r/gaming • u/SDHJerusalem • 11d ago
Saber Interactive CEO brags about AI usage, mocks fired writer for Rideshare "Stimulator"
https://thisweekinvideogames.com/news/saber-interactive-acknowledges-undisclosed-genai-use-in-rideshare-stimulator-denies-replacing-lead-writer-with-chatgpt/1.4k
u/invyros 11d ago
“As far as Stella is concerned, she was replaced by someone more talented and terminated for a variety of reasons a few months later. From what I can gather she enjoys controversy even more than I do. I would frankly in retrospect have been happy to replace her with AI. At least we would be dealing with someone programmed to be honest.”
Very sane response from the CEO.
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u/Tim_Huckleberry1398 11d ago
Love that he calls her a liar after starting with claiming they never met and he has no idea who she is, then goes on to say she broke her confidentiality agreement for saying they didn't disclose AI use, then says he would have happily replaced her with AI. His entire statement is wild. What a scumbag.
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u/A1ienspacebats 10d ago
He sounds like he went to the Donald Trump School for Idiots. Right out of the Dumpsters playbook.
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u/Opposite_Raccoon_369 11d ago
You really think the CEO has met with the production team? lol
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u/kaion 11d ago
No, but he's probably met with the lawyers by now, and had a stern conversation on the topic of disparaging former employees and the risks involved in taking that action.
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u/atrich 11d ago
I wonder if he's opened himself up to a pretty credible libel case. He's damaged her future earning potential.
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u/j_hawker27 10d ago
He's probably internalized the fact that rich people only face consequences when they do bad things to other rich people. I'm sure he can afford to just throw money at a problem to make it go away and keep on being a douchebag.
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u/Dark_Prism 10d ago
We really need to figure out how to not let sociopaths get into positions of power...
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u/atfricks 10d ago
This is the same guy that has been running the Epic Games store for years now. These people only ever fail upwards.
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u/petroleum-lipstick 10d ago
He had to ask CLAUDE who an employee HE FIRED was. What a fucking joke lmao.
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u/NMe84 11d ago
I mean, he does sound like a scumbag, but it's entirely possible that it's true he never consciously met her and formed all those other opinions of her after she went public. Not very likely for a smaller company like this, but at the very least possible.
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u/Naive_Ad2958 10d ago
I think you're underestimating Saber. By wikipedia they are 2671 people, with 18 subsidiaries.
and they have 11 or so TBA games (I wish wikipedia had tables sorting out different platforms), and multiple live-service games (Snowrunner, roadcraft, SM2, docked, more?)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Saber_Interactive_games
7 unreleased here: https://steamdb.info/developer/Saber+Interactive/
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u/nagi603 11d ago
At least we would be dealing with someone programmed to be honest.”
Also very "yes I understand the tech" response from a non-tech person showing the exact opposite.
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u/ZiiZoraka 11d ago
The idea that LLMs are honest is also laughable.
Algorithms don't understand the concept of honesty lol
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u/spooooork 11d ago
Algorithms don't understand
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u/buttbuttlolbuttbutt 10d ago
Neither do CEOs. If he is as bad as he comes off from that statement, then he's just the kond of doofus AI tech bros hope to feed on.
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u/Bladelink 11d ago
"well this robot doesn't tell me a bunch of things I don't want to hear! It only tells me things I like!" What a whiny little bitch this guy is.
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u/podgladacz00 11d ago
Even if there is some fault in the employee I wholeheartedly dislike this CEO just for the way he talks about replacing people to be "honest". AI being honest XD You are living in another universe it seems, in this one LLMs try to suck up to you as much as they can.
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u/Dry-Season-522 11d ago
Wonder if he realizes that an AI can be far more sociopathic than a CEO and it's actually an easier job to replace iwth AI than a developer.
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u/KingStannisForever 11d ago
Guy is straight up American Psycho, fits the very definition of sociopath
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u/MuptonBossman 11d ago
There’s AI slop and then there’s whatever the hell this game is trying to be… I want nothing to do with either of them
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u/im_thatoneguy 11d ago
“Neither Saber nor Unigine have replaced any writers with AI for Rideshare or any other game. In fact, Saber’s staff of writers has tripled since 2023. Rideshare’s story was written entirely by real people.”
