Last year, Tech Raptor found that around 500 of the nearly 3k games of October Next Fest games had AI disclosures, I can’t imagine it’ll be less this year and there’s no way way to filter them out.
A lot of devs are already lying about AI usage, because the AI disclosure kills engagement even without a filter.
A random example is Soul’s Remnant, cute little indie MMO - right before launch they added several major features, and 20+ languages. When questioned about it, they admitted on their discord to using AI translations… And said they would take down the translations rather than use AI disclosures.
Within 3 weeks they had 10 updates with mile-long patch notes as a team of 2, and they never took put the AI translations or added a disclosure.
Lying about the AI disclosure is a huge red flag and sadly common. I’m a fan of the emerging Organization genre that’s blowing up in popularity, and it’s just as rife with undisclosed AI usage as it is with… disclosed AI usage.
From a business perspective it makes sense: people don’t want AI in their games, so if they disclose AI then people won’t buy that game. From the perspective of a gamer, it sucks donkey balls and if you lie about that then I’m never buying any of your products again.
The thing that’s really kind of frustrating about it though is that those are the perfect kind of games for low quality asset-flip shovelware before the advent of AI. It’s basically the one place where that kind of approach to development wouldn’t really bother me. It’s truly a crazy timeline when I’m looking back fondly on asset flips
I would disagree. IMO there is even less benefit in building a community of trust, talking about not using AI with that community,then the moment the launch crunch happens go all in on AI and lie about it.
So you would be fine with trying out a game, only to find an undisclosed AI had mangled your native language, and that there were UI issues caused by untested localisation code?
It has already killed a video game decomp community. I’d have to go back to reddit to find the article though. I’d rather pretend I still have control over going there…
Ok, but I already seen some news recently where a few indie devs are quitting because their demo got cloned by AI sloperators. I think in my case I heard about the needle in a haystack game dev lamenting about it. And then one of the AI sloperators lamenting their shit-ass clone got cloned. It could be the sloperator doing it to himself to make some ragebait advertising though.
Last year, Tech Raptor found that around 500 of the nearly 3k games of October Next Fest games had AI disclosures, I can’t imagine it’ll be less this year and there’s no way way to filter them out.
If they add a toggle, then game devs will stop putting AI disclosures. The only way is to tag them, and block those tags.
A lot of devs are already lying about AI usage, because the AI disclosure kills engagement even without a filter.
A random example is Soul’s Remnant, cute little indie MMO - right before launch they added several major features, and 20+ languages. When questioned about it, they admitted on their discord to using AI translations… And said they would take down the translations rather than use AI disclosures.
Within 3 weeks they had 10 updates with mile-long patch notes as a team of 2, and they never took put the AI translations or added a disclosure.
Lying about the AI disclosure is a huge red flag and sadly common. I’m a fan of the emerging Organization genre that’s blowing up in popularity, and it’s just as rife with undisclosed AI usage as it is with… disclosed AI usage.
From a business perspective it makes sense: people don’t want AI in their games, so if they disclose AI then people won’t buy that game. From the perspective of a gamer, it sucks donkey balls and if you lie about that then I’m never buying any of your products again.
The thing that’s really kind of frustrating about it though is that those are the perfect kind of games for low quality asset-flip shovelware before the advent of AI. It’s basically the one place where that kind of approach to development wouldn’t really bother me. It’s truly a crazy timeline when I’m looking back fondly on asset flips
That’s fair. The disclosure might kill the business, but the cost of translation might do, too.
Did you read the next sentence, where they did neither, and are now just lying about their AI use, and seem to have doubled down on it?
It’s the right move. There’s zero benefit to being honest when there’s irrational, angry mobs doing a witch hunt and purity tests.
I would disagree. IMO there is even less benefit in building a community of trust, talking about not using AI with that community,then the moment the launch crunch happens go all in on AI and lie about it.
I can understand being upset about the dishonesty. They should have just ignored the conversation entirely, and declined to comment.
So you would be fine with trying out a game, only to find an undisclosed AI had mangled your native language, and that there were UI issues caused by untested localisation code?
It sounded like something they’d do after it blew up.
If AI kills indie gaming, I’m gonna be livid
It has already killed a video game decomp community. I’d have to go back to reddit to find the article though. I’d rather pretend I still have control over going there…
edit: missed “video game”
I saw the same, don’t worry about it. Really hate that shit.
Ok, but I already seen some news recently where a few indie devs are quitting because their demo got cloned by AI sloperators. I think in my case I heard about the needle in a haystack game dev lamenting about it. And then one of the AI sloperators lamenting their shit-ass clone got cloned. It could be the sloperator doing it to himself to make some ragebait advertising though.