Hidden AI in games and Nvidia without Huang

Luke Plunkett argues that a growing number of Steam games use obvious AI-generated art without disclosing it, despite a January 2026 rewrite of Valve's policy requiring disclosure of anything players consume, including visuals, sound and writing. He describes strategy and management games with distorted Napoleonic uniforms, malformed goggles and cityscapes whose buildings blur into each other.

His case is that studios that think AI is the future should have no reason to hide it, and that concealment shows they expect players to object. He calls this worse than openly AI-made games, which can at least be avoided, and says the problem is one of trust. He wants Valve to enforce its own rules and says disclosure lets him choose where to spend his time and money.

CounterpointDevelopers who use AI tools could say the stigma is itself the reason for silence, and that the policy's scope is murky enough for small uses to go unflagged. Valve has not been shown to treat the omissions Plunkett describes as violations.

Previously: CD Projekt is using AI alongside Jacek Rozenek's recovering voice for Witcher 3's Songs of the Past, with his consent. — Thursday November 12 edition.

Stephen Totilo read the 29-page, heavily redacted Xbox Publisher License Agreement that Take-Two filed with the SEC, effective September 17, and compared it with the 2020 version. He finds nothing shocking: Microsoft approves free patches, can require or reverse updates, and publishers must archive every version they released for at least two years after delisting.

The valuable parts, such as royalty tiers and the definitions of Cloud Gaming and Competitive Platforms, are redacted, and the latter was also redacted in 2020. Totilo says the filing is useful mainly as a rare look at standard platform-publisher terms, since fewer public companies now disclose them, and it reveals no plan for next-gen Xbox hardware.

CounterpointAnyone hoping to read Microsoft's strategy from the filing, particularly on cloud gaming, would say the redactions hide precisely the terms that matter, a limit Totilo acknowledges.

Andy Edser argues that Jensen Huang's resignation as Nvidia CEO is bad news for PC gaming, even though some gamers blame him for AI-driven RAM, storage and graphics-card price rises. Gaming brought in about $16 billion in fiscal 2026 against $193.7 billion from data centres, roughly 7.4% of revenue, and CFO Colette Kress is interim CEO.

Edser says Huang kept some sentimental attachment to consumer graphics cards, and that a successor answering to AI-focused investors is unlikely to favour them. He notes AMD has called itself data-centre-first and is not confident about Intel either.

CounterpointThose celebrating the departure would say Huang personified the AI buildout that has made components scarce. Others would say the revenue split, not who runs Nvidia, sets gaming's priority, as Edser's own figures suggest.

Previously: A new report alleges a second affair, with video evidence, involving another Nvidia executive. — Thursday November 12 edition.

Nicole Carpenter reviews Digital Eclipse's Barbie Rewind, which collects 16 Barbie console games from 1991 to 2007, including the unreleased Genesis/SNES title Barbie: Vacation Adventure. It is wrapped in a dream-house decorating game. She finds the games mixed, with the 1991 NES original nearly unplayable, but says whether they hold up is the least interesting question.

Her argument is that the collection takes seriously a category of games aimed at girls that has been dismissed as brand-driven rather than innovative. She cites Bee Wertheimer's Aftermath essay on such games being buried rather than forgotten. She reads the package as a history of console gaming seen through one franchise.

CounterpointCritics who see licensed games as merchandise rather than design history, the attitude Wertheimer describes, would say the simple mini-games, which Carpenter concedes, make the archival claim thin.