Revisiting The Cloning Of Threes By 2028; The Reason Devs Cant Rely On Making "the Best Version Available" To Fight Copycats, And Why We're Going To Lose Creative Indie Games As A Chilling Effect

Valve has responded to customer and developer requests for an AI filter and a reduction in AI slop on Steam by saying that it is up to developers to make good ideas that cant be easily copied. Specifically:

Valve has historically not been aggressive with DRM or anti-piracy measures. Instead, it placed weight on making the legitimate version the best version available, and he explained that Valve views AI cloning through the same lens. Giardino said, "Rather than relying on a single mechanic that someone can easily copy, you need to keep growing your game by adding features, personality, and creativity that stem from your own perspective."

Threes developers did everything right. Their game was unique. It had personality. It was high quality and polished. They released it for the novel price of $3.

Then they got ripped off immediately by a lesser quality by people who didnt care about the end product but had better marketing skills. They made a "free to play" version called 1048. It ran on ads. Its publisher had a massive marketing budget. They spotlight was stolen from them.

The inventor of the concept, and the people who invested the resources to come up with it, were distraught.

Here is their write-up:

https://asherv.com/threes/threemails/

Threes had everything a great game and small dev should have. They worked hard on the game and new that the game had a flaw, it was a solved game, and designed around it. None of the clones did, and do the game that become more popular had an ending while theirs could be chased forever. Players lost out on the better game.

Valve's stance on AI will stifle creativity. It will let the people who already have the resources copy and clone the smaller indie devs that come up with great ideas.

Giving the inventors a chance to recoup their costs and exploit their ideas is why copyrights exist in the first place. Society already had this debate and we decided that protecting ingenuity was an important thing for the BUSINESS side of capitalism. AI, by creation, destroys this concept. And now Valve wants to take that protection away from every indie developer on his storefront, because Gabe makes the same 30% from the clones as does the original.

AT minimum Steam needs to give customers a filter. Steam (and all storefronts) need to let us decide what we see, not leave us to their algorithms trying to wear us down into submission for paid sponsors shoving slop at us while the real artists dont hav the budgets to reach us because they spent it on the original labor.