For PC gaming news and discussion. PCGamingWiki
Rules:
My takeaway from these games being cancelled and studios shutdown over ai bs is that they dont actually have a viable product and are using ai to convince people they do. In this case they faked having a game to secure money and failed and had to close down. I dont feel bad about it at all.
Goonswarm Games
the clue was in the name of the company… they’re obviously full of shit
Goons ruin everything
I had a feeling about this game, and it seems that came true.
The enemies all being feminists felt... "off", especially when Postal isn't a right wing series, it's more about poking fun at society in general.. So it just seemed odd that ALL of the enemies in Bullet Paradise were Feminist Stereotypes.
Solid apology imo
I had trouble reading the image so here's the text if you're like me:
Dear gamers, we want to start with a sincere apology to everyone affected by this situation: the community, our partners, and especially the artists who supported us. The last few days have been overwhelming. As a small studio, suddenly pushed into the spotlight, we reacted emotionally and defensively. The accusations came as a shock, and we needed time to breathe, look at everything calmly, and understand what truly happened. After taking that time and conducting an internal review, we agree with your criticism. The promo art does appear to include or be influenced by Al-generated material. We collaborated with external artists for years and never saw any signs of this. The layered PSDS always looked legitimate within our internal pipeline, which is why our initial reaction was to protect our team and defend our innocence. We understand now that your concerns were valid. And we take responsibility for not catching this earlier. We also want to stress that this issue relates only to the promo art and does not concern the real artists who worked on gameplay visuals, assets, and other content. Many of them have nothing to do with this situation, yet they have been receiving threats, harassment, and hatred. This is deeply unfair, and we hope this message helps protect them. Their work is real, and it deserves respect. We previously announced the closure of the studio, but even in this state we feel responsible for the outcome. As far as our remaining resources allow, we will replace all disputed promo art across our projects with pieces created entirely by human artists. It will take time, but we will do it. We again apologise to everyone who was harmed or affected by this situation. We never intended to mislead anyone, and our earlier statements reflected what we honestly believed at the moment.
Totally reasonable thought process on their side. Sucks that it had to come to this.
Still don't understand the shutdown? Remove the marketing material and move on if it's such a problem?
Their publisher pulled the plug on the game they were making due to the accusations, so they probably can't afford to stay open.
Due to the accusation of using generative AI. This was a result of the witch hunt itself.
The apology admits use of AI in marketing material
After the studio was already shut down. If it turned out they hadn't used generative AI would the results have been any different?
Also, oh no, marketing material. Definitely worth destroying a game studio over.
Not just marketing material, the game itself used it.
Yeah this is getting ridiculous. People are going to have to accept the existence of genAI sooner or later. To be honest I never understood what the problem people had with it was in the first place. Surely AI is something we were all looking forward to before it actually came out.
If you don't personally have a problem with GenAI, that's fine. Nobody else has to accept it or like it for themselves though.
A game studio has been shut down over this. So yes it's a problem when others can't at least tolerate it. It's especially funny when people attack people for using GenAI when they actually didn't use it.
It isn't a problem for consumers to make decisions about what they want to support. Those decisions might not line up with your beliefs, but people can still make choices about what they do or don't support.
Again though they did not intentionally use it, one of their contractors did without their knowledge which they then apologised for. There is no reliable way of telling what is or is not AI generated and that's only getting worse as models improve. This means that ultimately witch hunts like this are only going to get more dangerous and more outrageous.
I feel we're moving away from what I understood your point to be: the public has to get comfortable with Generative AI being used in media and products.
I don't agree with that point.
If the public can't tell the difference then how can they be comfortable or uncomfortable if they don't even know?
You will increasingly find as well that more and more things will be made using AI to the point you can't really avoid it unless you only consume older media. This is especially true for anything involving programming such as video games as almost all future programming projects will involve AI as it's simply much faster and more effective to code with AI than without it. Since you don't have access to the source code of most games there really isn't any way to tell. So even if you try to avoid video games with AI generated assets you won't be able to avoid games with AI generated code.
Basically I am trying to say that trying to boycott AI entirely is futile and hating it changes nothing. It's the modern equivalent to being a luddite.
I can't taste the difference between eggs from battery farmed hens and free range ones. I still try to avoid battery farmed eggs.
You can call me a luddite, and you're totally welcome to your opinions about the ethics of Generative AI usage in media, art, and products that you buy or enjoy. You don't need me to tell you that.
I am also welcome to my opinions about the ethics of Generative AI usage.
I, personally, do not like it. I, personally, will not knowingly purchase art, media, or products that use it. It's that simple.
I have to take the word of the company or creator I'm buying a product from if they say they haven't used AI, but I can take that word in context. Do I feel like this company has a bad reputation of lying to customers? Do I feel like I can see signs of Generative AI? Do I, ultimately, trust that word?
I don't have to buy big mainstream video games if I want to avoid Generative AI. As it happens, I've not long since sold my PS5 and all my games. I have a PS2 and a small collection of older games. I rarely use it.
I stand by my beliefs. ✌️
Yeah, I never noticed any particular negative reaction when someone walked into the Holodeck on Star Trek and said "Computer, create a mystery in the style of Sherlock Holmes" or whatever. Ask most people and they'd probably count that as one of the fictional technologies they were most looking forward to.
Sure but we don't have that. And AI is costing people jobs, stealing content not actually doing anything well "spending" billions.
Don’t forget the ecological impact
And also the actually using it.
If you actually read the note you would have realized they didn't even use gen AI but hired someone who did without knowing.
They failed to vet their contractors properly, which is kinda unfortunate, and take responsibility for that, which is decent, but to have the plug pulled over the backlash for what turns out to be a correctable mistake does feel a little unfair.
How do you define a witch hunt? Kings of the AI creates mobs through tiktok, facebook thanks to AI social engineering... so the mob hunt the random guys for their own guilts (as "king of the AI's guilt").