Steam's October Next Fest took in more than 8,000 demos. That is double the roughly 4,000 that entered the June festival6. One developer in this October's crowd got an email instead of a wishlist. It threatened to clone the game with artificial intelligence and sell a copy first, unless the studio paid1.
Tom Giardino was hearing that threat for the first time. The Valve Steam Business Team member said so at a developer conference in Busan, South Korea, on Oct. 273. His colleague Marc Wilkinson sat beside him. He answered a quieter complaint: too many Next Fest demos look thin, fast, and AI-made2.
The Clones Multiply Faster Than the Games
Next Fest is Steam's seasonal showcase for free demos of upcoming games. Clone games go back years there, Giardino said. Artificial intelligence just builds them faster now3.
A horror game called Escape the Walls shows how fast. Seven clones of it appeared on Roblox within ten days of its footage reaching the public. An eighth reached Steam in the same window6.
One Game Gets 8 AI Clones in 10 Days
Clones of the horror game Escape the Walls counted within 10 days of its footage reaching the public, by platform
Each cube is one clone of Escape the Walls; magenta cubes appeared on Roblox, and the blue cube appeared on Steam.
Source: PC Gamer [6]. Chart by Ryan Elliott Dennis.
The numbers behind this chart
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Clones on Roblox | 7 |
| Clone on Steam | 1 |
| Whole | 8 |
Next Fest grew by the same math. The October festival carried more than 8,000 demos. June's festival carried about 4,0006. A bigger festival gives a buyer more games to scroll past, clone and original alike.
October's Next Fest Draws 8,000 Demos, Double June's Count
Demos entered in each Steam Next Fest, reported totals, June and October 2026
Each column is one Next Fest; the October column holds more than double the demos the June festival carried.
Both counts are reported totals for each festival, apart from any figure Valve itself has published.
Source: PC Gamer [6]. Chart by Ryan Elliott Dennis.
The numbers behind this chart
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| June 2026 | 4,000 demos |
| October 2026 | 8,000 demos |
Digital Sun Shrinks Its Playtest
That crowd reached Digital Sun Games first. The studio behind Moonlighter had opened sign-ups for a public playtest of its next game on Steam. ReVamp, a vampire-themed tower defense title, ships in March 202745.
Then the studio reversed course on Oct. 19. "We've been concerned by the recent news of games being reverse-engineered, cloned and published before the original is even out," Digital Sun Games wrote5.
Digital Sun ✨ Wishlist ReVamp!@DigitalSunGamesWe’re keeping ReVamp’s first playtest small for now.
Here’s why. pic.twitter.com/VVBm5hoBeF
The studio moved its first playtest to a closed Discord group instead, with a public version promised around January5. Israel Mallén, the studio's marketing manager, named the math behind the choice. "With launch still months away, sharing a build with tens of thousands of players feels like too big a risk," he said6.
Mallén placed his studio inside a wider pattern. "We know we're not the only developers feeling this way, and the more this is talked about, the more likely platforms are to step in," he said6.
Valve's Answer: Outgrow the Clone
Giardino and Wilkinson heard that case made directly, from developers sitting in the room at Busan2. Their answer left the fix with the developer. Steam's own listing rules stayed the same.
"We don't want to be gatekeepers telling developers which tools they should or shouldn't use," Giardino said13.
His fuller answer named a method. "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," Giardino said3. Build a following a clone would have to earn all over again, and the copy stops mattering.
Wilkinson called the arrangement a trade, worth naming out loud. "We recognize that the trade-off is some low-quality games get exposed. We are fully aware of the situation, and a significant number of people are thinking about how to solve this problem," he said3.
Extortion Becomes a Police Matter
Giardino drew one line past pure cloning: crime. An extortion email crosses it, even while the clone itself stays a developer's fight to win13.
"If you report such cases to us, we want to look into them further and help in whatever way we can," Giardino said2. Steam will look into a specific threat a developer flags. It stops short of screening for that threat before it ever lands in an inbox.
