This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Director Young Kim,
"That was a hasty judgment on my part. Unless AI takes one more leap and reaches a point where no one can tell the difference, what I believed was still closer to an ideal than a reality. I expected some of you would be disappointed by our use of AI. I did not expect it to become this big."
"I'm sorry we got caught this time. We'll try to dupe you again later."
Has real "and I would have gotten away with it, if it weren't for you meddling kids" energy.
Look this is simple: There is no legitimate need to use AI to do anything, let alone anything you take seriously and/or you'd want to charge money for.
So if you're not just being a paid shill then why kill your reputation by attaching your name and company to ANY amount of sloppy shit?
Just don't do it.
Apart from getting tasks done faster.
Ultimately the litmus being AI or not is stupid. The test is the same test weve always had. Is it good.
If its bad, rate it shit and move on.
You can make good shit with AI if you actually review what its done, understand it and tweak it. Its a force multiplier not a replacement for your own lack of skill.
Good. Make another example of them. Slop will not be tolerated and will torpedo your 'studio' instantly.
And then after the backlash, the project director came out thinking the only issue was that the AI didn't look good enough. Yeah bro that was the issue glad you're in charge here to figure it all out.
"If someone asked me what I think about using AI, the honest answer is that I would have to think about it for a long time," the director wrote. "The reason I chose AI was that I believed it could reach a level of expression our existing resources could not, and that it would let us focus more on the game itself, outside of story and cinematics."
He continued: "That was a hasty judgment on my part. Unless AI takes one more leap and reaches a point where no one can tell the difference, what I believed was still closer to an ideal than a reality. I expected some of you would be disappointed by our use of AI. I did not expect it to become this big."
…
"The truth is, we spent a long time trying to tell this game's story with cutscenes made entirely by our own hands," the statement goes on. "The results were devastating every time. We came to believe we could not properly deliver this game's complex, difficult narrative that way, and that is why we turned to AI. But if that choice hurt your experience, the fault is not in the tool. It is in our own shortcomings."
I don't get it how do artists get captured by the Shortcut Machine like this? Genuinely what worm is entering these people's brains where suddenly they don't know or care what art is and just want to ask grok to "make it look cool with dinosaurs and lightning and an erupting volcano." Brother if you can't do what you planned to, change the fucking plans. Those constraints are how we get cool and interesting new works and themed and art directions. People love the ps1-era graphics look and it's not because Square Enix asked chatgpt to generate a Tomb Raider cutscene in the style of Monet or whatever.
“It would be better if you couldn’t tell that you were being lied to, and I’m annoyed that we got caught.”
“We aren’t creative enough to tell this story ourselves.”
That dude’s dumb as rocks, glad they’re facing a consequence.
His response is shockingly tone deaf and approaching genuine hilarity.
To try to come up with an explanation that doesn't pretend these peoples brain fell out of their heads:
Some people are crafters. For them the process and even the tools around that process are important, maybe even more important than the outcome. It makes sense that they would be wary of AI, to put it mildly.
Other people are builders. For them, all they want is to solve an issue, build a solution, create an art. The way they get there is an implementation detail they don't care about. They don't care whether it's real oil, or digital oil, as long as the oil painting in there head becomes a real thing somehow. It's understandable why they might at least try to use AI for art.
To be fair, the issue is basically that it didn't look good enough. Just look at the backlash expedition 33. Games still beloved and came in as one of the best jrpgs ever made made that AI usage. The only problem was that people noticed the AI usage.
As long as it's just a tool and it's transparent like any other tool and people have no f****** issue with it.
That's just literally a fact.
As long as it's not being used to slop out s***** products then it doesn't really matter. Getting matter over AI usage is like getting mad over people using Photoshop. It's just a tool. It doesn't matter what tool people use. As long as they're actually putting effort into making sure the final product is good and not lying about it, then it's fine.
Stupid games, stupid prizes. I'm really glad the gaming community at large is presenting a resounding "fuck off" to sloperators and their plagiarism machines trying to steal the work of actual creatives. It's disgusting, and should be met with sharp rebuke
There was enough slop out there in the gaming world before AI stole center stage. And yet there are so many games getting released every day that it’s genuinely difficult for new developers to get noticed. Tried+true studios are hitting diminishing returns. Gamers have a cornucopia of options old and new, and can afford to say no in this market much more easily than in most other markets.
And then there's CoD, GTA, sports... and they get what's left after Roblox takes most money from the industry.
"The truth is, we spent a long time trying to tell this game's story with cutscenes made entirely by our own hands," the statement goes on. "The results were devastating every time. We came to believe we could not properly deliver this game's complex, difficult narrative that way, and that is why we turned to AI. But if that choice hurt your experience, the fault is not in the tool. It is in our own shortcomings."
Man, if this is true – that they agonized over the cutscenes but decided they couldn't and that AI would be better* – then I feel legitimately bad for them.
I went in assuming it was strictly a lazy "ah, fuck it" kind of thing, but even though this still wouldn't be acceptable, it seems like this team really is hard-working, cared about the final product, and actually did think AI could deliver a good experience. Deluded, but that seems like part of a larger culture of delusion in SK.*
* Notably, the article remarks on how sentiment around AI in South Korea is vastly more positive than e.g. the US.
That's basically a statement for the press to try to minimize damage. He even said they had the cut scenes done and later replaced them with AI. Bullshit.
Unless AI takes one more leap and reaches a point where no one can tell the difference, what I believed was still closer to an ideal than a reality.
They are mad they got caught and it's the AIs fault for not being good enough to hide it.
I'd rather see the "bad" things than Ai.
Honestly if the rest of the game is good, I would rather have some napkin sketches, or a computer based paint software.
I'm 100% with you. Bad art with genuine effort put into it has a charm of its own. I understand the team's mistake, but it's still a mistake.
If people can detect it as AI it shouldn't have passed the quality check. People will happily buy games from the most awful and immoral companies if they like the game.
Those indies don't get canceled for using AI - they get canceled for a lack of quality control.
Soulslop, if you will.
a Soulslike Metroidvania
Is this the gaming equivalent of increasingly niche music genres?
It just means they liked hollow Knight
Vapor World: Over The Mind is a Soulslike Metroidvania
Daring today, aren't we? Is it also a deck builder somehow? No wonder they had to slop the slop, creative juices run out on the fourth word of the title
