Most of a small studio's writing is maintenance text. A patch note, a hotfix, a "we heard you" post, a localisation line that has to sound like a person in three languages. AI is genuinely good at maintenance text. It is genuinely dangerous at promising a feature.
Where AI clearly helps
- Patch notes. What changed, how to install, known issues. Short, factual, endless. The best use in this list.
- Devlogs. A hundred words about what you shipped this month, in the order you built it. Generate the skeleton, add the one real detail.
- Store page features list. The bullet list that describes mechanics, not adjectives. A model does it in one pass.
- Community replies. Calm answers to a bug report, in a tone you defined once.
- Store page front matter. The description, the four screenshots' captions, the "why you'll like this" section.
Where it nearly got us in trouble
- Feature promises. "Also coming to console", "multiplayer in the next update" — players screenshot store text. A generated roadmap sentence becomes a refund claim when the date slips.
- Copy that oversells the genre. "Deep, story-rich, innovative" describes most games equally, which means it describes none of them.
- Localisation drafts. Readable, flat, lossy. Use it to get the translation out, then have a human re-read for tone and slang. A joke in English is rarely a joke in the same words in German.
- Achievements and item descriptions. It invents numbers — "deal 200 damage" — that never match your balance table.
- Apology posts that sound corporate. Players can hear a template. The useful sentence is the one with the date and the fix.
Editing time, from our 30-day benchmark
Over our 30-day test the low-cost dedicated writer needed about 22 minutes of editing per 1,000 words, and roughly 8 minutes on the general assistant — about $7 per piece of a developer's time at an effective $30/hour. For a solo dev that is not the argument. The argument is that patch notes are the one thing that must ship on the day the build lands.
A workflow that holds up
Keep a changelog file during the whole cycle and write in it weekly, even for small changes. At release you generate the patch note from that file and edit two lines. This alone removes the "what did we even change" panic.
For the store page, write the first line yourself — the one sentence that says what the game is and who it is for. Generate the rest from a features list you actually built. Then re-read the description and delete every adjective you cannot defend.
Finally, keep a hard rule: anything about a future date or platform comes from your roadmap file, never from the model.
What devs ask
Can AI write my Steam store page?
The structure and the feature bullets, yes. Write the hook yourself and keep every number tied to what you actually built.
Is it safe for localisation?
As a first draft, then a human pass. Meaning rarely survives verbatim translation, and tone survives less.
Do I need a paid plan?
The low-cost plan handles patch notes and short posts. A paid assistant earns its fee when you also write devlogs or a design document.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can AI write a Steam store page?
The structure and feature bullets, yes. The hook and every numeric claim should come from you.
Is AI safe for patch notes?
It is the safest use here — short factual updates. Generate from a changelog file so nothing is missed or invented.
Does AI localisation work?
As a first draft only. A human pass is required for tone, humor and in-game context.