NovelkaGames Lists AI-Generated Kryonull for $100 on Steam

Q: If AI-generated art has no copyright, what are players buying when a game like Kryonull costs $100?

Players are not buying copyright in the art. They are buying a license to access and play the game as a packaged software product on Steam. Even if fully AI-generated images or voices are not copyrightable under current U.S. law, that does not make the whole game rightless. A game can still contain protectable human-made elements such as code, writing, structure, interface design, and the developer’s selection and arrangement of assets. U.S. guidance and recent court rulings draw that line at human authorship: the AI-made asset alone may fall into a legal commons, but the human-authored parts of the game can still be protected. In practical terms, a Steam purchase is not ownership of underlying files or intellectual property. It is a limited license to download and use the game under Steam’s and the developer’s terms. The price can therefore reflect whatever the seller thinks the total experience is worth, not the copyright status of each image or voice clip. That is why the backlash to Kryonull is mainly about value, not just legality. Critics argue the game’s disclosed reliance on AI-generated visuals and voices makes the $100 asking price look detached from the amount of visible human craft. Steam’s disclosure rules require transparency about AI use, but they do not regulate whether a price is fair. So what players are buying is access to the software and its human-authored framework; the dispute is whether that package justifies a premium price.

1 articles · Updated · PC Gamer · Jun 13

$100 is the U.S. Steam price for Kryonull, a visual novel whose store disclosure says all images and voices in the game and on its page were AI-generated.
NovelkaGames appears to claim the script is the main non-AI element, built around a Europa first-contact story that the report says is undermined by the generated assets.
SteamDB pricing cited in the report shows the game at 4,299 rubles—about $53—while the UK price is listed at £90, making the U.S. tag especially striking.
The release is presented as a fresh example of Steam's open marketplace allowing low-effort AI-heavy titles onto the platform, even as Valve has faced other content-policy pressures.