A simple mention of AI tools on a Steam game page can crash its sales by 40-60% - study

Despite the growing prevalence of generative AI in the gaming industry, a significant portion of the audience still perceives its use negatively.

The use of artificial intelligence in the gaming industry continues to expand, but audience attitudes towards such technologies remain mixed. A new study by Game Oracle has shown that disclosing the use of AI in game development can severely impact its commercial performance.

Analysts examined nearly 10,000 games released on Steam before last November. According to the study, about 21% of projects officially reported using AI in the development process. Since Valve does not publish sales data, researchers used the number of user reviews as an indirect indicator of success — a method long used in the gaming industry to estimate sales.

It was found that games with a tag indicating AI use received an average of 53% fewer reviews compared to similar projects without such technologies. In other words, if a regular game could gather 100 reviews, an AI-powered project under comparable conditions would only get about 47.

The study also showed that almost 20% of games using AI received no reviews after release. For non-AI projects, this figure was 15%. Furthermore, in the first month after release, games using artificial intelligence collected an average of about four reviews, while traditional projects gathered approximately seven.

The difference is also noticeable in user ratings. Among games that surpassed 100 reviews, non-AI projects received an average rating of 88.3%, while games using the technology settled for 84.6%.

The negative effect is particularly pronounced among well-known studios. According to Game Oracle, for experienced developers and large publishers, the use of AI becomes more of an obstacle than an advantage. In some cases, the sales decline is estimated to be in the range of 40% to 60%. Researchers note that without the use of AI, such projects could, on the contrary, have received an additional sales boost due to marketing and the studio's reputation.

At the same time, young and lesser-known developers suffer significantly less from this effect. The study's authors believe that for small teams, AI can remain a useful tool, while large AAA companies face the strongest public skepticism regarding such technologies.