Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has been blasting Steam's AI content disclosure rules for months. Just days after Epic finished revamping its own store, he took to the X platform again, denouncing Steam's mandatory AI disclosure policy as "repulsive," adding another chapter to the tug-of-war with Valve.
This time the trigger was a view floated by Matt Workman of generative media company Fal: by 2026, AI disclosure would no longer mean much. Sweeney jumped into the thread with an even harsher take — he believes disclosure labels amount to forcing developers to write a "political statement," easily seized upon by online extremist groups and used to attack them.
This is not the first time he has spoken out. In an earlier interview, Sweeney directly accused Valve of being "very irresponsible," and also called out "opposition groups who want to destroy the games industry." But Valve's stance has not budged an inch, and platform policy still firmly requires: if generative AI was used to produce content, developers must disclose it to players.
The rules actually have nuance: Steam has required disclosure of generative AI use since 2024, but only for content directly produced by AI, such as art, soundtracks, mechanics, text, and marketing materials — assistance with writing code is not covered. Labeling has now become the norm — of the more than 8600 demos at the recent Next Fest, nearly 1700 carried the label, close to twenty percent, and games like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Arc Raiders remained red-hot despite being labeled.
Its own store uses AI too, yet is riddled with bugs
Ironically, the freshly revamped Epic Games Store was itself built with "vibe-coded" methods, with the company claiming it starts up in just 5.47 seconds, faster than Steam's 10 seconds. Yet many users report the new version is full of bugs and glitches, which Epic has yet to fix. Steam, meanwhile, keeps users hooked with the mindset of running a large online game, and has consistently remained silent in the face of Sweeney's repeated attacks — including the recent Steam Deck price increase.