The stance tracks a policy Valve set years earlier. Steam co-founder Erik Johnson wrote in 2018 that the store would carry "everything onto the Steam Store, except for things that we decide are illegal or straight-up trolling"7. Copying a mechanic sits outside the law Valve polices, which is why an AI clone clears that bar. Extortion sits inside it, which is why Giardino drew his line there instead.
What to do
Build the parts of a game a clone struggles to copy. Giardino's own list works as a checklist: an active community, frequent updates, and a mechanic that takes more than one playthrough to clone13.
Report an extortion email to Valve the day it arrives, and keep the message. Giardino said Steam looks into each case a developer sends it, so a saved thread gives that review something to act on2.
Weigh how much of a build a public playtest truly needs to show. Digital Sun Games cut its Steam playtest down to a smaller Discord group rather than skip testing. That move sat between full exposure and skipping feedback entirely5.
By the numbers
- 8,000-plus: demos entered in October's Steam Next Fest, up from about 4,000 in June6.
- Eight: clones of Escape the Walls, seven on Roblox and one on Steam, inside ten days of its footage going public6.
- Oct. 19, 2026: the date Digital Sun Games moved ReVamp's first playtest off its public Steam build and onto a closed Discord group5.
- Eight days later, Oct. 27, 2026: Valve's Steam Business Team answered developer questions on AI clones and extortion at a conference in Busan, South Korea13.
- 2018: the year Valve set its standing rule to carry everything on Steam except what it judges illegal or "straight-up trolling"7.
- January 2027: the month Digital Sun Games hopes to open ReVamp's playtest to the public, after its closed Discord run5.
What to watch
Watch whether Valve changes how Next Fest sorts its demos. That would show more than talk. Wilkinson said people inside Valve are "thinking about how to solve this problem"3, and a new sorting rule would turn that thinking into code.
Digital Sun Games' January playtest date deserves a watch too. A playtest that opens on schedule, ahead of any clone reaching the market first, would test one bet. Giardino says a strong following outruns a copy.
Sources
- Imran Khan, "Valve weighs in on Next Fest AI cloning phenomenon," Game Developer, Oct. 28, 2026, https://www.gamedeveloper.com/pc/valve-addresses-steam-ai-cloning-problem
- Doohyun Lee, "Valve Responds to Developers Fearing AI Slop and Clones," Inven Global, Oct. 27, 2026, https://www.invenglobal.com/articles/27761/valve-responds-to-developers-fearing-ai-slop-and-clones
- Scott Duwe, "Valve says it's 'aware' of Steam Next Fest's prevalence of AI slop and 'thinking about how to solve this problem,'" Destructoid, Oct. 28, 2026, https://www.destructoid.com/valve-aware-steam-next-fest-prevalence-ai-slop-solve-problem/
- Bryant Francis, "Moonlighter developer delays public playtest of next game over concerns of AI cloning," Game Developer, Oct. 19, 2026, https://www.gamedeveloper.com/programming/moonlighter-developer-delays-public-playtest-of-next-game-over-concerns-of-ai-cloning
- John Walker, "AI Cloning Threatens To End Public Playtests For Video Games," Kotaku, Oct. 19, 2026, https://kotaku.com/revamp-public-playtest-cancelled-digital-sun-claude-ai-clones-2000747558
- Shaun Prescott, "Moonlighter studio won't host a public playtest of its next game due to rampant AI-led cloning," PC Gamer, Oct. 19, 2026, https://tech.yahoo.com/gaming/articles/moonlighter-studio-wont-host-public-233309258.html
- Jeff Grubb, "Valve: We shouldn't decide what you can buy on Steam," GamesBeat, June 6, 2018, https://gamesbeat.com/valve-we-shouldnt-decide-what-you-can-buy-on-steam/
- Digital Sun Games, "We're keeping ReVamp's first playtest small for now. Here's why.," X post, Oct. 19, 2026, https://x.com/DigitalSunGames/status/2112167974538723563