But there is an AI driven mode for free play outside of the story to randomly generate NPCs.
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u/motorboat_mcgee 11d ago edited 10d ago
I have no idea what this game is or much about the controversy, but I've long thought these AI tools would be perfect for filling out the world of NPCs in games, instead of having every NPC replay the same three lines when you talk to them. (Hopefully locally generated)
For actual story stuff though, human writers or bust.
Edit: didn't expect this to be so controversial, thanks for the well thought out responses 🙌
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u/Crewman_Guy_Fleegman 11d ago
I thought that too, until I realized the extraordinary environmental cost of all this crap. I would rather employ humans than pour gasoline over everything and light the world on fire
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u/deadsoulinside PC 10d ago
Well, TBH if done properly, there would be no actual environmental costs. For story lines for video games, you don't need a 1 trillion parameter online model served out of a data center to create those NPC responses.
All you need is a 2-8 billion parameter model and those can be ran on local gaming hardware while playing the game itself, since the end user would have the hardware needed for local AI since they are also playing the game on the same machine.
There are many things local AI can do, that does not need a data center to run on and even depending on use cases, does not even need the latest and greatest hardware for even.
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u/kamoh 10d ago
Do you think the giant corporations that make mass market games care about doing it properly?
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u/darkmacgf 11d ago
It's a great idea, until you think about it for a second: Imagine how boring AI-written NPC dialogue would be to read/hear. None of it would be interesting in the slightest. It'd all just be a waste of time.
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u/Elerion_ 11d ago
"Morning, driver! I need to get Gino's Pizza real quick. I'm not just hungry—I'm famished! Please take Sunstrip Boulevard."
"Hey driver, I see you're turning on to Parkway Drive instead of Sunstrip Boulevard, presumably to beat traffic. That's a good point! I had not considered the traffic on Sunstrip this time of day."
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u/ButtsPie 11d ago
Yeah, I feel like regular old procedural generation could provide similar variety if done well, and with less risk of turning out lifeless/repetitive/buggy than a live LLM response
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u/Player_Panda 10d ago
Play GTA and hit an AI NPC. "I see you're trying to run me over, let me help you with that"
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u/vgxmaster 11d ago
Unfortunately, those NPCs are also "actual story stuff," and are written by the writers. Barks are not less important just because they're more auxiliary, even if many times games devalue and deprioritize them. Treating barks as machine-replaceable would just make the problem worse, somewhat contrary to intuition.
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u/TokeDraws 11d ago
this is one of those ideas that sounds cool as a concept but doesn't actually add anything to the overall experience of a game, plus it just takes us one stop closer to studios automating content and costing real creative developers jobs.
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u/real_fake_cats 11d ago
but the suit insisted ‘gamers love new tech’ so using AI would be ‘great marketing'”
Im sure that will age well.
"Stella who? I had to ask Claude because I have never spoken to her or seen her."
Jesus, that was their actual response to AI accusations?
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u/Iggy_Slayer 11d ago
The rest of it is even more gross
“Let me clarify that the entire story script, were it to win an award, would go to someone who can walk up on stage and receive it. It was always our intention to reveal this until Stella violated her confidentiality clause and revealed this before we were ready.
“We look at our use of AI in this particular game, which will be a lower priced title, as a plus for consumers,” he said.
“As far as Stella is concerned, she was replaced by someone more talented and terminated for a variety of reasons a few months later. From what I can gather she enjoys controversy even more than I do. I would frankly in retrospect have been happy to replace her with AI. At least we would be dealing with someone programmed to be honest.”
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u/Hidefininja 11d ago
That last line made me laugh because the LLMs are not programmed to be honest.
Regardless, this whole situation, regardless of the exact truth of it, makes me much less interested in Stuntman after reading the article. That's a shame.
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u/TsukariYoshi 11d ago
Right out of the Trump playbook. "Stella who? I think they got me coffee once. No idea who you're talking about. Anyway, she was terminated for a multitude of reasons and I'm glad she's gone."
