Tim Sweeney claims it’s a “Scarlet Letter” which makes players “try to kill the game”
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has criticised rival Valve for forcing studios to disclose when they use AI in game development.
Epic recently showed how it was integrating AI into Unreal Engine 6.
Time Sweeney said:
“If you want to launch a game, and get it as widely publicized as possible, you’ve got to put it on Steam so people can wish list it, and if you want to play it on Steam, then you have to get this Scarlet Letter of AI attached to your product, and now there is a hater community trying to kill the game.
“I think it’s really irresponsible of Valve. They shouldn’t do it, because it makes it much, much, much harder for a game developer to have a chance of success. You have to choose from either not using tools that can make you way more productive, and probably failing due to competition that does.”
Which is totally ignoring the factor that the user should know about the purchase it makes and be able to decide for themselves. Transparency for the player is not a bad thing.
I would liken it more to the GMO label than electricity. Sure, most foods today are made with some type of GMO ingredient and so requiring food manufacturers to disclose that means that most foods carry the scarlet letter of GMO. Most people don’t care and don’t look for it. For the people who do care, they’re able to find a different product with no GMO ingredients. It will be like the organic label for AI-free products.
That’s a good analogy. I don’t think it should be present for GMO food either, though. It shouldn’t be something that people care about in either case, and labeling it just makes them feel justified to hold onto their prejudice.