Publisher blames “AI-slop” on Steam as their game only gets 15 players at launch

An indie game publisher has slammed Steam after its new release attracted just 15 players despite receiving more than 11,000 wishlists, blaming a flood of AI-generated games for disrupting its launch.

Steam has become increasingly crowded in recent years, with thousands of games arriving on Valve's PC storefront every month. As the use of generative AI becomes more widespread, some developers are concerned about how it's affecting smaller studios.

Now, publisher 2 Left Thumbs has accused Steam's approval process of damaging the release of its new co-op game, Wheel Make It.

Publisher claims AI games ruined its Steam launch

Developed by tlproductions, Wheel Make It is a physics-based game where two players control the wheels of a single wheelchair, working together to navigate obstacles. It was originally scheduled to launch on October 12, but problems during Steam's review process prevented it from releasing on time.

According to the developers' October 12 announcement, the game had already been awaiting approval for around two weeks. This was because reviewers encountered difficulties accessing its local co-op mode, although the publisher says "you literally just share a keyboard."

Further complications followed, with the game eventually launching on November 1. However, despite accumulating more than 11,000 wishlists, it peaked at just 15 concurrent players in the 24 hours after release.

https://twitter.com/2_left_thumbs/status/2117053876356383065?a=_WdE9idqCN3nnVxO35k&s=20

"We were assured by Steam that missing our launch - as a result of the tidal wave of AI-slop that destroyed their review queue - would not affect the usual mechanisms of launch visibility," the publisher wrote in an X post.

"I beg to differ... 11,000+ wishlists and this is what our launch turned into."

The complaint comes amid a sharp increase in AI-generated content on Steam. As Dexerto previously reported, an analysis of approximately 63,600 releases found that 49.9% of games launched in October 2026 disclosed using AI, compared with just 1.7% in January 2024.

However, those figures don't establish that AI-generated games caused the delays experienced by Wheel Make It. While the publisher believes the disrupted release damaged its visibility, Valve has not publicly confirmed that AI submissions were responsible for the review backlog.