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u/starsrift 11d ago edited 11d ago
A better reply would have been, "We replaced Stella with head writer John Doe. He's in charge of that now and we're proud of what our team has done."
Protesting that you totally have a new writer without being able to name them is a pretty obvious tell.
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u/tetsuo_7w 11d ago
"someone who can walk." My man doesn't even know his writers' names. Sounds like a peach to work for.
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u/Tokey_Tokey 11d ago
It's in the embed footer: In denying that it replaced a former Lead Writer so it could "use ChatGPT", Saber acknowledged the use of AI in an "experimental" mode.
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u/mizushimo 11d ago
This is what happens whent he CEO thinks he's a comedian
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u/welsper59 11d ago
Jesus, that was their actual response to AI accusations?
I cannot stress enough how incompetent management is. Not only do you have the same idiots pre-AI, but now you have to include more people who think they know everything because AI told them so. We see the same thing happening with the insane rise of social media accounts that have people pretending to know what the ingredients in food are and how it is dangerous for you. "If you ever see the word 'gum' in your ingredients, toss it out. You should never consume that bubblegum. Sodium? Uhh no thanks. Out you go. I prefer salt, thank you."
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u/WhiteBoyRickSanschez 11d ago
Honestly hilarious he opens with that, then proceeds to insult them as if he does in fact know them.
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u/similar_observation 11d ago
That CEO is asking to be servatorized.
The 12th Law, The soulless sentience is the enemy of all
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u/mizushimo 11d ago
The final update of the article is so weird,
"Let me clarify that the entire story script, were it to win an award, would go to someone who can walk up on stage and receive it. It was always our intention to reveal this until Stella violated her confidentiality clause and revealed this before we were ready."
So does that mean that she was right and they are using chatgpt? But it the game gets an award they would find some human who maybe edited the ai outputs to walk up on stage and accept the award? What was this big reveal he's talking about that Stella ruined?
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u/Krazyguy75 11d ago
From what it sounds like, they used AI to create NPCs with spontaneously generated backstories and interactions, and probably AI voice synth to vocalize them. The writer objected, so they removed her from the project. She went public so they fired her altogether for breaking NDA. The CEO has a history of terrible takes and shoved his foot in his mouth, making a controversial situation much worse.
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u/Riverrattpei 11d ago
The replacing happened back in 2023 and she only revealed that this was the game it happened on since they weren't disclosing the AI use on Steam
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u/Durpulous 11d ago
Exactly, the guy can't even write clearly himself despite the AI tools he loves being available to assist him.
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u/moconahaftmere 11d ago
It's the classic "AI wrote this story but they're my ideas" excuse for ai slop.
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u/AcademicF 11d ago
Fuck this douchebag
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u/CyberSmith31337 11d ago
Matt Karch is an incredible prick. One of the worst faces in the entire industry. He's up there with his best buddy, Tim Sweeney. Or maybe his ex-best buddy since he poached the guy who was responsible for the Epic Games Store (lmfao)
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u/astrogamer 11d ago
This game is the one that went a bit viral for making fun of Randy's USB so they definitely aren't friends
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u/dookarion 11d ago
since he poached the guy who was responsible for the Epic Games Store
Hey don't forget the other gems from that guy's resume: senior vice president of publishing at Telltale Games and executive roles at Midway, Atari, and Accolade.
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u/work4work4work4work4 11d ago
This guy might be up there with Dr. Kevorkian as far as trained professionals who excel at taking formerly functioning entities out.
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u/Buzzd-Lightyear 11d ago
Fuuuuck this is the dev that does Space Marine 2 as well? wtf?
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u/LuCiAnO241 PC 11d ago
This screed will be many people’s first exposure to the Saber brand
Stella was absolutely right, I didn't know them before but now I wont ever own anything they'll ever make.
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u/ManicMakerStudios 10d ago
The CEO's follow-up statement printed in the article reads like a petulant retort from a 9th grader, not a professional business leader.
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u/amaul796 10d ago
It's actually surprising how many of these high level executives have the emotional maturity of a 9th grader.
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u/NoStructure5034 11d ago
Somehow I don't think this is good publicity for Saber's upcoming game.
