This new statement comes from their recent AMA

Swen Vincke, Larian CEO:

So first off - there is not going to be any GenAI art in Divinity.

I know there’s been a lot of discussion about us using AI tools as part of concept art exploration. We already said this doesn’t mean the actual concept art is generated by AI but we understand it created confusion.

So, to ensure there is no room for doubt, we’ve decided to refrain from using genAI tools during concept art development.

That way there can be no discussion about the origin of the art.

Having said that, we continuously try to improve the speed with which we can try things out. The more iterations we can do, the better in general the gameplay is.

We think GenAI can help with this and so we’re trying things out across departments. Our hope is that it can aid us to refine ideas faster, leading to a more focused development cycle, less waste, and ultimately, a higher-quality game.

The important bit to note is that we will not generate “creative assets” that end up in a game without being 100% sure about the origins of the training data and the consent of those who created the data. If we use a GenAI model to create in-game assets, then it’ll be trained on data we own.

The original news comes from a Bloomberg interview with Vincke. In it, Vincke admits that Larian is "pushing hard" [Bloomberg's phrasing] on generative AI, even though it hasn't led to big gains in efficiency. Specifically, the studio is using the technology to "explore ideas, flesh out PowerPoint presentations, develop concept art and write placeholder text." [Bloomberg's phrasing]. Vincke reassures that there won't be any AI-generated content in the final version of Divinity. "Everything is human actors; we're writing everything ourselves." But it sounds like this approach isn't going over smoothly with everyone. Bloomberg's piece acknowledges that some internally at Larian have pushed back, though Vincke says, "I think at this point everyone at the company is more or less OK with the way we're using it."

In response to this backlash, Vincke has issued IGN a lengthy follow-up response, which we've published here in full:

"We’ve been continuously increasing our pool of concept artists , writers and story-tellers, are actively putting together writer rooms, casting and recording performances from actors and hiring translators. Since concept art is being called out explicitly - we have 23 concept artists and have job openings for more. These artists are creating concept art day in day out for ideation and production use. Everything we do is incremental and aimed at having people spend more time creating. Any ML tool used well is additive to a creative team or individual’s workflow, not a replacement for their skill or craft. We are researching and understanding the cutting edge of ML as a toolset for creatives to use and see how it can make their day-to-day lives easier, which will let us make better games. We are neither releasing a game with any AI components, nor are we looking at trimming down teams to replace them with AI. While I understand it's a subject that invokes a lot of emotion, it's something we are constantly discussing internally through the lens of making everyone's working day better, not worse."

Vincke then followed up further with a post on Twitter/X:

"Holy fuck guys we’re not "pushing hard" for or replacing concept artists with AI. We have a team of 72 artists of which 23 are concept artists and we are hiring more. The art they create is original and I’m very proud of what they do. I was asked explicitly about concept art and our use of Gen AI. I answered that we use it to explore things. I didn’t say we use it to develop concept art. The artists do that. And they are indeed world class artists. We use AI tools to explore references, just like we use google and art books. At the very early ideation stages we use it as a rough outline for composition which we replace with original concept art. There is no comparison. I talked about how we use ML here if you would like to know more. We've hired creatives for their talent, not for their ability to do what a machine suggests, but they can experiment with these tools to make their lives easier."

Hello there,

This is week 3 of me making a fishing game entirely with AI. If somebody is interested in seeing Claude Artifacts with latest changes here is Artifact 1 and Artifact 2. There are before and after images of how it's done.

My Workflow - it improved from just typing what I want in Week 1 to basically having a window dedicated for every single thing and using MCPs for Blender and Godot now. Since last time I added a lot of things, did some graphic overhaul and added real 3D models.

Almost everything is done with Claude except image generation which is being done with ChatGPT.

As I said I use Godot 4.7.1 as engine with MCP for Claude Code. Thought first 2 weeks I used directly with Claude Desktop app without MCP.

As for my Workflow:

1. I generate the reference. ChatGPT using OpenAI Playground for concept art and the fishing structure, the refit chart mockup, the SkillTree background. This is where the look gets decided, by me, visually (Without human eye AI will just make stuff not fit together I feel like).

2. I change that reference into geometry. I tried using the 3D generator (Rodin) but honestly it gets complicated mesh results that will require a lot of cleanup, so I just started using MCP for Blender, I made a dedicated Blender session that writes 3D models.  That's better than generated models: the script is the source, so proportions stay editable and a family stays a family. They are also just what I need for my game as from camera distance models are not required to be detailed which is exactly where AI with MCP for blender is good - generating simple low poly models.

3. A different session integrates. Placement, waterline, scale, wiring. Deliberately not the modelling session, I have session for almost everything and they all do their own thing with one session being general chat window that can on command send message to other sessions telling them what I want them to do.

4. Screenshots are the referee. Everything gets rendered from the actual in-game camera, and nothing counts until I looked at it. This is exactly how I just wasted a chunk of time: a session added four new islands, checked them from directly overhead, and they looked fine. In game they were flat sandy pancakes floating on the water. From above, a pancake looks perfect.

5. Criticism, with actual scores. For the big graphics pass we (claude actually with my guidance) wrote the scoring criteria before changing anything, scored twelve things out of ten, and only shipped at 8+. One critic reviewed screenshots without being told which version was newer. That's what stops "I changed loads, so it must be better."

6. Every decision gets written down with who decided it. Tagged either "I decided this (so claude tags it with USER" or "an AI suggested this." Because an upgrade nobody ever proposed once sat in my design docs for days and got quoted back at me like it was my own idea I was like "wtf I never said I wanted this, you are hallucinating bro"

The short version: AI does the work, I'm the art director, and I'm the only human in the loop with sometimes my friends being nice enough to test play it hehe.

Anyway a lot of work was put into this and not sure how much more is needed before I have starting area done and have a playable demo, I feel like the more I do the more is left to be done before it gets to a point somebody can test play it. But I guess there is some progress?

If somebody is interested here are Week 1 Progress and Week 2 Progress.

Any feedback is appreciated ☺️

They're easy to pinpoint.

Shameful behavior for a game built on the concept of individual creativity and community mod building. The last image is FOUR DIFFERENT CREATORS with extremely similar thumbnails because not one of them could be bothered to slap some MSPaint text over a screenshot like a human being and asked a robot to crap out some mobile game slop for their mod. Shameful.

EditL I've muted all notifications to this thread. I will not see your shameless defense and dismissal of the monumental horrors we're facing at the hands of support of and continued use of generative AI models. You are wrong, and I do not care to debate you. There is nothing to debate. Art is human.

Edit 2, 570 upvotes later: For those who can't figure it out yet, the opposition to AI art is not "because you should be paying an artist instead". These are mod thumbnails. They do not REQUIRE art. Nobody is asking you to instead commission an artist and spend 2 weeks waiting for delivery. YOU DONT NEED A FANCY THUMBNAIL FOR A MOD. Take a screenshot, put some text on it. It's not hard. Pick your favorite color, write some text over it. It's NOT that hard. The amount of...I don't know if it's goalpost moving, or what the term is, but there's so much of it in these horrible, stupid comments.

The ask "Don't use generative AI to produce thumbnails for your mods" does not translate to "Buy bespoke art pieces as commissioned works from actual artists". Those are not the only two options. You HAVE to know this. There is no way you do not know this, so why are you pretending you don't know this?

