Steam Next Fest stats:
→ Oct 2025: ~2,960 demos, 507 disclosed AI use, about 17%
→ Jun 2026: 4,382 demos, 1,163 disclosed, 26.5%
→ Oct 2026: 7,000 to 8,200 demos, up to 36% carrying the disclaimer
Where AI assets are tolerable:
→ Storefront art: Steam capsules, banners, App Store icons
→ UI: icons, inventory, menu framing
→ 2D card genres: character portraits, backgrounds, event cards
→ In-game props: graffiti, book covers, minor environment props inside a 3D scene
→ Localization
→ VO
→ Gamejams
Rule of thumb: All AI art needs technical cleanup and artistic review. Three iterations, minimum.
Where AI assets are not tolerable:
Anatomy and structure
→ Hands and limbs: extra or missing fingers, fused digits, joints bending at impossible angles, limbs merging into clothing
→ Architecture: stairs leading nowhere, broken door symmetry, rooflines clipping into walls
→ Hardware: trigger guards placed wrong, barrels that do not align, armour straps anchored to nothing
Texture and material
→ The glossy sheen: leather, stone and skin all sharing one high-specular surface
→ Melting and smearing: chainmail, fur, embroidery that reads at distance and turns to noise up close
→ Incoherent lettering: pseudo-alphabet gibberish instead of typography or clean runework
Lighting and composition
→ Light sources that contradict the scene behind them
→ Foreground and background unintegrated in scale, tone, blur
Root cause and best practice:
→ Skipping the polish pass. Production-ready means human paint-overs, cleanup, line-art tracing, retopology.
→ Prompting as a substitute for pipeline. Treating agents as a replacement for concept artists, tech artists and art directors.
Either you hide it or tag it under Steam’s AI disclaimer. Next Fest is not a gamejam.
tCARe, CARtic P
iCartic.com