Steam Next Fest Flooded with 8,000+ Demos as AI Clones Run Rampant

Ever feel like Steam's demo section is turning into a copy-paste wasteland? You're not alone. Steam Next Fest kicks off tomorrow with a staggering 8,011 demos listed on its press preview page—roughly double the number from June 2026's event. Back in June 2022, Next Fest had just over a thousand. That's a whole lot of games, and let's be honest, a whole lot of them are probably not worth your time.

The culprit? A surge in AI-assisted development, often called "vibe coding." Anthropic's new 5.5 update to its Claude Opus model has made it easier than ever to whip up a game in hours. The result? An explosion of terrible clones and mash-ups, especially on X. One developer, the creator of Escape the Walls—an incremental punching game that itself uses AI to speed up creation—posted footage on October 10. A user prophetically replied: "You have exactly 7 hours before someone makes this on Roblox and gets 20x your revenue." By October 19, there were at least seven Roblox clones. One studio, Duct Tape Games, even tweeted their clone to the original creator, saying, "Nothing wrong with friendly competition!"

It gets worse. Alliance Arts Inc., the studio behind Drunken Goddess Reflux—a "Russian roulette drinking survival" game—has pulled its demo from Steam entirely. Why? They're worried that AI could quickly replicate their game's presentation and gameplay, releasing a copy before their own launch. Instead, they'll hold closed play sessions with strict participation requirements. And NoGlyph, creator of Needle In A Haystack, has accused Little Field Studios of copying their code for A Game About Needle In A Haystack. NoGlyph claims 13 of their classes appear with identical names, over half the functions match exactly, and even their error messages are still there—including one referencing a shader that doesn't exist in the clone. They've filed a copyright notice with Valve.

This isn't about democratizing game development. AI hasn't empowered aspiring creators; it's emboldened hacks and scammers. Vibe coding a 20-minute blockbuster-looking game or a Roblox clone doesn't make you a developer—it shows why you aren't one. Real ideas come from years of practice and thought, not from playing with the most expensive toy ever built. Just look at Roblox and the piles of slop on Steam for proof.

Steam's discoverability algorithm will likely bury most of these 8,000+ demos, but for those that go viral, there are hordes of leeches ready to steal your work using the same tech that's turning PC gaming into a rich person's hobby. Meanwhile, it was a boring week on Steam—Dota 2 topped the revenue chart (October 6–13), followed by Aion 2, Counter-Strike 2, and Star Wars: Galactic Racer at number four. Gears of War: E-Day hung on to the top ten, and Risk of Rain 2 got a decent update and expansion.

So, what do you think? Are you worried about the flood of AI clones, or is this just noise? Will you be diving into Next Fest, or are you steering clear? Let us know in the comments!