angry at the person selling the burgers or get better at selling your steaks.

Free cheeseburgers. That's what AI is, and anyone telling you otherwise is just wrong. I'll die on that hill.

Have you ever tried to have a conversation on AI on the English speaking part of the internet and wondered, wtf is going on, why is this conversation going all over the place? The indie AI game backlash is real, but it's mostly Reddit threads, not wallets. Then you are not alone.

My personal recommendation as a developer is to skip this AI topic, focus on branding yourself, building a following and selling your product as close to the consumer as possible.

Why does everyone act so crazy about AI and Video games?

If you want to understand why people behave weird about AI online, look at the environment, culture and incentives. These will be your hints to predicting what the person will say before they even think it.

Ask yourself three or four questions about the person discussing AI.

1. How old is this person?

2. Which country are they from?

3. What is their economic situation or occupation?

Age

The person's age tells you their experiences and knowledge on life.

Are they under 18?

What does someone under 18 know about AI? They don't care yet, all they know is some YouTuber told them AI Good, AI Bad. What's so bad about consuming AI videos?

Are they between the ages 19-50? Then they are terrified of being unemployed and don't have the humility or dignity to say it.

Are they over the age of 50? They are either homeless, a home owner, or so disconnected from the internet they think AI is a new TV Show.

Country

Environment plays a huge part in most conversations, AI discourse can be split down the middle.

Is the person from the Middle East, East or South East Asia? Many of those countries are stacked full of people who view AI as tools to get the job done. Those regions lean heavily towards pragmatism.

Compare that to European countries, North America or Australia, they are drowning in existential dread and suffer from being chronically online. This topic of AI is adjacent to corporations, governments and the cultural zeitgeist, so they will shift any AI conversation into politics where politics is not involved.

Job / economic situation

If they work a job (like being a programmer), then AI is just another technology they have to learn to use.

If they are artists / writers / teachers, then they are POTENTIALLY in direct competition with the robots.

If they are working physical labour jobs then they are likely to go either way, lines of code don't affect them directly.

Half the Steam AI games aren't actually AI games on Steam

If you are like me, a unit ready to do whatever you must to get your dream manifested in the real world, then you might have the bright idea to use the word "AI" as an SEO keyword to get traffic. I would suggest you don't do that.

Words like AI are dredging up a lot of faff that will steer the average person away from your product. As I mentioned from the beginning, paying customers don't actually hate AI, and this is a good thing.

But paying for AI? That's the line they won't cross. They know from their own time on ChatGPT and Claude exactly what this stuff produces. They'll happily scroll AI slop for hours on TikTok. Opening their wallet for it is a different conversation.

They are not being hypocrites, they are being stern with their money. Steam has recognised this and tried to give developers the hint with the Steam AI tag. Steam is not "Anti-AI", they are anti AI content, you know, the actual thing consumers refuse to pay for.

TLDR: the Steam AI disclosure is Valve's polite way of saying no AI art and no AI-generated stories without telling players first.

What to actually do about it?

Paying customers will decide the fate of AI, not you, not me.

I have personally decided to make it clear on my products how I use AI and how I don't use it

I also give out free tooling for go getters who are actually writing stories, drawing manga and the like to get things done easier. If you want a worked example, here's how I format a manga script in Mangaplay Studio

My answer was to build tools instead of arguing online. Mangaplay Studio and Fountain+ are how I bet on art being art. The tutorial above walks through how I actually use them.

Own your IP. Own your audience. Let the rest argue about cheeseburgers.