Stupid games, stupid prizes. I'm really glad the gaming community at large is presenting a resounding "fuck off" to sloperators and their plagiarism machines trying to steal the work of actual creatives. It's disgusting, and should be met with sharp rebuke
There was enough slop out there in the gaming world before AI stole center stage. And yet there are so many games getting released every day that it’s genuinely difficult for new developers to get noticed. Tried+true studios are hitting diminishing returns. Gamers have a cornucopia of options old and new, and can afford to say no in this market much more easily than in most other markets.
Soulslop, if you will.
"The truth is, we spent a long time trying to tell this game's story with cutscenes made entirely by our own hands," the statement goes on. "The results were devastating every time. We came to believe we could not properly deliver this game's complex, difficult narrative that way, and that is why we turned to AI. But if that choice hurt your experience, the fault is not in the tool. It is in our own shortcomings."
Man, if this is true – that they agonized over the cutscenes but decided they couldn't and that AI would be better* – then I feel legitimately bad for them.
I went in assuming it was strictly a lazy "ah, fuck it" kind of thing, but even though this still wouldn't be acceptable, it seems like this team really is hard-working, cared about the final product, and actually did think AI could deliver a good experience. Deluded, but that seems like part of a larger culture of delusion in SK.*
* Notably, the article remarks on how sentiment around AI in South Korea is vastly more positive than e.g. the US.
Interesting context, but that statement sounds so fucking stupid.
"Welp, we tried so hard, but just couldn't portray our art in the best possible way. So naturally, we turned to the soulless machine that fails at generating anything resembling art even if you tell it to do a 1:1 copy of a real art piece."
LLMs can make stuff resembling art. I'm not interested in it, though, because a human didn't make it. What makes art art, what makes it interesting, is artists.
I was thinking the same but I have so many questions (that I don't care enough to research).
How big is their team? Could they not find any competent artists? Could they not afford any competent artists? Could they not afford to upskill any of their current team, like getting them lessons in whatever was relevant?
It seems like they were just shallow and wanted a "classically" pretty product right now. And that doesn't engender much sympathy.
How big is their team?
If a few paragraphs of reading into the article we're supposed to be discussing is too much, I'm not sure why you're here trying to discuss it.
That's basically a statement for the press to try to minimize damage. He even said they had the cut scenes done and later replaced them with AI. Bullshit.
Unless AI takes one more leap and reaches a point where no one can tell the difference, what I believed was still closer to an ideal than a reality.
They are mad they got caught and it's the AIs fault for not being good enough to hide it.
I'd rather see the "bad" things than Ai.
Honestly if the rest of the game is good, I would rather have some napkin sketches, or a computer based paint software.
No you wouldnt. 4 decades of whining and bitching by gamers have proved that. There is no winning with this lot.
I'm 100% with you. Bad art with genuine effort put into it has a charm of its own. I understand the team's mistake, but it's still a mistake.
Still seems like a cop-out.
If they had intended to do it manually in the first place, I don’t see why they couldn’t just use AI to help generate a number of rough outlines to help conceptualize a solid template that satisfied their needs before investing their time into it.
AI could maybe help stress test the game before the final release. If AI were used like that, the game itself would likely not be considered slopified.
The dirty data centers, the RAM chip grab, the widening divide between the haves and the have nots being exacerbated by the billionaire AI ownership, these problems have to be addressed before I can even consider the other issues. AI as tech is usable, but as a socioeconomic phenomenon it is hugely problematic.
Why not hire people or another firm to do the cutscenes then. You know, professionals who have learned and perfected their craft. Professionals you don’t have.
Backslash shouldn’t have been a surprise.
It's bullshit, they experienced zero agony, they skipped from trying it themselves straight to AI without bothering to just pay real artists because they're cheap.
Man, if this is true – that they agonized over the cutscenes but decided they couldn't and that AI would be better* – then I feel legitimately bad for them.
even then, you use the AI output as inspiration, not as the end product..
Slop skeptics, lol.
Hmmm... Yeah, I'm not sure about all of this slop yet 🤔
a Soulslike Metroidvania
Is this the gaming equivalent of increasingly niche music genres?
In my experience if a metroidvania game is described as soulslike it means it will have time wasting mechanics like corpse runs, and the spawn points will be placed in awkward locations. Mostly inspired by hollow knight.
It just means they liked hollow Knight
Souls is already kind of like a Metroidvania. Like some areas are much easier with certain things, if not downright required.
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