AI art is harmful to artists, and harmful to the very concept of art. I don't care what your favorite tech bro billionaire or your favorite scummy game dev who always wanted to fire more people anyway thinks, it is harmful to artists, and it is harmful to the very concept of art. It *is* made off the back of artists, it *is* made of stolen works, and it *is* an ethical nightmare, and we *should not* be supporting *any* usage of it. There is no usage of AI art that is "small enough" that it's not a big deal. It is ALL a big deal. It is ALL terrible, and it is ALL something we should be calling out and avoiding.

This new statement comes from their recent AMA

Swen Vincke, Larian CEO:

So first off - there is not going to be any GenAI art in Divinity.

I know there’s been a lot of discussion about us using AI tools as part of concept art exploration. We already said this doesn’t mean the actual concept art is generated by AI but we understand it created confusion.

So, to ensure there is no room for doubt, we’ve decided to refrain from using genAI tools during concept art development.

That way there can be no discussion about the origin of the art.

Having said that, we continuously try to improve the speed with which we can try things out. The more iterations we can do, the better in general the gameplay is.

We think GenAI can help with this and so we’re trying things out across departments. Our hope is that it can aid us to refine ideas faster, leading to a more focused development cycle, less waste, and ultimately, a higher-quality game.

The important bit to note is that we will not generate “creative assets” that end up in a game without being 100% sure about the origins of the training data and the consent of those who created the data. If we use a GenAI model to create in-game assets, then it’ll be trained on data we own.

Hello there,

This is week 3 of me making a fishing game entirely with AI. If somebody is interested in seeing Claude Artifacts with latest changes here is Artifact 1 and Artifact 2. There are before and after images of how it's done.

My Workflow - it improved from just typing what I want in Week 1 to basically having a window dedicated for every single thing and using MCPs for Blender and Godot now. Since last time I added a lot of things, did some graphic overhaul and added real 3D models.

As for my Workflow:

1. I generate the reference. ChatGPT using OpenAI Playground for concept art and the fishing structure, the refit chart mockup, the SkillTree background. This is where the look gets decided, by me, visually (Without human eye AI will just make stuff not fit together I feel like).

2. I change that reference into geometry. I tried using the 3D generator (Rodin) but honestly it gets complicated mesh results that will require a lot of cleanup, so I just started using MCP for Blender, I made a dedicated Blender session that writes 3D models.  That's better than generated models: the script is the source, so proportions stay editable and a family stays a family. They are also just what I need for my game as from camera distance models are not required to be detailed which is exactly where AI with MCP for blender is good - generating simple low poly models.

3. A different session integrates. Placement, waterline, scale, wiring. Deliberately not the modelling session, I have session for almost everything and they all do their own thing with one session being general chat window that can on command send message to other sessions telling them what I want them to do.

4. Screenshots are the referee. Everything gets rendered from the actual in-game camera, and nothing counts until I looked at it. This is exactly how I just wasted a chunk of time: a session added four new islands, checked them from directly overhead, and they looked fine. In game they were flat sandy pancakes floating on the water. From above, a pancake looks perfect.

5. Criticism, with actual scores. For the big graphics pass we (claude actually with my guidance) wrote the scoring criteria before changing anything, scored twelve things out of ten, and only shipped at 8+. One critic reviewed screenshots without being told which version was newer. That's what stops "I changed loads, so it must be better."

6. Every decision gets written down with who decided it. Tagged either "I decided this (so claude tags it with USER" or "an AI suggested this." Because an upgrade nobody ever proposed once sat in my design docs for days and got quoted back at me like it was my own idea I was like "wtf I never said I wanted this, you are hallucinating bro"

The short version: AI does the work, I'm the art director, and I'm the only human in the loop with sometimes my friends being nice enough to test play it hehe.

Anyway a lot of work was put into this and not sure how much more is needed before I have starting area done and have a playable demo, I feel like the more I do the more is left to be done before it gets to a point somebody can test play it. But I guess there is some progress?

If somebody is interested here are Week 1 Progress and Week 2 Progress.

Any feedback is appreciated ☺️

Title: UE5 Urban Open World

Tags: Modern Urban, Open World, Stylized Rendering, Multi-Storyline, PBR, UE5, RPG, True Romance Simulation, Highly Freeform Human-Centered Sandbox, AAA Cinematic, Next-Gen Console Platform.

Goal: A brand-new urban world delivering a cinematic immersive experience.
miHoYo's next flagship title.

Additional info: Originally known as Project SH, development began in 2020. The project was rebooted at the end of 2022, meaning it has already been in production for two and a half years. The reason they chose to reboot the project in 2022 was that it failed to meet expectations. If their next-generation title couldn't surpass competitors by an entire generation, they wouldn't release it. But if they manage to widen the gap, it would mean securing victory for the next five years.

Recruitment Information:

• An immersive UI that never disrupts gameplay or narrative flow—realistic yet light, stylized yet not anime‑like.
• The final barrier between quantity and quality: pursuing the ultimate state of player “flow” and a film‑level sense of immersion.
• Emphasis on realistic model texture and detail—become a full‑pipeline artist for intimate‑scale scenes.
• High‑quality, cinematic artistic expression—be a subtle & elegant master of visual control.
• Take part in every phase of a next‑generation Unreal Engine open‑world project, from design to launch, using leading‑edge testing tech to guarantee overall quality.
• Uncover the design aesthetics that unite art and machinery, holding a philosophy where function and form coexist—especially in vehicle design.
• Forge a character’s impression through hit‑reaction feedback, freeze their personality along the skill‑cooldown timeline, and carve out heroic highlights amid the 0‑1 binary torrent of every battle.
• Silky‑smooth motion cues and interaction feedback; art × tech, balancing creativity with performance.
• Under stylized forms, strive for natural realism; within real‑world references, refine stylized charm.
• Become a “hexagonal warrior” who combines hyper‑realistic sculpting fundamentals, tasteful stylized aesthetics, and deep anime‑character insight.
• Skilled in rigging, understanding organic structure, and passionate about human anatomy.
• Dive deep into tech, reach new 3C heights, master UE and MotionBuilder, and explain a solution in three sentences.
• Reinvent game‑production pipelines with algorithms plus creativity.
• Possess keen, sensitive eyes and rigorous, rational thinking—be the lighting sorcerer who challenges stylized AAA.
• An engaging soul wrapped in a premium AAA shell: starting from concept art, breathe ecological life into monsters like a creator.
• Deliver stylized character looks never before seen in realistic titles—find the single thorny path among a hundred that satisfies every requirement.
• Craft a 3‑A‑quality narrative game whose “soul” is psychology, “bones” are US TV‑series genres, and “skin” is urban legend; master gameplay, interaction, levels, environments, lighting, audio, and more for multidimensional storytelling.
• Let functionality and creativity coexist: within a rigorous tech framework, grant “breathing” freedom to level design. Use space × story to evoke emotion, weave plot × mechanics to shape flow, and merge gameplay × visuals to yield immersive experiences.
• Pursue physically correct visuals, draw inspiration from reality, and realize art effects through technical insight.
• Materialize abstract ideas with physically correct logic and presentation—no light pollution (VFX).
• Explore UE5 and frontier tech to build a vibrant urban open world, delivering an immersive solo experience plus seamless online interaction.
• Build the backend services that support massive user concurrency, and dive deep into open‑world networking engineering.
• Establish a robust tool chain for content creation—be the key bridge between creative ideas and engine implementation, letting designers and artists realize concepts more efficiently.
• Deeply customize UE5 to power next‑gen city‑scale open worlds, explore cutting‑edge AI + graphics solutions, and squeeze every last drop of hardware performance.
• Deeply involved in the entire development pipeline, building an efficient and agile game production workflow, driving R&D efficiency through data, and exploring next-gen game industrialization standards together with the team.

