According to Futurism, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney erupted on social media last week, furious about rival platform Steam’s policy requiring developers to disclose if their games contain AI-generated assets. Sweeney, whose company makes Fortnite and runs the Epic Games Store, agreed with a post demanding Valve drop the feature, arguing AI use “doesn’t matter anymore” for game stores. He mocked the idea, suggesting mandatory disclosures for “what shampoo brand the developer uses.” The policy was officially introduced by Valve earlier this year, with a notable requirement that games using “live-generated” AI content must explain their guardrails against generating illegal material. Valve artist Ayi Sanchez defended the rule, comparing it to a food ingredients list and stating that only creators of “low effort” products should fear it.
Sweeney’s Strawman Argument
Here’s the thing: Tim Sweeney‘s shampoo comparison is a classic bad-faith argument. It’s a straw man. Nobody is asking for that level of granular, irrelevant detail. What gamers and artists are asking for is basic transparency about the fundamental nature</em of the creative work they're buying. Is the art hand-painted or prompted? Is the dialogue written by a writer or stitched together by an LLM? Is the voice acting a human performance or an AI model trained on someone's voice? These aren't trivial details like a shampoo brand; they speak to the craft, the labor, and the legal underpinnings of the product. Sweeney's reduction of it all to absurdity shows he either doesn't get the concern or, more likely, doesn't want to deal with it.
Why Valve’s Policy Actually Makes Sense
Valve isn’t banning AI. They tried that in 2023 and reversed course. Now, they’re just asking for a label. So why is that so controversial? Look, Valve’s caution is rooted in two very real issues: legal liability and consumer expectation. The legal ownership of AI-trained models is a minefield, as they noted last year. By forcing disclosure, they’re putting the onus on the developer to certify they have the rights to what they’re selling. For consumers, it’s about informed choice. Some people actively want to support human artists and writers, especially in an industry ravaged by layoffs. Others might not care. But without a label, you can’t choose. Sanchez’s food label analogy is spot-on. Do you want to know if there’s gluten or soy in your food? For many, it’s critical. For others, it’s not. But the information is there.
The Broader Industry Hypocrisy
And this is where Sweeney’s position feels particularly galling. Epic is all-in on AI tooling for developers. They just released an AI assistant for Unreal Engine. So his problem isn’t with AI. It’s with transparency around AI. He wants the tech to be baked into the process invisibly, a standard part of the toolkit that doesn‘t require a second thought. But that’s the whole debate! Voice actors struck for a year partly over this. Artists are watching their styles get ingested by datasets. To say it “doesn’t matter” is to dismiss massive, legitimate creative and labor concerns. It’s a very CEO-centric view: efficiency and production speed above all else.
Who’s Afraid of the AI Label?
Basically, Ayi Sanchez nailed it in her response: “The only ppl afraid of this are the ones that know their product is low effort.” If your game uses AI ethically, with proper licenses and as a genuine tool to enhance human creativity, what’s the harm in checking a box? The backlash Sweeney got from gamers proves there’s a market for this information. Valve’s policy, outlined in a Steamworks announcement, is a compromise. It allows AI but demands accountability. Sweeney’s tantrum, seen in his posts and follow-ups, isn’t about logic. It’s about not wanting his rival platform to set a transparency standard his own store might feel pressured to follow.