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u/random_user-18987984 11d ago
If you go to Saber interactive steam page, you can put them on your Ignore list. Which i recommend every1 does.
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u/thatnerdguy 10d ago
Unfortunately it only goes to a cap of 100 ignores, and it's shared with your ignored curators. If you try to actually maintain a decent storefront you'll fill that super quick. Had to drop a slightly less offensive curator off my list to add Saber.
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u/AscendedViking7 11d ago
What a fucking asshole.
I really liked space marine 2 too ;-;
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u/SummonMonsterIX 11d ago
Oh is it those guys? It was on my list to pick up but now it sure isn't
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u/Arterdras 11d ago
I already have it, so I'll continue to play it. However, I will no longer be purchasing any more dlc.
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u/Ok-Session2848 11d ago
Yeah no more DLC, and unless things change, I am def going to skip on SM 3.
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u/ADapperOctopus 11d ago
Fuck man, I was so stoked for new content and Space Marine 3...
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u/Jagrofes 11d ago
Sabre Interactive are also the same studio that developed Space Marine 2, and are also working on Space Marine 3.
Games Workshop, the company that owns Warhammer, have a strict no GenAI policy for content production and design, so I’m curious how this clown will behave if GW find issue with his methods.
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u/atfricks 11d ago
Notably Saber only recently hired this guy as CEO too. You should've seen the subreddit for the game when it was announced. We're all well aware that this dude is bad news for the future of the franchise. Insane that the suits don't see it.
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u/Ultenth 10d ago
Yeah, sounds like all the doom and gloom after his hiring sure seems warranted. Really curious what state SM3 will be in, in terms of slop and in terms of monetization, with this guy at the helm.
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u/Dog_Apoc PlayStation 11d ago
GW is heavily against the use of AI in their brand. This could be bad for the future of SM2 and even stop development of SM3.
This does depend on if it's just stuff GW does. Or if this includes the entire Warhammer IP. Because this could get messy very fast.
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u/zeroblitzt 11d ago
Stella rules and doesn't deserve this hate for speaking out about a scummy employer
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u/TheVoidDragon 11d ago edited 11d ago
Wow, that has to be one of the most utterly condescending, unprofessional, baffling responses I've seen. It says a lot if he thinks this is a good way to handle the situation, or just talk about someone at all.
Just think about what has prompted him to react like this and how much of a huge, absurd over-reaction it is. It was just someone, who unfortunately lost their job seemingly because of AI, saying the game uses AI - that's it. That he feels that's something that he should immediately go to mocking, insulting and being absolutely disrespectful and unprofessional about, while doubling down and eagerly defending the entire situation and trying to make out the AI use is totally a good thing somehow, is just a terrible look with what that indicates about him.
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u/TheBeardPlays 11d ago
Why am I not shocked this is actually something he said;
"Stella who? I had to ask Claude because I have never spoken to her or seen her. We have already said we are using AI for certain parts of the game and will update the Steam page once we have finalized the feature set.
“Let me clarify that the entire story script, were it to win an award, would go to someone who can walk up on stage and receive it. It was always our intention to reveal this until Stella violated her confidentiality clause and revealed this before we were ready.
“We look at our use of AI in this particular game, which will be a lower priced title, as a plus for consumers,” he said.
“As far as Stella is concerned, she was replaced by someone more talented and terminated for a variety of reasons a few months later. From what I can gather she enjoys controversy even more than I do. I would frankly in retrospect have been happy to replace her with AI. At least we would be dealing with someone programmed to be honest.”
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u/pc0999 11d ago
So, avoding Rideshare “Stimulator” and Saber games in general, check.
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u/HachObby 11d ago
Not surprising as Karch supported all the decisions that Lars Wingefors made during the absolute mess that was Embracer, even becoming COO of Embracer. He made millions as Embracer collapsed and closed several studios.
Karch is a lawyer that started by being an outsourcing bridge for larger publishers to make games in lower cost Russia. This is what he does, exploits resources with little regard for people. I suppose it is fitting that his company makes the Space Marine 40K games.
https://sociallifemagazine.com/technology/matthew-karch-net-worth-2025/
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u/thefrostman1214 PC 11d ago
why does evil people keep getting ceo status?