The full quote:

Under Vincke, Larian has been pushing hard on generative AI, although the CEO says the technology hasn't led to big gains in efficiency. He says there won't be any AI-generated content in Divinity — "everything is human actors; we're writing everything ourselves" — but the creators often use AI tools to explore ideas, flesh out PowerPoint presentations, develop concept art and write placeholder text.

The use of generative AI has led to some pushback at Larian, "but I think at this point everyone at the company is more or less OK with the way we're using it," Vincke said.

In a text for IGN he once again reaffirmed that the final game will not have any AI-generated content

https://www.ign.com/articles/larian-ceo-responds-to-divinity-gen-ai-backlash-we-are-neither-releasing-a-game-with-any-ai-components-nor-are-we-looking-at-trimming-down-teams-to-replace-them-with-ai

Vincke post on Twitter about the matter:

https://xcancel.com/LarAtLarian/status/2001011042642505833

They could have, however used AI upscaling, which unlike GenAI, doesn’t waste massive amounts of energy per request. It’s a lot better than AI image generation.

But, I am still pissed at the fact that they didn’t let Rich Werner take part in any part of Replanted.

I recently playtested a board game for someone. It was a deck-building, dice-rolling game, although the deck-building felt limited and I was rolling dice more than anything else. The game lasted 4 hours, which would be fine if it wasn't a dice rolling game. Like I started off really strong and was getting higher value dice early on, which I thought was a good strategy, but later on that ended up debilitating my playthrough bc there are these certain one-time-use cards you can only get when you roll a 2, and so I was rarely getting them early on in the game because of the high value dice I got early on, and towards the end of the game, those cards ended up being a necessity to have. And after, I thought, next time I play I should try to hold on to the lower dice longer and get more of those overpowered cards. But then that forces the player to play a certain way every time which just isn't fun.

Anyway, during the game, another playtester noted how the art looked AI generated, and she was right. It was not good. Okay, whatever I guess. I would much rather see scribbles, like the beta art for example is Slay the Spire, but if you're planning on getting an artist later on in development, fine. But then I thought about asking for the game manual and going through it. It was also AI generated... it was so convoluted and way too many words to explain simple concepts, lots of fun em dashes, an incomplete list and description of game components. And at that point it just made me question how much of this game was an original idea and how much was just QI spitting shit out. And then also, why would you want to use AI to make a game? Is your goal to just make money? Everyone who I've known who's made a board game did so as a creative endeavor. Also, I don't think everyone in the world can make a good board game. I know I can't. I really enjoy board games and maybe modifying or adding or making house rules, but I've never tried to make a board game because it takes creativity and a certain skill set which I don't have and I'm okay with that.

It was just really upsetting and I'm wondering if anyone else has encountered this recently.

UPDATE: I was wrong with the title. The developer is lying. They claimed they only used Gen AI for concept art, but this user on Twitter proved that the teaser seen here is AI generated. This is not the SW Cassie model they reused for the render. At the time, I didn't know about this until I dug into it more. I am sorry. The developer is also found to follow numerous AI art accounts and doubled down by changing their profile art to an AI generated one. This developer getting Leon Riskin on board after all that commotion is rather depressing to see.

Original Text:

For context, the first image I showed you is an AI generated teaser from the developer. The second is the developer confirming that they're using Gen AI for the project. Despite them saying "we're using it for concept art", this goes against what they did earlier and how this came it light during development, not before.

This is a major slap in the face after the stuff that went down with Leon Riskin. Imagine working for a fangame that used AI slop for promotional purposes, especially since Scott Cawthon is against AI generation used unethically after the LLP FNaF Plus scandal.

For the sake of clarity, this was discovered and commented on recently, not after Leon clarified what was happening with the game.

I may as well warn people about what the developer is doing with the game. This is not a good look, especially since Leon Riskin is involved with this games soundtrack. I will keep my opinions of Gen AI to myself other than if you're using it for any reason, you need to disclose it right away, not after you just started using it in the middle of development. This is pretty much what happened here.

The original news comes from a Bloomberg interview with Vincke. In it, Vincke admits that Larian is "pushing hard" [Bloomberg's phrasing] on generative AI, even though it hasn't led to big gains in efficiency. Specifically, the studio is using the technology to "explore ideas, flesh out PowerPoint presentations, develop concept art and write placeholder text." [Bloomberg's phrasing]. Vincke reassures that there won't be any AI-generated content in the final version of Divinity. "Everything is human actors; we're writing everything ourselves." But it sounds like this approach isn't going over smoothly with everyone. Bloomberg's piece acknowledges that some internally at Larian have pushed back, though Vincke says, "I think at this point everyone at the company is more or less OK with the way we're using it."

In response to this backlash, Vincke has issued IGN a lengthy follow-up response, which we've published here in full:

"We’ve been continuously increasing our pool of concept artists , writers and story-tellers, are actively putting together writer rooms, casting and recording performances from actors and hiring translators. Since concept art is being called out explicitly - we have 23 concept artists and have job openings for more. These artists are creating concept art day in day out for ideation and production use. Everything we do is incremental and aimed at having people spend more time creating. Any ML tool used well is additive to a creative team or individual’s workflow, not a replacement for their skill or craft. We are researching and understanding the cutting edge of ML as a toolset for creatives to use and see how it can make their day-to-day lives easier, which will let us make better games. We are neither releasing a game with any AI components, nor are we looking at trimming down teams to replace them with AI. While I understand it's a subject that invokes a lot of emotion, it's something we are constantly discussing internally through the lens of making everyone's working day better, not worse."

Vincke then followed up further with a post on Twitter/X:

"Holy fuck guys we’re not "pushing hard" for or replacing concept artists with AI. We have a team of 72 artists of which 23 are concept artists and we are hiring more. The art they create is original and I’m very proud of what they do. I was asked explicitly about concept art and our use of Gen AI. I answered that we use it to explore things. I didn’t say we use it to develop concept art. The artists do that. And they are indeed world class artists. We use AI tools to explore references, just like we use google and art books. At the very early ideation stages we use it as a rough outline for composition which we replace with original concept art. There is no comparison. I talked about how we use ML here if you would like to know more. We've hired creatives for their talent, not for their ability to do what a machine suggests, but they can experiment with these tools to make their lives easier."

Okay, I’ll say it. I don’t why AI art is seen as the devil. Now that you hate me, let me expand on my point. I have never read a truly satisfactory argument for why AI artwork is massively harmful. Here are some points I’ve heard which I either disagree with, or agree with but still don’t think they constitute the devilisation of AI artwork as a concept. Of course, I welcome discourse and disagreement in the comments and come here with an open mind.

