The gaming world appeared ablaze after the Indie Game Awards announced that it was rescinding the top honors awarded to RPG darling Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 due to the use of generative AI during development. Sandfall Interactive recently sat down with a group of influencers for a private interview session, where the French studio was probed about recent AI controversies. Game director Guillaume Broche clarified some of the misinformation surrounding the studio and reiterated what other Sandfall developers have said about generative AI usage during interviews held earlier in the year.
Transcription of the Q&A comes courtesy of gaming content creator Sushi, who was one of the handful of influencers who were present at the session. Twitch streamer crizco prefaced his question by recounting the storm surrounding Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian Studios’ admission about using generative AI during game development.
Those poor artists, its actually a good thing they have AI now, isn’t it?
No artist gets paid to create placeholder art during development. They get paid for the final art pieces that are used in the game itself. No actual AI art was used in the final game except for a few accidentally included bits that were not correctly replaced with the final art and that issue was corrected. No artists were harmed in the making of this game.
I guess I’ll just take your word for it then.
Any projects i have been on, if i need quick placeholder i take it from some existing library that is filled with free to use textures or i create some bullshit texture name temp.png or removethis_brown.jpg and some real artist comes and makes the final one somewhere down the line, 10-1000 hours later.
I have hard time understanding how creating the temporary texture that is never meant to be seen by end user is different when using generative tool versus paint. Especially when no artist looses their pay check or their spot in the credits.
However I do take offence if somebody uses ai to replace writer, designer, voice actor, or artist of any kind in the final product.
If it doesnt matter then dont use AI for placeholders. What’s the argument here for them?
If its nicer and faster why would somebody not use it?
Because the people they want to sell their game to have overwhelmingly stated they don’t want this new generation of AI technologies used when creating art. Its sorta like arguing that using corn syrup is cheaper and quicker than sugar or honey, so why not use it? Things aren’t so simple as “nicer” and “faster”, and only a small subset of people seem in favor of AI technologies used creatively.
Of course if you are making art for yourself, by yourself, then who cares what you use for anything.
Your analogy is not fitting.
Placeholders are never meant to be part of the meal. They are there in the development stage when there needs to be something on the screen. They dont go trough the art department. Visual director wont review them. They are not representing the finalized game. They are there just as placeholders so people can see things work and not to need to look at wireframes when they work on the project. Often at parts of the game that has no quarantee to even be at the finalized game.
Generally graphics are one of the last things that is finalized in games. There is no point to use artists time for making placeholders, when they can spend that time doing something meaningfull.
In the end it does not matter if the placeholder is done by artists hand, is photoscanned from the doodles janitor made on toilet paper or if its done by AI. Hell, it could be pictures of spongebob fan art stolen from google search. It does not matter what people feel like is best and fastest way to get the texture, because its not representting the game and its not meant to be part if the finished product.
If you want to keep the food analogy, placeholders are the toothpicks holding your meatrolls in shape while they are in the oven. They wont end to your plate and if they do, somebody somewhere did a mistake.
Also i want to point out that not you nor i can say anything about overwhelming opinions. Clair Obscur for example has sold over 5 million copies. How big procentual part of those 5 million people you think has even read about the whole dispute, or put any meaningfull tough for the matter? Places like lemmy, steam reviews and comments on youtube videos are mostly from loud minorities that generally wont represent the whole fandom at all.
So why are we calling assets that made it to release placeholders? Where’s the line there?
AI as a monolithic “thing” is bullshit. Fugazi. We relabled a ton of tools like OCR and other pattern recognition engines: “AI” to capitalize on the sheer stupidity of the average investor. Artificial intelligence indeed.
I digress. Tools save time and energy. If a team can prototype a space and become more immersed in their project faster and with less effort - so much the better.
I’m for tools as effort multipliers. My initial statement implied as much. I don’t see us running back to rooms full of women doing math at NASA and discarding the digital equivalent.
Look - everyone is absolutely sick of “AI” being jammed into everything. I get the raw response to it… But the concern isn’t about renamed tools; it’s not about a glorified chatbot being an “ok” facsimile. No company would spend billions on that. If by some chance they could make an automiton that was good enough… That could work without stopping, have no rights, for free. Literally they are gambling everything on a shot at replacing every single worker they currently employ. They don’t want workers. They want slaves. That is short sighted, ignorant, bullshit… which deserves all the hate it gets and more. But that - ain’t this.
