Dang, there goes all that goodwill.
I’m torn on this one because they are using it as a tool similar to digital artwork in place of hand drawn animation, not as a replacement for people.
In less positive news, Larian are reportedly making limited internal use of generative AI for tasks such as concept art development and internal presentations.
In fact, they are hiring more people.
For this, they’re enlisting a lot more writers and scripters - Larian currently employ 530 people across seven locations, including their recently founded Warsaw studio.
The less salubrious side of all this is that Larian have apparently been “pushing hard on generative AI”, in Schreier’s phrase, using generative AI tools “to explore ideas, flesh out PowerPoint presentations, develop concept art and write placeholder text”.
This is the one approach that I think AI is fine for, quick mock ups to explore an idea and then going back and doing it from scratch for real. Well, if they are using local models which the article doesn’t mention as if they are using one of the major slop promoters that would undermine the otherwise responsible approach.
Thats work artists with visions did before.
“Concept Artist” is a job description and replacing them with gen-AI is not okay.
Are they being replaced or are the same staff using a new tool to do their work faster?
The increase in staff for writing and scripting suggests using a tool instead of being replaced. Like how a nail gun can be used for the same nunber of employees to do more work faster or to reduce employee headcount depending on the circumstances.
For example if a concept artist started with something they created and then used the ai to do different permutations of that thing it would be comparable to using digital tools to recolor something quickly instead of needing to draw it multiple times or to use a copier to make duplicates of the line work and color it in multiple times. Completely depends on how it is being used.
This is exactly my thought. I hate AI, I find it unethical. But I find it unethical because of how it affects workers, and I hate it because I believe it is being overused and its environmental impact. I think it is useful as a tool, not as a medium or replacement. It can help with a lot of tedious work and help spur up quick drafts of things, but the final product should be human made. And for the love of god people, stop using it as a replacement for search engines!
What is placeholder text even supposed to mean? Why would they need anything more sophisticated than Lorem Ipsum?
Same thing with “placeholder concept art”. If it’s used early in the production cycle it will at the very least implicitly shape the team’s perception, and thereby further development of the game.
Worrying.It’s just a rough draft of a script to see if it’s going to work before putting in real writing time.
Problem is we know that that kind of stuff heavily affects the end product. It’s one reason why music in movies has gotten so generic. They use filler pieces and then later on they try to make their music match the filler pieces. It’s a pretty well talked about problem and I’m surprised these game studios don’t see it coming for them.
Placeholder assets that appear final will slip through and make it to release, it keeps happening. I can see some of the uses but it feels like it could be dangerous for fan goodwill.
Also, lol:
Schreier also paraphrases Vincke as saying that there have been no “big gains in efficiency” as a result of the AI push.
Concept/placeholder art always sneaks through. It is just the reality of development. You can’t hold off on all level design until all assets are finalized and you can’t restart from scratch every time an asset is updated. Sometimes it is generative ai bullshit. Sometimes it is a picture of someone’s cat. And as crunch accelerates, more and more people forget that you never bothered to put the official newspaper assets in rather than the one you stole from Seven. There are plenty of examples of this throughout the decades.
Like all things, it is about quality control and how much studios (are allowed to) care.
I don’t blame people for being freaked out. Even acknowledging this is a yellow flag. But it also is actually a really good use case for generative AI since it will allow everyone to more or less work in parallel. I… don’t like the placeholder text aspect but there is also a lot to be said about UI/UX using actual “speaking cadence” text rather than just lorem ipsum.
What’s to be torn about? Sounds like the perfect us for AI in this scenario.
Fuckin BOOOOOOOOOO