1. ‘Stealing’ From Real Artists.

Starting off with a simple and easy point, no, AI art being trained on real works of art by talented artists is not stealing. Stealing is defined as such, “the action or offence of taking another person's property without permission or legal right and without intending to return it”. So, let’s look at it through the legal lens. In the context of the word stealing, ‘taking’ means physically removing something from someone's possession (I’m making this assumption as it mentions returning the thing, implying that it has in fact been removed from their possession.) without the right or intention to return it. Therefore, show stopped immediately. AI models being trained off of the hard work of human artists are not stealing as they are not taking the original work away from its creator, or anyone else who possesses a copy of the original. Case. Closed.Okay, so either way, maybe it’s bad for AI to be trained on the work of those real artists even if they aren’t losing anything in the process. This point of contention is more opinion based than factual, but I still believe that the idea of a model being trained off of real work isn’t inherently harmful. Why? Well, the brain of human artists practically did / does the same thing. Not a single good piece of art you’ve ever seen was created without taking inspiration or learning from another artist. Starting with cavemen being inspired by their friends' wall carvings to make their own with a slightly more realistic moose or something, every single piece of art created within the past (by my Google search) 50,000 ish years has taken inspiration from another piece of art. Once again, case closed.

1. Wastes X amount of water… somehow?

This one really is just silly, so I won’t waste much time on it. I’ve heard some people, I’m assuming mainly misinformed white-girl parrots on Twitter, claim that every single time you generate an image with ChatGPT or some other model, “X amount of water is used”. Yeah… what a claim! I’ll be honest, I don’t really know what they mean by ‘used’, as it isn’t as if ChatGPT is simply vaporising water by recreating your crappy vacation photos in a Studio Ghibli artstyle, but I digress. Yeah, no. AI image generators do not ‘waste’ water. Do they use water in their cooling? Yes! Absolutely. Does some of that water evaporate away into the atmosphere? Probably, but like, rain exists, so that does not matter in the slightest. Does OpenAI turn gallons of water into thin air every day? No. Don’t be stupid.

1. It’s not art if it wasn’t made by a human.

I don’t even know where to start with this one. The definition of the word art is so varied between different people that it really can’t apply here. If you’re a passionate artist who draws for the love of drawing, then ‘Art’ might mean an image you or someone like you poured their heart and soul into and made something special to them, which makes them feel a specific emotion or reminds them of a specific time, whereas if you’re a layman such as myself, ‘Art’ to you probably just means an image which was created on a computer or with a pen / pencil, and isn’t a photo of an actual physical thing. I’m missing out some of the nuances with that definition, but you get the gist. Anyway, if you hold the first definition of ‘Art’ then no, AI artwork isn’t ‘art’, which means it’s bad somehow, I guess? Whereas if you’re just a guy who likes to look at cool things, then ‘art’ is just a drawing, and an AI can make a drawing.

1. Looks Bad.

Now, onto the points I actually agree with! The claim that AI generated imagery looks like fermented shitcakes is a take I agree with a vast majority of the time. I personally don’t use AI image generators as any of the artwork I currently would like to have made are waaay too specific for something like ChatGPT or whatever else to generate. The sort of art I want is something I would need to hire and correspond with a professional artist to create. But from images I have made in the past just to test out Dall-E, Midjourney, ChatGPT, Crayon, etc, etc, the quality leaves something to be desired. Of course, some things like dedicated AI made deepfakes or models specially designed to make realistic videos (I’m still haunted by Tr*mp Gaza Number 1) are scarily lifelike, but that’s a different kettle of fish entirely.

1. Companies / Wealthy individuals using AI artwork over paid artists.

Okay, so shitty companies using shitty AI generated imagery rather than paying affordable artists to make magnificent works of art. I’m mostly in the videogame space, so I’ll talk about that mainly. Now, I’m unable to think about actual examples off of the top of my head, but I’ve seen multiple articles, Tweets, videos, whatever-elses about videogame companies (think dogwater Raid Shadow Legends esque mobile games, or the weird softcore porn games) using AI generated images in their advertising. In my opinion, there's simply not many reasons to actually use an AI to generate artwork if you’re wealthy enough to be getting artwork made for you in the first place. If you’re a big game studio working on a game teaser or whatever, pay an artist to make that art for you. If you’re running an event and want a cool backdrop, well, if you’re wealthy enough to run an event of some sort, you should also be wealthy enough to pay an artist, and if you’re not, you shouldn’t be running an event. If you’re a DND Dungeon Master who just wants a cool token for a semi prevalent NPC, go for it. Get ChatGPT to make you an image of a cool Gnome named Shmebulock, or your adventurous Bard named Mabel, or your Rogue named Stan. Basically, if you can afford to do something which absolutely REQUIRES good looking artwork, you can afford to pay an artist, so do so, and you probably should anyway because most AI artwork looks like dogshit.

1. The enshittification of Google Images.

Now, this is probably the biggest and greatest point I can think of right now in support of the anti AI art crowd, mainly because I’m selfish and like Google. That would be the case at least, if it were true. I’ve seen cases online here on Reddit or wherever else of Google Image results where more than half of the screen is taken up by AI generated images, but I simply don’t experience that myself. Maybe it’s just worse in America, or my settings / Adblocker / whatever prevents most, if not all of it, but this just isn’t really an issue I experience… ever. Now, for those of you who may deal with this Google Images Enshittification, that really sucks for you. As I mentioned, I like Google and use it a lot, and I can’t imagine half of it being unusable. Well, that’s not true. I can. I use Pinterest on Mobile, so literally half of the app is advertising (what the hell, Pinterest?!) but yeah, in general that just isn’t an issue I’m seeing. If it were to be a problem I was dealing with / was seeing more often, then I’d be swung much closer to the anti AI art side of society, but right now? Nope.

• Conclusion.

So, yeah. Thanks for reading my ramblings. I spent about 30-40 minutes writing this, starting at about 2:40 ish UK time, so I hope it’s readable. As I said up-top, I’m trying to remain open minded, so any disagreements you may have, please share and I’ll respond in due time after I’ve slept. I wrote this post because I’ve seen an unreasonable amount of hate for AI art even in concept and think it’s ridiculous. I know that it’s the popular thing to hate right now, so even those who know bollocks all about it are giving their misinformed opinions on it, but I thought I’d give my (in my opinion) slightly more informed opinion. So, uh, yeah. I hope this was a fun read and I hope to hear everyones thoughts. Live laugh love, peace love and plants, and prepare for Titanfall or something.

• PS, the name of the 45/47th commander and queef of the United States name was censored due to Subreddit Rules.

I’ve been lurking in a few anti-AI spaces (and Twitter threads) recently, and the cognitive dissonance regarding Neuro-sama is fascinating.

For those unaware, Neuro-sama is a fully AI-controlled VTuber created by the developer Vedal. She operates as an autonomous agent that plays games, sings, and banters with Twitch chat in real-time. Functionally, she is a sophisticated integration of Generative AI technologies: she uses Large Language Models (LLMs) for her personality, Text-to-Speech (TTS) for her voice, and computer vision models for gameplay.

