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    Steam Next Fest got absolutely ruined by AI

    Just a couple years ago Steam Next Fest events were a great moment to discover your next game. You probably ended up adding more than a handful of games to your wishlist. You truly discovered games that otherwise wouldn't even know of their existence.

    Now? You'd have a better chance buying a lottery ticket and winning than getting to discover a good game demo.

    You gotta start digging among literally THOUSANDS of AI slop "games" to find anything wortwhile. And at this point, what's actually the point of Next Fest?

    Posted by Shogo-MAD

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    44 Comments

    1. MessirNoob on

      Yes. We even decided not to participate in it. We hope that Valve will invent something before the next one

    2. Jusanom on

      Yeah I’m not even looking at it anymore. I’m just looking at “recommend” threads and stuff. It’s just slop after slop.

    3. Background_Fix9430 on

      I’ve just resorted to trying to tag any game that admits to using AI as “AI” so I can sort them out without more issue.

    5. EmmaBonney on

      Yeah, noticed that myself. usually i scroll through and look for interesting games…its all AI slop and i dont want to participate :/

    6. aesoprowwy on

      hopefully there is a significant drop in the engagement metrics due to the overabundance of vibe coded games being featured and steam implements some stricter guidelines for submissions

    9. johnny3674 on

      I think there is an option for personalized mode from Wednesday, so I think this will hopefully clear all the AI games out of the way

    11. TheGreatPiata on

      If you wait a few days, the slop is mostly filtered out by the community.

      It sucks though. It makes discovering things on your own seem absolutely futile.

    13. D3c1m470r on

      I think games are ruined by AI – and hopefully devs who try to make a game under a weekend and uploading it.
      In any case, i agree that steam should do some internal eval to not allow low effort AI slop onto its platform. Some more serious prerequisites would be appreciated.
      Like my demo is also participating in the Next Fest right now and it makes me sad that its becoming like Google Play Store – an oceanic wasteland of pathetic pieces of shit where you are challenged to find the needle in the haystack and many people like you are not even considering taking a look at the fest.

    15. Esseth on

      I normally do an initial scan and try a bunch of stuff and then have another look towards the end when all the good, interesting and fun funs are at the top of the charts.

      But skipping that first round this time because it’s just sloppage as far as I can see with the occasional one that isn’t. Feel bad for the actual devs that are working hard on their games only to have this.

    20. SuperSocialMan on

      Oh shit, next fest is happening?

      The last couple have been kinda “meh” – the games in looking forward to still haven’t reached the demo stage lol. Hell, I already have a few dozen demos I haven’t played downloaded lol.

      Guess this’ll be the same. Might see if anything on my wishlist has a demo.

    21. DirectJob7575 on

      Its barely any different than the asset flips. The cream will rise to the top and a shitty AI generated thumbnail will make those games sink to the bottom.

    22. ozzee289 on

      Tbh, I have 2 games in development that are getting close to release but I’ve lost quite a bit of motivation lately.

      Seeing the market getting flooded with AI slop makes me feel like all the work I’ve put into these games will get lost in the shuffle. I’m not giving up, but I won’t lie, it’s definitely taken a hit on my motivation.

    23. PhotonMiku on

      The point of Next Fest is to give everyone a bit of the spotlight. As the week continues, the algorithm kicks in. By day 3 you’ll only see the stuff the works. (at least this is how it worked in years past)

    27. help-Me-Help_You on

      Yeah I love Steam Next Fest, so fun to go through catalog of games but this time the experience was so disappointing, so much obvious AI slop, I will still give it a shot but I won’t be as engaged in the fest as I previously was.

    31. DunkeyColdMedina on

      There’s been too many. I’ve just been ignoring them. They can keep some, but they need to put some back too.

    32. acequinn09 on

      “Game Dev” in the game dev dynasty isn’t even fucking centered correctly. Useless humans using useless “AI” and shiting out useless software.

    33. Ayershole on

      I just sat down after dinner to enjoy some demos and was SHOCKED at how bad it was. Genuinely the worst Ive ever seen, I cant even find a game thats not AI riddled, vibe coded or a straight up clone. Its miserable.

    34. stilldisgruntled on

      Out of the games from last few Next Fests, the best ones were probably Iron Nest and How Many Dudes. I’ll just stick to the top games list and I’ll be fine.

    35. Hypno--Toad on

      My queue hasn’t been full of AI and I can barely find one that looks like it was developed with AI.

      One has to wonder what lead to some people getting more AI suggestions over others, maybe because I don’t buy everything and typically take more time to decide what I want over the coarse of months instead of minutes.

      If they algo see’s you as a chump you get treated like a chump.

    36. Radium on

      For me it was ruined when all the shitty devs started releasing human made games that just plain sucked before AI was a thing.

    37. Firey69 on

      Welp as long as people ain’t stupid enough to support those ai games. Then just don’t buy em

    38. Noeyiax on

      i love digging through trash. dont worry guys, ill find the best games for you… watch me 😏 hahaha

    40. FlyingOakGames on

      We’re one of the indie studios participating in Next Fest and we’ve worked together with a few other indies and created a little browser interface to discover our curated, quality demos straight in your browser. Visibility for up and coming indies is going to be rough this time around.

    43. Auuki on

      As someone working on a game “the proper way”, I’m scared for the next fest when I’ll release my demo.