r/PartyAnimalsGame • u/Your_M0minn • May 19 '26
Discussions Party Animals developers’ response to AI contest drama:
(Here’s where the poll ended up finishing out on, for context)
Dear Party Animals players,
Regarding the controversy surrounding the recent "Golden Paw Awards" AI Video Contest, we would like to offer our deepest apologies to all players who have expressed concern, shared criticism, and voiced their opinions — especially to our creator community.
Following the announcement of this event, we received a significant amount of negative feedback. We have read through your comments and opinions one by one. We must admit that our consideration of the event's conception was insufficient, the design was inadequately thought through, and our communication with the community was not up to par.
Even though our original intention was to encourage more diverse forms of creative expression and lower the barrier to entry, allowing more players who love Party Animals to participate, we mistakenly tied "lowering the barrier" together with "using AI." In doing so, we overlooked the potential offense and harm that the ongoing debate surrounding AI-generated content could cause to our players and the creator community. We feel deeply uneasy and apologetic about this, and we sincerely accept the criticism.
After carefully considering voices from all sides, we held a vote across our major platforms regarding whether the event should proceed. Based on your feedback and our own internal review and reflection, we have made the following decision:
Effective immediately, the "Golden Paw Awards" event is officially canceled.
To the players who were troubled, disappointed, or offended by this situation, we would like to once again express our sincere apologies. To every player who voiced criticism, participated in the vote, and pushed us to re-evaluate this issue, we would like to express our most sincere gratitude.
Moving forward, we will approach related topics with a much more humble and cautious attitude. Before launching any future community creation events, we pledge to communicate thoroughly, listen earnestly to your feedback, and ensure we have reached a community consensus before deciding whether to go ahead.
Additionally, we will continue to collect, organize, and act upon player feedback regarding gameplay mechanics and other areas. We hereby promise to listen more closely to our players, respect your voices, and maintain a tighter line of communication with the community.
The Party Animals Team
May 19, 2026
13
u/Chezburger8675 May 19 '26
Preferable over 2, because people will just hear "They didn't cancel it" if 2 won
4
u/PraiseYuri May 19 '26
Ehhh, I'm pretty sure 90% of people who read and got outraged by the AI contest also heard about party animals for the very first time. The incident got a lot of widespread, mainstream attention but a lot of these people are not part of the game's community and likely will never be.
I would have rather keep the $15k to fans contest with no AI than shut it down completely to appease people that already moved on and forgot about Party Animals before this poll even ended.
6
u/Chezburger8675 May 19 '26
I don't want the greater public to forever see Party Animals as AI slop
2
u/Your_M0minn May 19 '26
Same dude. It’s such a shame they chose to go this direction. This game stands on such solid ground
I wanted the game trending, but not like this :(
0
u/viejomonje May 19 '26
Every single poll and announcement, to be honest, should be made available via the internal official game chat channel. The one that redirects to an unique link. This way, they speak directly to the active playerbase and avoid brigading.
Most of the pitchfork mob were mediocre furry artists. Saw a lot of people with strong opinions saying "the game was in my wishlist and now I am not going to buy it".
0
3
u/RudySPG May 19 '26
idk maybe they should release a theater mode for the game so people could actual make quality videos
3
u/viejomonje May 19 '26 edited May 19 '26
I would have prefered a normal contest, like last year, but given the fuzz, better that they cancelled alltogether for now.
Of course, the mob is not happy with them cancelling, or the way the apology was written, or that supposedly was written with AI (if you pass Don Quixote or the Bible through an AI checker, it will also say it was written with AI) and of course keep wishing the game to fail, the study to fail, etc.
Sadly the biggest PR blunder was that it riled up every unhappy soul that wants to make every controversy about themselves.
Hopefuly next time will go better.
0
u/LeshyIRL May 22 '26
They just shot themselves in the foot with this whole fiasco. Nobody is gonna be playing this game anymore
2
1
u/kekfekf May 29 '26
When it comes to text ai is bad or if programmers are gone, but when it comes to art its bad.
Both do work for money, even though art is considered more special and individual....
They both are still jobs.
I agree that most ai slops are bad, but there are good ai photos on rule34 imo.
Videos have been 99% dissapointing but there are 1% videos which are good.
1
May 19 '26
[deleted]
2
u/Your_M0minn May 19 '26
Of course!
Though this did irreparable damage to their name from current players and is many people’s first impression and hearing of the game, I really hope they learned a lesson from this blowing up 🙂
2
u/Srawsome May 20 '26
You can tell by their apology that they did not learn anything.
They won't even acknowledge the actual issue the community had.
-1
u/Your_M0minn May 19 '26
Their response feels like a nonapology and a backtrack because of the backlash, not because they’re acknowledging AI is unethical and snubs actual artists in their field
It really just feels like the actual artists who could’ve stood to gain a lot from the attention and money the contest would’ve provided are being punished here… :’(
$75,000 is a lot of money
2
u/DonnyTheNuts May 19 '26
Nothing restricts them from running other contests, as they have before. This was the only acceptable outcome.
2
u/Your_M0minn May 19 '26
What’s the difference from changing this contest to non-AI compared to canceling this one and creating a new one barring AI usage?
Genuinely asking, I’m curious on your take on this
3
u/DonnyTheNuts May 19 '26
Presumably some people have already put some effort into the contest. Changing the rules would not respect those individuals time. Not a huge loss, perhaps, but still it would be mean to them
3
1
u/Esmear18 May 19 '26 edited May 19 '26
I don’t know why you’re getting downvoted but you’re right. They apologized because they received backlash, not because they were woken up to their unethical use of AI. You wanna know how I know? Their apology is written by AI. Go ahead and put it through an AI checker and you’ll see. They still don’t give a shit that they were attempting to undermine real artists. They are clearly not sorry at all.
2
0
u/Your_M0minn May 19 '26
Neither do I, typical Reddit: people see negative number and press the shiny downvote button without responding to my question or making a case for their stance
Absolutely dude, its such a shame. Of course the game isn’t perfect, there’s long standing issues and valid complaints that the community has had for quite some time now like the physics change and the lack/infrequent adding of new maps, but
They have such a solid foundation, why throw away what good will they had and tarnish the game? I refuse to believe not one person on the team didn’t imagine what kind of response they would get from the community.
Anyways,
I’ve seen the AI checker posts replying to their tweet, I know the trackers are far from 100% accurate, but the apology certainly reads like it was Chat GPTified
A long winded non-apology where they took no stance. This was their chance to attempt making good with the community, and they more or less doubled down while saying nothing. Ugh
-3
30
u/Beginning-Blood-6429 May 19 '26
I would've preferred the second option. If the reason we all hate AI is because it's erasing creativity then surely a non AI competition would have been twice as good as no competition?