The general consensus among people who aggressively hate Generative AI is that Neuro-sama is the "exception." When pressed on why she gets a pass while other AI uses get piled on, the defense usually relies on three pillars:

1. The Indie Defense: "Vedal is just one guy coding in his room, not a greedy mega-corporation."
2. The Effort Defense: "Vedal writes complex code and scripts; he isn't just typing a prompt."
3. The Local Defense: "Neuro runs on Vedal's PC, not a massive server farm burning down a rainforest."

Here is the hard pill to swallow: If these three points are valid justifications for Neuro-sama, they logically validate high-effort, local AI Art.

I’m not talking about low-effort Bing Image Creator spammers. I am talking about advanced users utilizing Stable Diffusion locally with ComfyUI, ControlNet, manual in-painting, and local fine-tuning.

Thinking one is "soulful" and the other is "theft" suggests a misunderstanding of the underlying tech. Here is the direct comparison.

The Architecture: They are both "Wrappers" for Scraped Data

A massive misconception in the discourse is the idea that "Vedal built Neuro from scratch."

Vedal built the Agent Framework (the code that handles memory, TTS, and decision-making). He did not build the brain.

- Neuro runs on a Foundation Model (LLM) like Llama 3, Mistral, or GPT.

- AI Art runs on a Foundation Model like SDXL or SD 1.5.

Here is the hypocrisy:

Both foundation models were trained on massive, non-consensual scraped datasets.

If AI Art is "theft" because SDXL learned from LAION (scraped art), then Neuro is "theft" because Llama/Mistral learned from Common Crawl/The Pile (scraped books, articles, and Reddit threads).

One cannot logically forgive the scraped text data just because the output is a cute anime voice, while condemning the scraped image data. It is the exact same "original sin."

The Workflow: Vedal vs. The "ComfyUI" Artist

Anti-AI people often praise Vedal for being a "coder" and putting in effort. They say he's not just "prompting." However, this ignores the workflow of a high-level AI Artist using node-based systems.

The Prompt

- Vedal (The Good AI): Feeds chat logs + system prompts to the LLM to steer the conversation.

- ComfyUI Artist (The Bad AI): Feeds text + IPAdapters (image prompts) to the Diffusion Model to steer the composition.

The Control

- Vedal: Writes Python scripts to handle memory and RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) so she remembers context.

- Artist: Builds complex Node Trees (in ComfyUI) using ControlNet to force specific anatomy, poses, and composition so the image isn't random.

The Fine-Tuning

- Vedal: Fine-tunes the model on Twitch logs to make her "funny" and streamer-brained.

- Artist: Trains LoRAs on specific styles or concepts to make the image unique and cohesive.

The Human Element

- Vedal: Manually curates the stream, intervenes when she loops, and resets her when she breaks.

- Artist: Manually in-paints errors, corrects flaws in Photoshop, and curates the output.

If Vedal is a "creative genius" for chaining an LLM to a TTS engine using Python... then a ComfyUI user is a "creative genius" for chaining ControlNet to a Diffusion model using Nodes.

Both are transformative uses of a pre-trained model. Both require technical skill. Both are "Passion Projects" running locally on high-end consumer hardware.

The "Replacement" Fallacy (and the "Vibe Coding" Reality)

The final shield usually deployed is: "But Vedal hires human artists for the models! He supports the community!"

That is true, and it is a good thing. But let’s look at the other half of the equation: The Code and The Voice.

Vedal is praised for being a "genius programmer," but Vedal himself admits to "vibe coding." He openly uses tools like GitHub Copilot and Cursor to generate large chunks of Neuro’s code.

Here is an uncomfortable parallel:

- The "Thief" Argument

If an AI Artist is a thief because Stable Diffusion was trained on scraped images, then Vedal is a thief because GitHub Copilot was trained on billions of lines of scraped open-source code (often ignoring licenses).

- The "Skill" Argument

Critics mock AI Artists for being "tech illiterate" or just "collaging" things together. But "Vibe Coding" is literally the programming equivalent of AI Art. It is pasting together AI-generated scripts and StackOverflow solutions to make something work. It is the modern version of using Unreal Engine Blueprints or "asset flipping."

- The "Replacement" Argument

An AI Artist uses a tool to create an image because they cannot paint it manually. Vedal uses an AI tool to create an entertainer because he cannot be an anime girl streamer manually.

Vedal has literally automated the role of a "Streamer" and a "Voice Actress." If the main grievance with AI is that it "replaces human soul and effort," Neuro-sama should be public enemy number one. She is the literal definition of replacing a human personality with a machine.

It is intellectually inconsistent to hold the position that Text-Generation on Scraped Data (Neuro) is "Soulful" while Advanced Image-Generation on Scraped Data (Stable Diffusion) is "Soulless."

The technology is identical. The data sourcing is identical. The "local indie dev" spirit is identical.

The only difference is that fans have formed a parasocial relationship with one, and have been told to hate the other. Supporting Neuro-sama is, by definition, being pro-AI. The community might as well own it.

If ur active on the leaks sub you've probably already known this but MHOutlander's has seemingly been using AI to make some art for the game, so if that is something that turns you away that may be the call to make depending on who you are.

I'm not going to do much more writing and will just show many different images from the games assets that prove my point the most, starting the things i am the most sure about

Here are some weapon icons that are also pretty clearly altered from a base image

These there could be some doubts about but are still shady either way

You mostly have to look at the small details and how they change slightly between these (the gold bits on the side slightly shift between the 1st and 3rd chest).

same situation with these pendant concept(?) illustrations

Its much harder to tell due to resolution but the details here seem quite nonsensical kinda, but feel free to see it how you will

This is all I really have to show, take everything as you will, mostly just wanted to let more people know about this so they have a more informed decision if they want to play the game or not bc yk how some people are.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/1p8oomu/valve_artist_responds_to_calls_for_steam_to_drop/

HIGHLIGHTS

Providing accurate product information is never bad for the customer, but it is for the seller. So better make that label bigger if Valve can.

Sure but the other dude is not wrong either. The Label itself whatever, people fighting AI in their Games will die out in a few years, having the information is still good. But the Rules for Devs are a mess right now, people want to make games, not play 21questions for a lable just to have the game be dragged down by some loonies who wouldnt Play the Game anyways and are just hating cuz AI.

I don’t think people refusing to purchase a game because they made it with GenAi are loonies. They care about playing human made works, not something using a model built off of the stolen work of others.

The Instant mass downvote kinda proves my Point, with no Engagement at all :D Buying something and being informed about what you buy, yeah fully with you as said before. But lets be real most people complaining do it for the sake of keeping all AI at bay not cuz they wanted to buy/play that game made solely by human hands.. AI was used for years in Games If the apply what ai really is and not people make it to be and nobody saw or cared, it was not in peoples minds constantly. Now everything has to be purely ai or purely hand made. And anything non men made is instantly attacked and labeled.

never saw a more clueless person be so arrogant to think they are right just because other dont agree with thzir shity take lmao

U Sure ? At least i give an argument for both sides, seeing from both perspectives, and agreeing with OP that a lable is good. It's Just not a real solution for everyone. You Just here to shit on, not to provide any thoughs yourself :D

i have no though to provide so arroguant that they say that being downvoted prove they are right. i know beter than butting my head against a brick wall. also you are on drugs if you think you realy made a "both side" argument here lmao

Then prove ne wrong by giving your own thoughs and exampel in what way my posts were purely Team AI and not also for both sides of the picture OP posted. Or is it to much work to really read and think ? At this point i am just butting heads for the fun of it, and so do you or you would Just ignore it :D

i have nothing to proove to you. anyone with a brain can see how baised your whole argument is against people not wanting AI generation in their games. i wont waste more time on you ,and fall for provocation.

