Backlash to Sweeney and the original post was immediate. Ayi Sánchez, former Counter-Strike artist, likened a lack of disclosure that a game used AI to food products' ingredient list, while Dutch composer Joris de Man reminded Sweeney that game trailers had to eventually get a "not real gameplay" disclaimer to temper expectations. Mike Bethell, an indie producer, was acerbic, stating that "If [Sweeney thinks] AI is the future, wear that 'we used AI to make this' tag with pride, and watch as [his] sales plummet."
It's worth noting that Sweeney also got support from some figures, who mainly pointed out the lack of a defining line on the matter. Matt Workman, the thread's original poster, stated that Steam's catch-all net "is so wide it catches any developer who uses Unreal Engine, Google Suite (Gmail/Docs/Sheets), Slack (MANY AI automations), Adobe Products, Microsoft Office, etc."
Whether Sweeney's broad statement makes sense or is self-serving is arguably up for discussion. One thing is certain, though—this debate isn't likely to stop anytime soon.
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Bruno Ferreira Contributor Bruno Ferreira is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware. He has decades of experience with PC hardware and assorted sundries, alongside a career as a developer. He's obsessed with detail and has a tendency to ramble on the topics he loves. When not doing that, he's usually playing games, or at live music shows and festivals.
S58_is_the_goat When will we see "optimized with ai" labels on ue5 games? 😂 Reply
Shiznizzle This suits studios that end up trademarking or applying for copyrights on AI made assets that normally would be excluded. Machine made songs cannot be given protections yet are already infiltrating the music scene. It is time for watermarks to be included by all engines that "create" things. The law is behind, once again, and cannot keep up with the pace of progress. Reply
valthuer It’s honestly wild how easily the whole "AI in games" debate derails, mostly because we’re not even talking about the same thing. On one hand, nobody wants games filled with cloned actor voices or artwork that looks like it was spat out by a prompt generator. But on the other hand, the industry has been relying on so-called "AI tools" for years — they just didn’t carry the buzzword label back then. So along comes Tim Sweeney — blunt, a bit provocative — saying "Made with AI" labels don’t make sense. And sure, his comment is easy to misread, but it also highlights a real issue: the label is now so broad it basically means nothing. We can’t pretend that TTS voice acting and an animator smoothing out transitions with a smart tool belong in the same category. The problem isn’t disclosure itself. The problem is what we’re disclosing and why. Transparency only works when it tells players something meaningful — not when it lumps every modern tool into one catch-all term that scares people more than it informs them. Until we figure out where the line actually is — what counts as assistance, what counts as content generation, and what genuinely replaces human creativity — the debate isn’t going anywhere. And maybe that’s a good thing: at least it shows that, even in an age of "magic" tools, we still care about the human work behind the games we love. Reply
Findecanor Meanwhile, some game studios are differentiating themselves by proudly proclaiming that they did not use AI. I've also seen YouTube creators post banners "Made Without AI Slop", and artists moving their artworks to sites with a clear anti-AI stance. They do this on one part because they are against their work being stolen, and take a stance against it. And they do this because there is a definite demand for quality content, and a general anti-AI sentiment out there among consumers. Reply
Jabberwocky79 valthuer said: Until we figure out where the line actually is — what counts as assistance, what counts as content generation, and what genuinely replaces human creativity — the debate isn’t going anywhere. All good points. That's where the line is, for me, right there. But how do you police that? You can't. Because AI is NOT like tools of the past. A traditional artist uses a paintbrush , but no one argues the creativity of the artist himself. Even when digital design came along, there may have been some controversy, but it's still the artist who is directly involved in moving the pixels around. And you can't tell me that all of the digital matte painters in Hollywood and all the 3D artists in the game industry don't have tremendous talent and creativity. But now, I've seen people twist that argument that they, as a generative AI prompter, also still have the creativity and talent because they have to know how to prompt the right way to get the results they want. Eh, maybe… I think that argument is on very thin ice, but can I disprove it? No, not really. At any rate, I think that the vast majority of the human race is gifted with a powerful imagination. But gifted with the ability to bring those visions into existence? That resided with a relatively small number… at least until now. So back to my original point… how do you draw the line on what is creative and what isn't? It's a total mess, and a lot of people have been and will be screwed over. But I can't think of a lot of technologies that haven't done that in some way or another. This is just the latest one. Findecanor said: Meanwhile, some game studios are differentiating themselves by proudly proclaiming that they did not use AI. I've also seen YouTube creators post banners "Made Without AI Slop", and artists moving their artworks to sites with a clear anti-AI stance. They do this on one part because they are against their work being stolen, and take a stance against it. And they do this because there is a definite demand for quality content, and a general anti-AI sentiment out there among consumers. I am all for this movement. Anytime I see a company that proudly excludes AI, I'm instantly more drawn to them. And this is coming from someone who isn't 100% anti-AI either – I use it every day. But I think it's one of the most egregious copyright violations in history for big corps to train their models on the work of others without asking for permission or making compensation. It is just insane. Reply
valthuer Jabberwocky79 said: All good points. That's where the line is, for me, right there. But how do you police that? You can't. Because AI is NOT like tools of the past. A traditional artist uses a paintbrush , but no one argues the creativity of the artist himself. Even when digital design came along, there may have been some controversy, but it's still the artist who is directly involved in moving the pixels around. And you can't tell me that all of the digital matte painters in Hollywood and all the 3D artists in the game industry don't have tremendous talent and creativity. But now, I've seen people twist that argument that they, as a generative AI prompter, also still have the creativity and talent because they have to know how to prompt the right way to get the results they want. Eh, maybe… I think that argument is on very thin ice, but can I disprove it? No, not really. At any rate, I think that the vast majority of the human race is gifted with a powerful imagination. But gifted with the ability to bring those visions into existence? That resided with a relatively small number… at least until now. So back to my original point… how do you draw the line on what is creative and what isn't? It's a total mess, and a lot of people have been and will be screwed over. But I can't think of a lot of technologies that haven't done that in some way or another. This is just the latest one. You’re raising solid and genuinely thoughtful points — and honestly, I think you’re also circling around the heart of the issue: creativity isn’t a single action, it’s a chain of actions. Traditional painting, digital matte work, 3D modeling — those all sit at different points on that chain. And yes, generative AI shifts things again, sometimes uncomfortably. Not because it’s "not a real tool", but because it can compress multiple creative steps at once, which blurs the boundaries in a way older tools didn’t. But that’s exactly why "policing" creativity will never work. Not because AI is unknowable — but because creativity itself has never been a fixed, enforceable category. We’ve just convinced ourselves it was. Someone sketching with charcoal, someone sculpting polygons in Blender, someone refining a procedural generation system, someone shaping a model’s output with 40 iterations of prompts — they’re all engaging with different layers of the creative process. The value of each layer is contextual, not universal. And that’s why disclosure matters more than enforcement. We don’t need a creativity tribunal deciding who qualifies as an artist and who doesn’t. What we do need is transparency about which parts of the chain were authored by humans, which were automated, and which were hybrid. That way players (or viewers, or listeners) can judge based on the actual workflow, not vibes or assumptions. Will people still get screwed over? Unfortunately, yes — because every major technological disruption has redistributed labor faster than culture can adapt. But hiding the process won’t help; clarity at least gives us a fighting chance to build norms that make sense. At the end of the day, creativity isn’t dying — it’s mutating. And like every mutation in art history, the real challenge is learning how to talk about it without flattening everything into the same category. Reply
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