Steam, the largest PC gaming storefront, is facing a growing crisis involving spam games, AI-generated shovelware, and stolen indie titles. According to a new report from Gamepressure, a wave of low-quality and fraudulent games is currently flooding the platform—mirroring issues previously seen on the PlayStation Store and Nintendo eShop.
Shovelware and Asset Flips Run Rampant
Concerns over shovelware—low-effort games quickly assembled using cheap or pre-made assets—have plagued digital storefronts for years. But now, generative AI has escalated the problem, allowing bad actors to generate fake artwork, dialogue, and even gameplay elements that make these “asset flips” harder to distinguish from genuine indie titles.
These spammy games often mimic popular titles to mislead players into buying them, cluttering the store and making discoverability a nightmare for real developers.
Indie Games Being Stolen from Itch.io
More troubling is the recent trend of indie games being stolen and resold on Steam. Developers from Itch.io, a haven for small creators, have reported that their original games are being uploaded to Steam by a mysterious publisher using names like “me” and “myself.” So far, nearly 70 plagiarized titles have been published under these aliases—most of them direct copies of games made by indie devs.
This has triggered outrage within the indie community, as developers struggle to protect their intellectual property while Valve has yet to offer a transparent solution to this specific issue.
Valve’s Silence Draws Criticism
Despite rising complaints from users and developers, Valve has not issued a public response or outlined a clear strategy to deal with the Steam spam problem. While the platform offers content reporting tools, many believe it’s not enough to combat the scale of this problem—especially when AI and bots can generate content faster than human moderation can handle.
Developers are now calling for:
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Stricter game approval processes
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Identity verification for publishers
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Improved copyright enforcement
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Better discovery filters for quality control
A Platform at Risk
Steam’s reputation as a curated and reliable platform is at risk if the flood of spam, AI shovelware, and stolen games continues unchecked. Players are becoming increasingly cautious, and developers are losing confidence in the platform’s ability to protect their work.
Unless Valve takes swift action, Steam could become a dumping ground of copycats, making it harder than ever for legitimate indie developers to thrive.
Stay tuned for further updates as this story develops.