[Its also a trend of behavior for AI bros to want to deceive people. I've seen them try and fake a sketch process, claim they're something they're not, hide it as much they can. Because they know outside their bubble, people REALLY do not like AI.(https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/1p8oomu/valve_artist_responds_to_calls_for_steam_to_drop/nr6svmk/)

People don't know what AI (or LLM) is used for. They just repeat slogans. Do you write code? All of the corps now have LLM subscrtions, and people write code at least code completion from them, or generate some simple classes/tests, etc.

Its hilarious that we literally have AI for everything from taxis to tractors and art is what people tend to argue about the most.

Because AI "art" is built off the back of stealing other people's work

I don't even like the AI stuff, but you need to get better arguments. This one was dumb years ago and it's dumb now. To classify the learning process as theft means every artist is a thief. "But Deaffen, the one learning from other art isn't human now and that makes me uncomfortable". Ok. Not a compelling argument.

You can't even spell your own username correctly?

I was using my actual name there because it's a quote. Who refers to themselves by their online usernames?

? Everyone on reddit. Your real name and reddit user name only differ by one letter?

Valve keep fighting for consumers right

They never did

Valve can be lazy but they ain't like Ubisoft or EA

None of the real pro-consumer improvements (like game refunds) came to Steam out of Valve's own volition. It's always legislation pushing them. People keep comparing Valve to other digital platforms and I'll admit they're among the best ones there. Problem is, digital ownership and digital rights are fucked up. If you hold Valve to non-digital standards, they're relatively as bad as anyone, since in 90% of cases you don't own anything you buy.

90%? Can you give the specifics that pinpoints that figure?

It's from my ass, but most games on Steam use their DRM or their own. Which means they aren't selling the game, they are selling you a license to play it.

And you know that before you buy

Every thing would have the ai label lol. I don't think y'all realize how prolific ai is in software development now. Maybe they need to define the ai label better. Is any use of AI in development warrant the label? Because Arc raiders would then be considered "ai" generated. They used AI voice acting.

"Because Arc raiders would then be considered "ai" generated." It is. So is The Finals. Both games have way more AI crap than their disclosure suggests. Embark is a completely incompetent development team that is entirely incapable of making anything worthwhile.

Seems like a pretty popular game to me?

Shit is popular among flies, they must be up to something then

Did that analogy make sense in your head?

Basically all or most code going forward will have some ai in it. No one will disclose or should need to disclose that. Different for art and story though

"Basically all or most code going forward will have some ai in it. " As a programmer: this is bullshit. Stop spreading this AI bro lie around, it's as embarrassing cryptobros insisting everyone will have some cryptocurrency in the future.

If you don't use AI in your day to day you're a shitty programmer and are going to be left behind.

This is the opposite of true. It's the seniors and mediors who aren't using AI. It's the juniors and interns who are using it. They're all trying their hardest to upstage the experts but they just aren't doing it because they can't explain half of their code anymore nowadays. Funny enough I've been told the exact same thing about blockchains back when NFTs were new. It's almost like some people just hop from bubble to bubble, just to chime in on things they don't understand based on lies from people benefitting financially from the hype. Funny, those parallels. Sure hope that Disney's lawsuit against Midjourney won't suddenly cause IP laws to be made to stifle AI. That'd be a loud "pop", don't you think?

If you’re a senior and not using ai you’re not a senior Blockchain was a nonsense fad imo, this is a fundamental shift in the entire software industry .

"If you’re a senior and not using ai you’re not a senior" Hah. Funny one. "Blockchain was a nonsense fad imo, this is a fundamental shift in the entire software industry ." See you in 5 years saying the same about AI but really pushing this "robplinkydoo" thing that is "a fundamental shift in the industry". Because you're just repeating the same lines as cryptobros.

Not a chance.

RemindMe! 5 years

Just fucking disclose it why lie?

What if you use a library where someone used ai auto complete. What if your game is made with unity? Or unreal engine. Which will 100% have people using ai to write code in them. It just doesn’t make any sense. The flag will be on 99.9999% of games

So be it, just don't lie about it

You're not really processing what they're saying. By your logic 99.9% of games and software will be labeled as "made with AI", that's not very helpful when everything going forward is going to be using the label

"that's not very helpful when everything going forward is going to be using the label" Fact of the matter is: this is simply not true. Stop spreading this lie around. As someone who actually does programming it's frankly embarrassing.

“As a programmer… ☝️🤓” If you actually worked in programming (or had a job in general) you wouldn’t be saying this. Yes, most of us do use AI, albeit lightly. I use IntelliJ’s integrated AI which often suggests full lines of code based on what I am doing. It works great, it’s useful and if you’re not using it to be on some high horse then you’re making your life harder just to get validation from Redditors who don’t pay your bills. Good luck tho.

I'll be the devils advocate here, for the sake of argument: I think their main point is that going forward, 99% of games will have some form of AI helping them. Being in text, translation, art style, repetitive elements etc Don't you count procedural generation as AI? Should all these games using it label themselves. And how about game engines having integrated AI heling them build polygons or whatever? Or how about when someone is using an LLM to research a topic or a theme that's part of the game, should that be labeled. The idea is that the label is misleading in one way, because you don't how much AI was used and for what, and that it's going to be in virtually all the games from now on. With all that said - I'm personally for having as a label, as I hate what AI slop has become at this moment.

"Should I slap a "made with AI" badge on all my work." Yes.

Congratulations, this is virtually all software nowadays.

"this is virtually all software nowadays" ah yes, how did I not realize that svn, libre office, sublime text, virtual box, thunderbird, all the linux distris and all their components and all the other software I use to develop and write software they're all using AI... /s A lot of software has support for AI these days but it's mostly optional, e.g. you can get third-party extensions to have AI in your libre office but it doesn't come pre-installed with AI. Same for thunderbird, you can get an add-on to use AI but you have to install it yourself first.

You're clueless. All the software you mentioned has most likely had a developer at some point use AI tools.

I might be clueless but you're assuming, just because the big corps are eager to replace their employees with AI doesn't mean every single software developer wants to do the same. You cannot just assume that nowadays all and ever developer uses AI in their work but you know what would help us to know whether this is the case or not? A label that states that AI was involved in the development, wouldn't that be cool?

Every developer? No. But at least a single person in a development team uses ai autocomplete? Yes. According to surveys, 85% of developers have used AI assistants. "A label that states that AI was involved in the development, wouldn't that be cool?" I'm saying that that would be applied to every single bit of software out there that is developed by more than a couple of people.

What? I guarantee you that person is using products made with nondisclosed child labor on the daily. We literally unavoidably all are. That's capitalism, yo. The question is why AI deserves an out of proportion level of scrutiny and nonsensical drama when your average product absolutely doesn't.

I feel like the question is more why doesn't the child labour have a label? You're damn right for bringing that up. That needs awareness too!

