Made by Humans: The New Filter Button

Steam Next Fest is supposed to be where you stumble onto your next favorite demo. October's edition turned into a pile of complaints instead.

Thousands of demos went up, and players and developers said AI slop and quick clones were drowning the games worth playing. Valve says it is aware of it. Marc Wilkinson, from its business development team, told an event in Korea that "some low-quality games get exposed." Another Valve rep said they don't want to tell developers which tools to use.

So what are other storefronts doing about it? And would a filter fix the problem?

Itch added a "no AI" filter to search results, built on the AI disclosure it already asks for. It also says it deleted a couple of terabytes of bulk AI spam. Nexus Mods now makes authors explain how and where they used AI, with 60 days for existing authors to catch up. There is no ban. Its AI tags can filter mods off the home page.

I think both sites are making the same bet. Give people the information and let them decide what they see. Nintendo, Xbox, Ubisoft and EA have also adopted the Accessible Games Initiative tags, which tell you what accessibility features a game has. Same idea, different question.

Side note, the hard part is the definition. Where does "assisted" stop and "generated" start? Nobody seems to have a clean answer yet, lol. Ahem anyway.

Would you use a filter like this? Or would you rather see everything and make the call yourself? I'm still working out where I land.