Epic Games CEO says it’s ‘really irresponsible’ of Steam to make studios disclose AI use | VGC - 25th Jun 2026

Disney uses the hell out of Unreal Engine tho, they used it extensively for the filming of The Mandalorian.

I wish they'd go bankrupt but they will be fine off of Unreal royalties alone.

I mean, they've been around for 35 years and they do something like 5 billion USD a year in revenue. I think they're going to be fine.

I don't necessarily want this iteration of Epic to be fine, but I'm sure they will be

let the free market decide

But only if the 'free' market chooses me, otherwise, it's wrong and everything should be changed!

"No, not like that!"

free market is when I get money

Technically, Epic won, but functionally it didn't change much. And what they won didn't help anyone else or the inherent structural issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games_v._Google

Yes! This is exactly why I too hate epic. They could throw a free game at me, I'd still buy it on steam. I have no intention of going where I'm not wanted.

And I was just getting good at rocket league

I still only play it through steam?

Based and fuck Tim sweetney pilled

Yeah, we need some government intervention, regulations and financial discipline to hold them accountable

Real money?

Okay, lol. To start with, that's not what the term 'gatekeeping' means -- he's not even using the term correctly.

If a group of real csam producers was trying to keep ai csam producers out of their group, that would be gatekeeping.

........gatekerping csam? Or gatekeeping AI?

Because both are rediculous statements, but for entirely different reasons.

And Fortnite started as a Pubg clone.

It actually started as an MMO PvE co-op thing. The BR was an addon jankily tacked on, and it just took off because BR was the hot new shit everyone wanted to play, and got bigger than the original concept.

Well, Fortnite started as Fortnite: Save the world, which is still alive and kicking. Battle Royale is the trash they made later.

He saw how big Roblox market share was and decided that he wanted it. That’s why Epic is integrating UE6 into the Fortnite ecosystem. All so he could collect his 63% from each sale (potentially more with UE6 fees). It’s not about making new games easier to find, it’s about becoming monopoly.

Bank of America?

TBF I believe indie games will benefit the most from generative AI.

This is the one point where my opinions on GenAI split:

On one hand, art assets can be a lot of effort and time to create manually, which may hamstring games with interesting concepts and mechanics whose devs don't have the skills or time to wrap them into suitable aesthetics. Voice acting is also a difficult point that can fill a world with life (like background chatter in villages), but isn't always trivial for smaller teams or solo developers, particularly if they aren't good at voice acting themselves and don't have the money to pay someone up-front.

For those reasons, I think using GenAI to handle creative aspects is understandable if the devs themselves can't shoulder that burden.

On the other hand, I feel like there should be better solutions. This reasoning to justify GenAI might be leveraged to justify not hiring artists or VAs. Sure makes your studio look smaller, and also leaves a larger margin of profit. Who's gonna be able to tell whether you even looked for people to help you instead of just taking the shortcut?

I assume it comes down to economic and competitive pressures too. I'm sure there are plenty of artists or VAs that would lend their time and craft to an interesting game for the promise of a cut once the game releases, if they didn't have to worry about paying bills right now instead of an uncertain future income.

I find myself returning to the topic of Universal Basic Income, or at least shorter working times for equal income: Imagine how much art people could create if they had the leisure to, instead of maximising profits for some money addicts' "number go up" fix.

That’s a terrible way of doing it.

That bad?

Lots and lots of hours for people who didn't even know they were working for the "AI" companies?

Copying isn't stealing, and learning or training on public information certainly isn't. Your argument based on a vast expansion of what is "intellectual property" is disgusting and moronic and dangerous.

If generative AI can generate useful work, who gets to profit from it? That is the only question since AI is inevitable. But you're arguing that only capitalists and large companies that can afford to "license" this new form of intellectual property may profit. I'm saying AI should be open source, and the ability to make use of this cheaper generative work should be able to be used by all for free.

It's about artistic freedom. I know how hard it is to program and make games and can imagine a better way using advanced (future) AI tools.

The problem with game development is not just the amount of work, and the capital required, it is the intersection of complicated technology and artistic outcome. Almost all disciplines in computer sciences are part of video games. It isn't just hard and more time intensive than a single person can do, there is a higher risk of complete failure. You need high level of "technical intelligence" to even do it, which precludes a large number of potential artists.

We have very few computer games that I consider "art". This not made to be pretty or profitable or entertainment, but something that shows you something new about the world. They do exist and they are labors of love or accidents, but they are rare. This is very different from other media like books or even movies. And movies are expensive and complicated affairs, but at least they have a linear nature.

The fundamental issue with computer games as a medium is that it is near impossible to invent a truly new game, with new gameplay and a worthy story that is not linear, and then turn it into a viable product (not even talking about commercial success, but something that is approachable to a wide audience. Like art ought to be. See Façade (video game) - Wikipedia for example.

AI has the potential to change all of this. The tools will become drastically more powerful and hardware and models cheaper to use.

Now, in a 100 years you'd surely have the ability to create virtual worlds by descriptive prompt, like ordinary people in Star Trek can do with the holodeck. How do we get from here to there? What technology is needed? Imagine you prompt "make a GTA V clone but underground with dwarves" and you get a complete game generated where you can now play or create or tweak a narrative. That's what the holodeck can do in star trek, and what I always wished for ever since I was a little kid.

Only then will we have the artistic freedom to create video games as art.

Or think of dialogue that plays with you as you deviate, already examples exist with TTS. Or a game or dungeon master playing with you, throwing challenges in your way. Or a crafting component in the game, where you don't have to painstakingly paint textures and nudge vertices to create some new style of armor or weapon or a house. You can just describe it in detail.

There are tons of problems with AI and society and the disgusting capitalists who will try to monopolize it. Making it easier or cheaper to create games isn't one of them.