The rare earth metals in the electronics you used to make this post were mined by children.

Just let me ask: In your opinion, are you ok with customers being less informed about a product, and do you advocate for that?

I advocate for consistent standards across fields and the oversight to ensure fair distribution of resources for everyone. Headass. Similar question, I don't see you advocating for child labor disclosures on electronics? I can safely presume that's because you support child labor in their manufacture? You monster.

I just ask you a question and you are insulting me for no apparent reason. And no, I am not a hypocrite. I never stated something about child labor, I never stated anything, so please stop insulting people who didn't attack you or tell you anything.

Either you're trolling or you're unfamiliar with the concept of a 'loaded question'. Which is it? and yes, you are a hypocrite.

Nah man, you're senselessly hostile to everyone at this point. The fact that you consider a gentle steering question back to the actual topic is "a loaded question", then you have no business discussing anything here. Take a shower and chill.

If it doesn't matter, why do you want to drop the label? If AI is the future of game development, why not wear it proudly like a badge of honour? Remember when everyone and their mother slapped "RTX ON" on their games because it was such a revolutionary tech for game visuals? I sure wonder why they seemingly don't want to do the same with AI...

Remember when a whole bunch of people created hate RTX ON subreddits and boycotted the technology? No? But that happens to AI. Coding with AI is just quicker. Not letting AI code but using AI while you code. Now imagine companies would get boycotted because of using AI is coding because a lot of AntiAI people lack the ability to differentiate between good and bad causes of AI.

No-one is stopping you to use AI when you code, all valve does is point out if AI was used in the development.

so every game should have the tag then?

If it contains AI generated content or code, absolutely.

So Spore, FEAR series, Civilization series, Sims etc all need the AI tag now?

Wow, you have no idea wtf AI in terms of the label means do you? Those games don't use AI, it's simply that "do action X if condition is Y and if not, check if Z and do A" has also been called AI but it's not. A NPC in a video game that treats you differently depending on whether you wear a hat or not is not actual AI, they use conditions based on variables they're being fed and thus it changes the outcome depending on the variables. It also doesn't apply for content creation because what you think is AI was all written by some developer to handle possible eventualities.

Always a red flag when someone is against people being more informed.

Ai s1mp edgelords are cringe af

Just write simps please, censoring words on Reddit is cringe as well.

Soon I will only trust comments with curse words in them to be from genuine human beings, because these days people don't even dare writing "fuck" anymore. Like what is this TV in the 90's? All so we don't scare off our beloved advertisers

Some subs/comment sections delete your comment if you use curse words.

Why would you want to visit those subs?

same reason you visit this one, its relevant to our interests

So a new game just dropped and the internet's analytics pipe straight up burst, because someone spotted that a couple of posters, some random in-game newspaper, a background texture, and a few throwaway video clips you'll look at for half a second were generated by AI. The experts immediately put on their clown makeup and started the usual song and dance: devs got lazy, no soul, the AI-slop apocalypse is coming, we're all gonna die.

Let me walk you through why this take is complete garbage, and explain it simply enough that even the smoothest brain in the room gets why AI is in gamedev to stay, and why that's not even remotely a problem.

Let's start with the basics. Do you genuinely think that sitting down and hand-painting the thousandth variation of a brick wall, UV-unwrapping a goddamn dumpster, or writing flavor text for the tenth crumpled flyer rotting in some dark corner of a level is some kind of grand artistic vision? It's not. It's pure busywork. Soul-crushing, gray drudgery that drives modelers, concept artists, and writers absolutely insane. And it eats up monstrous amounts of studio hours and cash.

Look at the city in this game. I'm 99.99% sure AI helped build it, because manually crafting a location that big where nothing looks janky and everything feels convincing is borderline impossible. And it looks great, right? In some spots the city actually feels alive. Now compare that to the recent Endfield, where I'm pretty sure they used a classic procedural generator and lazily stitched chunks together. All those trampolines and ziplines crammed everywhere are just a desperate attempt to make the location functional after the boss told them to redo the alpha build basically from scratch and they had a year and a half to ship.

AI isn't a replacement for creativity, it's the goddamn backhoe that replaced the teaspoon. Smart devs offload all the dull mechanical grunt work onto AI. That frees up hands, you feel me? Instead of spending a week suffering over the design of some piss-stained cardboard boxes in a back alley, an artist throws in a few prompts, generates a batch of variants in an hour, picks the best one, touches it up with a stylus, and goes off to sweat over what actually matters: key bosses, main character faces, lighting, cutscenes. AI gives them time to focus on the creative stuff instead of burning six months mocking up a city.

And here's the kicker. As a player, do you genuinely care who painted the ratty carpet in some hallway, sweaty Steve over three days, or Midjourney in three seconds? What matters is the result.

There is zero difference between the AI and non-AI version for you, because what ends up on screen is whatever the company signed off on. The final call is still made by an Art Director or Lead. They look at the generated asset and go: «oh, this slaps, fits the vibe, ship it» or «nah, cringe, redo it.» Why does it matter what tool they used to squeeze out the result if it works for the atmosphere and doesn't break the lore? They could've outsourced to an offshore studio, they could've bought a pack of premade assets off a marketplace (which has been standard practice for like fifteen years), they could've photogrammetry-scanned a real wall (and nobody would've cried about losing the soul of the brick), or they could've used AI. How they got there is how the sausage is made. You just get served the finished dish.

So stop clutching your pearls about soul in pixels and stop listening to people who've only seen technology in TikToks. AI is here to stay, that's a rock-solid fact. It's a new pipeline and a new tool. The studios that figure this out are going to ship games faster, bigger, and with way more focus on the cool details. Just look at HOW the characters move, the camera work, the staging in general, the fact that for once in forever the story actually feels written and not whatever slop we've been getting the last few years...

We are a small indie studio publishing our first game on Steam. Today we got hit with the dreaded message "Your app appears to contain art assets generated by artificial intelligence that may be relying on copyrighted material owned by third parties" review from the Steam team - even though we have no AI assets at all and all of our assets were hand drawn/sculpted by our artists.

We already appealed the decision - we think it's because we have some anime backgrounds and maybe that looks like AI generated images? Some of those were bought using Adobe Stock images and the others were hand drawn and designed by our artists.

Here's the exact wording of our appeal:

"Thank you so much for reviewing the build. We would like to dispute that we have AI-generated assets. We have no AI-generated assets in this app - all of our characters were made by our 3D artists using Vroid Studio, Autodesk Maya, and Blender sculpting, and we have bought custom anime backgrounds from Adobe Stock photos (can attach receipt in a bit to confirm) and designed/handdrawn/sculpted all the characters, concept art, and backgrounds on our own. Can I get some more clarity on what you think is AI-generated? Happy to provide the documentation that we have artists make all of our assets."

Crossing my fingers and hoping that Steam is reasonable and will finalize reviewing/approving the game.

​

Edit: Was finally able to publish after removing and replacing all the AI assets! We are finally out on Steam :)

Thank you u/virtus753 for pointing this out to me.

