Valve Says It Still Believes in VR, and Won't Ban AI Games From Steam
At Steam Indie Connect in Korea, Valve staff said Steam Frame owners mostly play flatscreen games and that Steam will fix discovery rather than restrict AI-made titles
Valve’s Tom Giardino and Marc Wilkinson, from the Steam business team, answered questions at Steam Indie Connect in South Korea on October 27. Korean outlet Inven reported the session, and Road to VR and Notebookcheck picked it up.
A note on the quotes: Road to VR says the quotes it published, which we use below, are machine-translated from Inven’s Korean report, and no video of the event appears to be available. The wording may not match exactly what was said.
VR and Steam Frame
Asked by VR developers whether Valve is backing away from VR, Giardino said, “We still believe in virtual reality.” He also said Steam Frame owners are mostly playing standard flatscreen games rather than VR titles.
Giardino described VR’s main problem as a “chicken-and-egg” dilemma. Developers wait for the market to grow, and players wait for more games. Meanwhile, big flatscreen releases arrive every week. Valve treats Steam Frame as one part of a wider VR ecosystem, alongside the Steam Link app for Meta Quest and OpenXR support in SteamVR.
He also blamed component costs. Rising RAM and memory prices made Steam Frame more expensive than Valve had hoped, which made it less appealing to newcomers. “Moments where we could have welcomed many new customers became reasons to hesitate or wait on VR,” he said, adding, “We feel sorry to VR developers.”
AI-made games on Steam
Most of the session was about AI. According to Notebookcheck’s account of Inven’s report, Valve isn’t planning to restrict games made with AI tools. Giardino said Valve doesn’t want to dictate which tools developers use. Instead, the company wants Steam to get better at helping players find games that match their interests.
Wilkinson said many Valve employees are working on the problem. He explained that during the first two days of Steam Next Fest, games were shown largely at random so every entry got a fair shot, with personalized recommendations taking over afterward. That approach can give low-effort games a burst of attention. Valve hasn’t announced a specific feature or timeline for a fix.