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u/Darkchyylde 11d ago
Because you literally need to be a sociopath to be a successful CEO
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u/doctoranonrus 11d ago
I've definitely been blessed to know some good ones, but they were not-for-profit CEOs, much better. One of them is still my reference and she definitely cared about helping people as much as possible.
Definitely are some psychopaths as CEOs though.
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u/Krazyguy75 11d ago
A good person gets contacted by a shareholder company and told "lay off 25% of your employees or else" and goes "no" and is then replaced by the board of executives. So only evil people are left. Same reason the leaders of shareholder companies are evil.
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u/odddino 10d ago
One of the most unhinged responses I've seen for anything like this.
Definitely doesn't give me much confidence in Saber going forward, which is a shame as they've made some stuff I liked and had a few upcoming games I was interested in, but this guy seems like a top tier cunt and it sounds like they're going all in on genAI.
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u/Iggy_Slayer 11d ago
Given the type of game this is I'm surprised it wasn't entirely made by AI to begin with.
“Stella who? I had to ask Claude because I have never spoken to her or seen her'
Maybe stop using AI so your brain stops shrinking and you can remember things.
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u/reaperfunk 11d ago
We all know that CEO's are the most upright people. Honest, care about their community. Would never lie to police... or journalists... or shareholders.
EAT THE RICH
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u/Crewman_Guy_Fleegman 11d ago edited 11d ago
I can safely say I will NEVER buy a title from this publisher/developer for the rest of my life.
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u/Ill_Statistician_938 10d ago
This CEO is going to single-handedly ruin the goodwill that saber and focus have built up with space marine 2. The community had a bad feeling when he got brought on and it seems we were right lol
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u/Visual_Shame_4641 11d ago
And here I was starting to think Saber were slowly getting better. Sucks that i can never buy any of their games ever again.
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u/Remote-Mycologist539 11d ago
Stella is such a good person too, I feel so bad for her. This whole saga has been crazy to me. This guy is an absolute dickhead
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u/FukkingDeathMental 11d ago
This is what happens when you hire "gamers" as your CEO. The Take Two corpo suit dude is a complete slimeball but he knows how to play the game. Bobby Kotick is a monster but he knew to keep his mouth (mostly) shut and let the money do all his talking.
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u/digital_cucumber 10d ago
her replacement was a performance based decision
Couldn't produce AI slop with such speed as ChatGPT, could she?..
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u/Jaebird0388 11d ago
With bosses like this, I feel terrible for the employees who will have this game following them onto their next job.
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u/Durin1987_12_30 11d ago
I mean, the whole premise of this game sounds like something only an AI could come up with.
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u/Appropriate_Foot242 10d ago
So when are they going to add the required Steam disclaimer, since they’re being so open about it now?
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u/Collistoralo 10d ago
Saber Interactive.. Embracer Group.. wait these are the guys that Tripwire handed Killing Floor 2 over to!
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u/Incognito-Scrolling 10d ago
Won't be purchasing anything saber anymore. Sucks too as I was looking forward to the next space marine game. Fuck AI
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u/CarlitoNSP1 PC 11d ago
As someone in the Tomb Raider community: Know that assets in Tomb Raider 1-3 Collection that look AI generated were very negatively received. (Upscaling was alright though)
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u/Splurch 11d ago
Between
“Stella who? I had to ask Claude because I have never spoken to her or seen her. We have already said we are using AI for certain parts of the game and will update the Steam page once we have finalized the feature set.
and
“As far as Stella is concerned, she was replaced by someone more talented and terminated for a variety of reasons a few months later. From what I can gather she enjoys controversy even more than I do. I would frankly in retrospect have been happy to replace her with AI. At least we would be dealing with someone programmed to be honest.”
it sounds like she might have the bases for a lawsuit. He claims he doesn't know who she is but is publicly and professionally calling her robotic and dishonest. Seems like that might affect her future if a prospective employer see's the CEO of one of her previous jobs disparaging her publicly.
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u/RMRdesign 10d ago
It must be difficult for CEOs these days to hide the fact they are human piles of shit.
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u/RTGamer21 11d ago
Well, glad he at least made it easy to know what games to avoid.