Since 2024, the number of Steam-released games using AI content of any kind has increased by a whopping seven times. That means about 7,800 titles are making use of artificial intelligence, and though I’m not happy about it—there might be some validity in there.
Per a pair of Totally Human Media studies, Steam only featured some 1,000 games with generative AI content in them in April of last year. Fast-forward to July 2025, and there are nearly 8,000 of them, accounting for about 20 percent of all Steam games released this year and seven percent of the entire Steam library. Generative AI, having substantially improved just between those two dates, is significantly growing in video games, and it seems Steam, with its fair share of indies and smaller, less-serious projects, is quite the magnet for it.
This sevenfold increase comes as a result of developers big and small making use of new tools and technologies to either speed up or cheapen the work. Totally Human Media performed wide research to see just what kind of studios use generative AI, concluding that massive titles like The Finals and indie productions both appear in significant numbers.
I am not a fan of generative AI in any case, especially in art. However, Totally Human Media’s findings indicate a particularly grey area, i.e., indie games.
Several instances of generative AI use in the studies show indie developers both disclosing and explaining why they opted for using such technologies. Explanations varied between development costs being too high otherwise to artists needing inspiration and having a hard time visualizing concepts.
Both of these are, for better or worse, valid points. Without such a tool, we probably wouldn’t have gotten a wave of new indie titles that could genuinely be good games, AI be damned.
It certainly does open the possibility for discussion. While I would prefer AI be purged from video games and art once and for all, the technology isn’t going to willfully just Thanos snap itself out of existence. Nor will major studios and publishers who only care about speed and green numbers on a chart take a stance against it.
Perhaps we should learn to live alongside it and push for regulations that can turn this otherwise harmful tool into something of value.
My stance here is not firm, and I am not really sure I could ever accept artificiality in any form of art, games included. But, if it serves to enable indie development that would otherwise be impossible… then yeah, to hell with it, maybe that’s fine.
What do you think, Desturctoid? If an indie game, a good indie game, would be impossible to make without AI help, does that justify using it? Let me know below.
