According to Wccftech, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has entered the debate around generative AI disclosures in digital game stores, specifically responding to developer Matt Workman’s argument against Steam’s current policy. Steam currently requires games like ARC Raiders and the recently announced Beyond Words to include AI disclosure tags at the bottom of their store pages. Sweeney agreed with Workman’s position in a post on X, stating that having generative AI tags on platforms like Steam “makes no sense” because he believes AI will be involved in “nearly all future production” of games. This puts Sweeney at odds with developers who actively avoid using AI tools and with current store policies that aim for transparency.
Sweeney’s AI Vision
Here’s the thing – Sweeney isn’t just saying AI tags are unnecessary right now. He’s making a much broader prediction about where the entire industry is headed. He argues that these disclosures make sense for art exhibits where authorship matters, or for digital content marketplaces where rights need clarification. But for game stores? He thinks we’re rapidly approaching a future where asking if a game used AI is like asking if it used a computer. Basically, he sees AI becoming as fundamental to game development as any other tool in the pipeline.
Industry Divide
But not everyone’s buying this vision. When Nexon’s CEO made similar claims that players should assume all games use AI, multiple developers pushed back hard. Some creators are adamant they’ll never use generative AI for their creative work. And that’s the real tension here – we’ve got executives like Sweeney predicting universal adoption while actual developers are drawing lines in the sand. So who’s right? The answer probably lies somewhere in the middle, with AI becoming commonplace for certain tasks while remaining controversial for others.
Transparency Battle
What’s interesting is how this plays out for consumers. Right now, if you care about avoiding AI-generated content, you can at least look for those Steam tags. But as some observers have noted, there are already developers who don’t disclose AI usage until they’re caught, or who quietly patch it out. If stores remove these disclosures entirely, we might see an interesting counter-movement – developers proudly advertising that their games are “AI-free” as a selling point. That would seriously test Sweeney’s assumption that consumers “do not care” about AI usage.
Practical Reality
Look, whether you love AI tools or hate them, they’re already embedded in game development, especially in triple-A studios. The cat’s out of the bag. But the disclosure debate raises bigger questions about transparency and consumer choice. If every game eventually uses AI in some capacity, does that make the tags meaningless? Or does it make them even more important for understanding what we’re actually buying? As this ongoing conversation shows, we’re still figuring out what ethical AI integration even looks like in creative industries.
