More than a third of the games in October's Steam Next Fest disclose the use of generative AI, and many players say the flood of low-effort demos has made the event hard to browse. The Steam Next Fest runs until October 26.
What is the Steam Next Fest is for?
Steam Next Fest is Valve's free demo event. It takes place three times a year, in February, June and October, and lasts one week. Players can try demos of games that have not launched yet. Developers use it to find potential fans and collect feedback before release.
To give every game a chance, Valve shows the games on most of the Next Fest page in random order for the first few days. After that, an algorithm takes over and recommends demos based on what similar players are trying.
How big the AI share is
This is the largest Next Fest so far, with more than 7,000 games taking part.
TheGamer and PC Guide both filtered the full event list on SteamDB, a site that tracks Steam data. According to their counts, more than one in three games in this edition carry an AI disclosure on their store page. In June, it was about one in five.
Those numbers only include developers who admit to using AI. Developers fill out the disclosure themselves, so the real share could be higher.
The most popular demos look different. Only two of the 25 demos with the most players so far disclose AI use, according to How To Market A Game.
What players are saying
On the Steam subreddit, a widely upvoted post says this Next Fest has been "absolutely ruined by AI." Other users ask Valve for an option to hide AI games altogether. One Reddit user suggested separate filters for AI art, dialogue and music instead, so games that used AI only in small ways don't get hidden by mistake.
How Steam labels AI games
Since 2024, Valve has required developers to disclose generative AI in their games. The note appears on the store page in a section called "AI Generated Content Disclosure."
In January 2026, Valve rewrote those rules. AI coding helpers and similar tools used behind the scenes no longer need a disclosure. Developers still have to report AI-made content in the game, on the store page or in marketing, and any content the game creates with AI during gameplay.
Players can read that note on each store page. Steam has no built-in filter that hides games with an AI disclosure from recommendations, though.
Why it hurts other developers
Every low-effort demo takes up space on a page where thousands of games compete for the same players. Small studios that rely on Next Fest to be noticed now have to stand out.
AI also makes copying easier. In August, a clip of Studio Bitdot's Needle in a Haystack Simulator went viral on X before the game was out. Now there is a long list of copycat games on Steam, and the original's developer added a red box to its store artwork to show which game is the real one.
The worry already affects demos. Alliance Arts canceled the planned Steam demo for Drunken Goddess Reflux because it worried that AI tools could quickly produce games that copy its presentation and gameplay before the full game launched.
Used as a tool, AI can help developers, for example when writing code, building early prototypes with placeholder art, handling repetitive work or creating Testing Tools. In a GameDiscoverCo survey, Steam players named exactly these uses as the most acceptable. For an event built around finding new games, a toggle to hide disclosed AI games would be a good start.
Next Fest ends on October 26 at 10 a.m. PT. Valve then launches a Wrap-Up page with the most-played demos of the event. The next edition is planned for February 2027.