What does NASA have to do with the creation of art? Art and science are not the same thing. What might be good for progress technologically, like flying to the moon, might not be good for a different field.
Art is all about the time and energy spent. If Clair Obscure came out of an AI machine that took 3 minutes to create it, most people wouldn’t play it and it wouldn’t have won any awards.
Cutting corners or “saving time and energy” is the opposite of exploring creatively, and these tools are not capable of unique thought or inspiration.
Reread the comment instead of irrationally reacting before you understand the context. Calculators used to be people. Literally. It was a job. I brought up NASA as an example because, very famously, their “calculators” were part of history… So it should have been well known enough for people to see the parallel. But then I guess ever since moving to digital boards for math we can just downplay all subsequent achievments because the scientists didnt work hard enough.
If I’m not mistaken those artists’ art was well recieved. I find it interesting that so many people seem intent on defining a world they aren’t part of. Wacom tablets are tools, are digital artists not real artists because they don’t use paper?
Know any artists? I know quite a few. I wouldn’t dare inject my preconceptions on their process. Who the fuck am I to tell somone what is or isn’t part of their process. Traditional media, music, …even architects use tools to help iterate on their ideas - and their lives are easier for it.
But please, explain to the class why your ideals supercede their own.
Speaking for everyone? That’s bold. Is that your process or are you just a bobblehead parroting what someone else told you to say?
Oh cool, now I’m an irrational person who reacts quickly. Thats a good start.
Do you even know the point you are trying to make? You make a bunch of preconceptions and then claim you won’t do that, so thats fun too.
You can keep writing nonsense arguments all you want, you aren’t an artist and should probably do what you said and shutup instead of making a bunch of assumptions.
The full body of your response disregarded the core meaning of what I was saying. You didn’t understand something but just powered on through with your opinion. Which if we can appreciate the irony:
You, like many, are looking to burn a company at the stake over what I would clearly describe as a very polished product… Over an asset that they mistakenly left in. Can you comprehend how batshit insane that is?
My response was measured and pretty on the nose I’d say.
Considering the consistency in what I’ve said in this thread … I’d say I do. As far as me making preconceptions: again I’d recommend you take a look at what I wrote and read it again. (We have a trend developing) I gave my reasons: and I provided the logic behind it. But if you’d like to drag this out: go ahead and show me what my “preconceptions” were. I’ll wait.
I posted facts, I provided commentary on them, and even provided an example as a parallel. You, by your own words: didn’t understand the example (and made no attempt to), you ignored the nuance of the commentary, and preceded to put your ignorance on full display here.
And apparently you want to complete this nonsense by implying you know me or what I do. I dont recall knowing anyone as dull as you that suffered a headwound … But I’ll jog your memory:
Staring with the key topic:
I’ve signed more NDAs and non-competes for multiple, well known, gaming companies … Than years you’ve existed on this planet. So let’s just say I have “some” industry knowledge.
You mentioned I’m not an artist: another bold claim but… Its broad so let’s cover the bases.
I started my career in design. I’ve worked with 5 color printing presses. I’ve been paid for my work, although digital art, which has been seen by “roughly a country of people” around '04. Not enough for you? I maintain a circle of artist friends, who - over time have filled my home and consequently one of my closets with their works. I am honored and grateful that I’d be trusted with someone’s original blood sweat and tears condensed into a single medium. I’d be forgiven, I think, for speaking on their behalf. If not? They know my handle - they have my number - and know where I live…
They can @ me and tell me to shut up. You can’t.
I could go on but I think I’ve made my point sufficiently in this long post. Go crawl back to the echo chamber from whence you came. If you are capable of critical thought - it has yet to be demonstrated.
Maybe you should just host a blog so we can read your ideas all the time.
Maybe I do. Who’s to say - unless you want to tell me what I do again?
Its been rare to see somone so utterly dismantled that their only response is to repeat the observation I made at the end of that thrashing. It is almost comical how you just set yourself up for a callback to the parroting and echo chamber comments.
In closing:
Even if I did have a blog, I think it’s apparent, by now, you’d just wait for somone else to read it and tell you what to think.
xoxo
Good for you man.