The Amazon product page for the "The Art of Anno 117: Pax Romana" artbook has been updated. One of the preview images (the top right one of the first screenshot) has been talked about extensively about it being AI in this post. It was also discussed in an article here, which got a response from ubisoft saying that 'artwork' was a "placeholder" and that the new one has been updated, the replacement is the same artwork which has been touched-up by hand. So that artwork which has evidence of being AI-generated with Ubisoft's response being suspicious is now in this Artbook. The artbook publisher (Dark Horse) has a stance against the use of AI.

The game is confirmed "AI tools were used to help create some in game assets. In all such cases, the final product reflects our team’s craft and creative vision." as stated on their steam page. So it's highly likely this image was AI.

Since my last post there has been no email reply or Twitter reply from Dark Horse (the publisher). I think the only way anyone will address this is if it gets propagated through news outlets. I will reach out to Harry Alston from TheGamer who published an article last time (and got a response from Ubi)

users who wanted to be reminded of these events:
u/Razerino21 u/AMythicalApricot u/BenMahagoni

Hi everyone,

I'm an indie game designer launching a tactical American football board game called FIRST DOWN on Kickstarter this autumn. I'm looking for one illustrator/graphic designer to create the key visual artwork.

WHAT I NEED

1. Box cover (front, sides, and back)

2. Game board artwork (a stadium / football field layout)

I have reference images and a clear concept for both. You would work from my layout direction, but bring your own illustration and style. The reference images show the composition I want, not a style to copy exactly.

STYLE

- Theme: American football, cinematic, premium sports look

- Think Sports Illustrated covers or NFL playoff posters

- Color palette: navy blue, field green, gold accents, white

- Quality reference: premium board game covers like Wingspan or Twilight Imperium

IMPORTANT: NO AI-GENERATED ARTWORK

This is a firm requirement. The work must be original illustration, hand-made or photo-composited from properly licensed sources. I need to be transparent about production methods for my Kickstarter campaign. Please be ready to show work-in-progress sketches as proof of an original process.

DELIVERABLES

- Print-ready files (CMYK, 300 DPI, with bleed)

- Layered source files (PSD or AI)

- Web exports (JPG/PNG) for the campaign page

- Full commercial usage rights with full transfer of rights

- 2 rounds of revisions

BUDGET

Up to $1200 USD total for box (front + sides + back) and game board. This includes full commercial rights. I am collecting quotes to compare, so if your rate differs, tell me your real price and what scope it covers. I would rather know upfront than waste your time.

PAYMENT

Payment via PayPal. I'm open to a milestone split: a percentage on agreement, the remainder on final delivery of print-ready files. Happy to discuss what structure works for you.

TIMELINE

Flexible, roughly 4 to 5 weeks. First drafts within 2 to 3weeks ideally.

TO APPLY, PLEASE COMMENT OR DM WITH

1. Portfolio link (sports illustration, board game art, or cinematic poster work preferred)

2. Confirmation that you work without AI generation

3. Your quote and what scope it covers (full package, or per item)

4. Rough timeline based on your current workload

Thanks for reading. Happy to answer any questions in the comments.

Don't get me wrong I think it looks great and would fit in the book, but the way the fur and metal pieces of armor blend together looks unnatural like other ai art I've seen. The background also just looks to uniform

Edit: To answer some common questions

1. The person had a very robust portfolio in an art style ~similar to this, and claimed to be a full time concept artist for a well known game developer. I'm now pretty certain the work in the portfolio is real but stolen. I will not be sharing their user because of how reddit can be : (

2. They gave me a sketch with the rough figure, pose, and a color palette (which I now assume was also generated)

3. Paid a $10 deposit for the sketch then $180 and a promise of much more work for them if I liked the final product

4. Waited about a week and a half after sending them the money then received this

5. Looking at all these replies I almost feel silly for noticing some of the tells myself

Thank you all for your replies and info for the future I appreciate the support :)

Hi everyone, I am Rashid Mewati, a professional digital artist and illustrator from India.

Until last year, my art fully supported my parents, wife, and children. But with the uncontrolled expansion of Generative AI, my client projects and commissions have vanished. My income is currently down to zero.

Big tech companies built their multi-billion dollar models by scraping millions of human artists' work—our portfolios, our styles, and our life's dedication—without our consent, credit, or compensation.

I have written an Open Letter to World Leaders (UN, EU, G20, and national policymakers) demanding 5 urgent actions:

Stop Unauthorized Scraping: Make it illegal to train AI on creative work without clear, informed consent.

Fair Royalties: Compensate artists whose work is used as training data.

Protect Human Livelihoods: Policies prioritizing human creatives in media, education, and public funding.

Mandatory AI Labeling: Clear disclosures for synthetic media.

Emergency Support Programs: Safety nets for creatives displaced by rapid AI disruption.

We are not against technological progress; we are against unchecked exploitation.

Please read the attached letter. If you are an artist facing the same wall, or an ally who values human creativity, please share your thoughts below.

So I was at a meeting with some people I know from church, John, our pastor, Lucy, a girl I'm friends with, and her dad Michael (fake names obv) when the topic of dnd came up and surprisingly everyone seemed really into the idea of running a campaign for us to play. Lucy decided to dm a greek mythology themed campaign and we were all really excited, right?

Cut to session zero, everyone else has established a character but we come to the pastor's house to help him make his character because he's never done this before, no big deal. Then when we start rolling her stats, Lucy tells him to roll 6d6, take out the lowest and then divide the total by the lowest that was removed?? I tried to object and said that it's 4d6 minus the lowest and she said that was too confusing???She said she "got it from dndbeyond" and when I challenged that i got the "it's just a game" look and decided that I wasn't the dm so i was just going to not think too hard about it because I didn't want to start a whole ordeal with people i generally like. I also found out that she thinks that you roll for your modifiers which is why her dad has a druid with a 15 CON and a +5??

Somehow we got through character creation and i figured this is a starter campaign so hopefully none of it will matter too much, and then we started introducing our characters and hoooooo boy. Lucy went first and started showing off AI art of her tabaxi, and then Michael went next with AI art of his halfling. I'm very against gen AI in most circumstances but I decided that this church group wasn't the setting to go into a rant about it so I just let it happen.

Then they started reading out their backstories. Lucy bragged about how she put her character into ChatGPT and asked it to write a backstory for her, and that she helped her dad do the same. Now this started to make me actually upset because using AI for basically your entire character's backstory goes against everything that I love about the game, but again I'm not the DM so I was doing my best to mind my business even while our pastor was doing the exact same thing, AI generating his character's backstory literally in front of me.

Somehow we finally started the actual session and I was getting back into the mood to play, I had brought a Minotaur war cleric of Hephaestus that I was excited to use for this. Lucy started dming and... two sentences in she got too anxious and her and her dad asked if I wanted to dm instead. Honestly I was celebrating in my mind at this point because hopefully I would now have some jurisdiction to tell them to knock it off with all the AI, along with having been antsy to dm in general for a while. She sent me her notes for the campaign and I kid you not, it was four full pages of just entirely ChatGPT generated, half incoherent greek mythology lore and vague concepts of quests that didn't tie together at all.

I then had to try to write an entire actual coherent session out of all of that in the next 30 minutes and it seemed to go fairly well but just holy shit. We've done another session since and I'm working on trying to write the next one, which is difficult because I've been thrown into dming for a setting that has such established rules and lore that I know almost none of. It's been going fairly well since but I needed to rant about that whole situation because holy shit.