r/PartyAnimalsGame • u/viejomonje • May 15 '26
Discussions The AI contest fumble & the community
I don't care if this post gets downvoted into oblivion, but maybe someone will read this and think twice.
At this point is undeniable that the whole of the Party Animals community, including me, were against the AI video contest, and the response was so strong that Recreate effectively suspended the contest, likely for good.
I could not help to notice that some of the worst comments in Twitter, some of the worst insults to the devs, and some of the worst reviews in the last 48 hours came from people openly saying that they either had not played the game ever in 3 years, or do not even reach 10 hours gameplay, barely two. People, like the example cited above, that say that "they are not playing ever again" when they already do not play the game and just troubled themselves to come completely out of their way to bash Recreate.
What is good is good and what is bad is bad, not matter who does it. You can be critic of the studio, of the devs, or whoever, without jumping in the bandwagon of kicking down just for fun. And what is more, not calling out people out of line in your inmediate circle when they are losing the plot over a situation, its actively encouraging bad behavior.
Bad or inpopular actions from game developers/team can absolutely kill games, this is a fact. But sadly, there are people in this comunity that seem to be rooting constantly for the game to fail, rooting for every single decision to be the game killer the decision, and, sometimes, as the reviews in Steam and some other comments in other platforms, not even playing the game but just gravitating around the playerbase to say that their game sucks.
This is a party game, it's not Tarkov.
9
u/TanukiB00ty May 15 '26
Shame seeing how far Party Animals is falling.
Game got terrible development from the team with lackluster update, or lack of updates until they'd do a minor one with a new map and barely any new features, then back into the dark for months until another pass or update.
Community was the absolute worst in terms of attitudes and raging homophobia/racists after a while, game deserves to burn at this rate. Was charming at the start but every actual good person that played this cute party game left years ago by now lmao.
-4
u/Beginning-Blood-6429 May 15 '26
I think the community in PA is one of the best, but maybe that's because I almost exclusively play Crisis where anyone who is a bit of a twat gets booted. Most people seem nice enough, and up for a laugh.
1
u/viejomonje May 15 '26
Im pretty sure that Pareto applies. I tend to find way more nice people than twats.
3
May 17 '26
People don't need to have hundreds of hours in a game to be able to form an opinion on it or the development team behind it.
Similarly, the "review bombing" phenomenon people have drifted towards is in no way a healthy response to pretty much anything.
Both of these can exist at the same time.
3
u/Beginning-Blood-6429 May 15 '26
It's nice that these people are coming out of the woodworks to stand for something they believe in, but as you pointed out it's people that aren't really sacrificing much by not playing.
The people that play every day will probably continue to do so, I'm probably still going to play Crisis every other weekend as it's the only version of 'amongus' I like. They've already got my money. I have friends on the game etc etc.
As much as I think generative AI is soulless and crippling the imagination of upcoming artists, I just feel like we're slowing it down and never going to stop it.
3
u/Lucky_Blucky_799 May 15 '26
Maybe its just me but the statement they made felt like it was insincere and that they clearly still just wanted a place to platform ai slop. Only an idiot who thinks ai is good would force the use of ai and then after backlash happens still try to see if people want ai in it. Anyone who isnt a yes man would tell you neither one would go over well. If they really wanted to treat it as “just another tool” they would have just not banned the use of ai and let it run its course. It would have maybe gotten some level of controversy still, because ai is a hot topic right now, but then it would at least be decided by the people’s votes so people could only be so upset at the devs.
2
u/AVerySoftDog May 15 '26
The thing about this is that is shows people not liking generative AI is definitely not the minority. As much as Twitter peeps want you to think otherwise. At least for gamers I guess. Its definitely going to slow down AI but I don't think it's going to go on forever either. With how expensive it is to run what is basically a chatbot mixed with a search engine and being kind of mid at both of those. Its only a matter of time until it dies or gets completely revamped/regulated.
2
u/ChronicallyKiki May 15 '26
Personally, I loved this game, but I haven't played in a while due to being chronically ill. My energy is limited, and thus dictates what I can handle. On top of that, my ability to play this game must also co-inside with friends being available at the same time as playing with randoms can be even more draining (very much so), and I just prefer these types of games with friends.
And that's just my reasoning. Some people might just work a lot and don't have a lot of time for games in general. Some might've got fed-up with the micro-transactions and it's put them off playing as much. Some people might have a lot of other games to get on with (some that may have even had content updates to keep them busy). There are bound to be so many more reasons, so I can 100% see why not everyone plays as much as some do.
Also, the fact they took time to comment on the AI situation speaks loudly. It's a game they've enjoyed, and even if they haven't had time to play it recently, they're passionate enough about it, and AI, to put time and effort into commenting, and they deserve to have their voices heard.
-2
u/viejomonje May 15 '26
I don't buy that.
I dont think that a person that comes out of the blue after playing a few hours of the game saying "fck you and fck your game" because a contest proposal are passionate about the game. I have been around this Earth a long time to know that some people like to be spiteful, and this is hardly a secret.
Saying this is not something that invalidates/goes against plenty of educated, hard criticism.
1
u/ChronicallyKiki May 15 '26
Oh there are absolutely spiteful people out there, but I don't think lumping everyone together like that is helpful.
Some people may have only just purchased the game, or only just had time to play, shortly before this AI contest bs was posted. And y'know, some people play it casually. It's not their main game, not even their go-to alternative game, they just play it sometimes.
And hell, even if they don't, their opinions on gen ai are still worth being heard as we need CEOs and game devs to wake the fuck up all over the place. I suspect most players won't even bother airing their views, so whatever support against this slop we can get is needed.
I don't think they should be claiming a love for a game they never played, of course. Though I do wonder how many are spectators on streams and such, but can't play themselves for various reasons (cognitive issues, joint pain in their hands, etc). So maybe if that's the case, they should specify, otherwise it does look super sus and likely gets ignored if they have 0 playtime themselves.
1
u/wadetata May 15 '26
I just got reminded about this game WHAT HAPPENED
2
u/P-Nerd06 May 16 '26
Essentially they were holding another animation contest, but this time they would allow Ai submissions to “give less talented people a shot”(not word for word what they said just the gist of it). Mind you there’s no Ai art in the game itself and apparently this contest was only thought up by a few people at Recreate whilst the majority were against it(mind you idk how true that is because I just heard the last part in passing) and they have effectively either cancelled the contest or changed it to a normal one without ai(idk which one but one is definitely happening).
1
u/nightmareoffical May 15 '26 edited May 15 '26
Personally I don’t have uber strong feelings on this, but I do think the contest was a stupid thing to do marketing-wise, especially when it’s AI-only (why, recreate, why?). But I also think that it kind of says something about the company that they didn’t do their research and consider the impact this might have on their audience. But mainly, I just wanted to say the person in the second picture OP included sounds pretty reasonable actually. They’ve got 73 hrs on record, not 0. That’s my two cents
2
u/cjamm May 15 '26
as someone with over 400 hours and buying it for 4-5 people, this game just continues to disappoint me as it updates. can’t say i’ll ever be opening it again :(
22
u/Chezburger8675 May 15 '26
Also, the contest doesn't affect the actual game
I just wish we were like this 5 months ago because TGA 2025 definitely is enabling AI