• It’s extraordinarily irresponsible of dear Mr Sweeney to get out of bed every morning, and yet he sadly so often does.

  • 14 hours

    Epic, like Bungie is an ugly shadow of its former glory. They’ll both be gone soon enough.

  • I can’t tell if this guy just constantly has bad takes and a shitty world view or if he knows saying controversial shit is what gets headlines. Maybe it’s both.

    • I think it’s more just Tim Sweeney trying to be a “billionaire influencer”. He has a lot of money and yes men surrounding him, so he believes everything he thinks must by that fact be the correct take.

  • 1 day

    If they don’t want to be labeled, then don’t use it?

    Same applies for other stuff like Denuvo.

  • “Company accused of putting sawdust in their baked goods furious at ingredient labelling standards; more at 11.”

  • His argument makes no sense. What he is saying is that game devs will fall behind competition if they have to disclose AI use… Which correctly implies that customers will not buy products in the AI category… Which means clients don’t want AI snuck into games. This means he would rather sell you games with AI against your consent than be transparent.

    The problem he proposes only exists in his universe where AI is not disclosed versus on steam where those companies that use AI are now actually falling behind those that don’t.

    • His argument hinges on the idea that consumers “discriminate against” games using AI-generated assets, which, of course, they do, and they should, because even if some of it is good, it’s not worth digging through the trash to find it.

      Of course Timmy also owns a game engine built on AI-generated assets so he has to play the victim card (again) even though he’s only a victim of his own perpetually-stupid decisions.

  • This is why Steam has a “monopoly” by technicality. Steam doesn’t do anything to the competition, the competition just keeps making an objectively worse platform so bad that they end up killing themselves. Steam shouldn’t have to be accountable for that, its not Gabe’s fault the other CEOs are stupid.

  • I hear him, and will now assume anything they put out is ai generated. Don’t even need the disclosure when they give themselves away by complaining so much.

    • You don’t need to assume. Unreal Engine 6 promises Generative AI is a major part of it.

  • 2 days

    So irresponsible to give their users information. Then they can make… informed decisions!!! 😱

  • If you truly think AI is so great, why don’t you want to disclose it?

    • He’s only mad because Unreal Engine 6 is going all-in on AI development and he’s realizing he just shot his company (and all other users of their engine) in the foot.

      • I also think it’s mainly about their engine. They’re a very big player and growing, because Unreal Engine is quite good, but the AI disclosure will make some competing engines look more attractive to developers.

    • 1 day

      Because what matters is what customers think - and many people hate AI.

      • If he’s fully aware that consumers don’t want it, maybe he should listen to them instead of whining that he’s not allowed to lie. Because that’s what he wants, he wants to just lie by not disclosing.

      • 1 day

        It’s an illusion of echochambers in Online not representative of real world.

        • The strong AI hate is the one that is mostly in online echo chambers, but the AI fatigue is something even normal people is starting to feel after having it shoved down their throat from multiple directions.

        • 1 day

          Well this is why Tim finds this practice irresponsible. I suspect he might have some inside knowledge about how this affects game developers and sales.

  • Steam really ought to learn their lessons, Tim is only trying to help. They’re still crippled from their decision not to allow blockchain games while Epic used the opportunity to eat their lunch /s

  • 1 day

    I say it’s irresponsible and petty to keep Alan Wake 2 an Epic Store exclusive.

    • Oh wow, didn’t realize that! Now I feel justified in pirating it, thanks for the heads up!

  • Worse, Steam even makes games disclose if they’re…gulp “Single-Player”.

    What self-respecting gamer would play games designed for a single player? That just marks someone as antisocial. Or poor. It’s really mean to studios to have to disclose info like that about the content of their game.

    • And god help those publishers if you had to disclose the use of a third party DRM like Denuvo on the store page!