Hand-sculpted assets, and the Steam AI disclosure

Start with what the rule actually says, because a great deal gets put in its mouth.

What Valve asks, and what it stopped asking

The requirement has existed since January 2024. The January 2026 update narrowed its scope, and in a direction rather favourable to studios: what must be declared is generated content that SHIPS WITH THE GAME and is consumed by players — integrated assets, store-page art, marketing visuals.

What no longer needs declaring: efficiency gains along the way. A code assistant, a denoiser, a research board thrown away after use — Valve stated explicitly that these are not the focus.

• Generated content shipping with the game: described in a freeform field, visible on the store page.
• Content generated AT RUNTIME (dialogue, images, voices produced during play): a separate checkbox, plus a description of the safeguards against illegal output.
• Development tools and efficiency gains: out of scope.

The label is neither a punishment nor a stigma — a notable share of games published in 2026 carry it. It is simply read by players before they buy, and some studios have good reasons not to want it: an art direction sold on the hand that made it, a publisher who excludes it by contract, an audience where it divides.

What generators genuinely do well

This has to be said, or nothing that follows is worth anything. A 3D generator produces a decent mass in minutes, with the right silhouette and the right intent. For blocking a scene, testing a composition, validating scale, filling a background nobody will ever see up close, it is a real tool — and refusing it on principle costs time and returns nothing.

What comes out afterwards is another matter: triangulated mesh with no loops, unreadable automatic UVs, density scattered at random, and a cleanup that often takes longer than sculpting it again. But that is not the subject here, and it may well be false in a year.

What none of them can supply

Attestable provenance. You cannot declare the origin of something you did not make, and you cannot have it declared by a service that does not itself know what it was trained on.

This is a risk question, not an aesthetic one. A studio integrating an asset of unknown provenance is signing a statement — on a store page, in front of a publisher, sometimes in front of an acquisitions lawyer — about something it cannot verify.

It is this studio's strongest argument, and it does not hold because it is asserted: it holds because the file that proves it is in the delivery.

What it changes for you, in practice

1. If you are not shipping the asset — research, blockout, storyboard — the question does not arise. Use whatever helps.
2. If you ship it and the label does not bother you, it is not a problem: describe it honestly and move on.
3. If you ship it and you do not want the label, then origin becomes a purchase criterion alongside triangle count — and you need to be able to ask the seller, in writing.

In the third case, ask. Here and anywhere else. A seller who will not answer that question in writing has just answered it.

The rest — what the licence permits, what the file contains — is written in the terms of sale and in the licence note. The catalogue is here.