A Valve artist has defended AI disclosures on storefronts like Steam, saying they only scare those with “low effort” products.
A Valve artist has defended AI disclosures on storefronts like Steam, saying they only scare those with “low effort” products.
I’m a one man team making a game.
It’s a management game and indirectly you control characters, which you don’t see as in-game models because instead you control the ships they’re in or you order them to work in specific positions in the space station.
I would like to actually have distinct recognizable characters with their own voices so that players can identify with them, like them and not want to lose them.
So I would like to have character cards with portraits and as much as possible unique character voices, and given that the game’s visuals are toward the realistic side, the portraits would be in a realistic style.
This means around 100+ realistic portraits and distinct voices.
As a one man team I can’t actually do this without AI - not enough funds for hiring 100 voice actors, not enough skill to do that kind of design or funds to hire somebody who will do 100 realistic distinct portraits.
So either I seriously trim down that feature (say, their speech is text only, and they have no portraits at all) or I use AI image generation and voice generation.
It’s simply not possible to do certain features at a certain level if you’re a small indie - unlike a big games company, I neither have the skill to do it myself (or in the case of the multiple voices, physically can’t), the employees to do it for me or the funds to pay for freelancers to do it, given how much work that involves.
I’ll probably try multiple options and see which works best. Maybe I’ll use AI for it, maybe I’ll cut down that feature to the point that all you have is an name and written text (essentially making the whole idea of players liking some characters nonviable), maybe I’ll find some middle way that avoids AI.
That said, I support disclosing that AI was used in making the game, ideally if it lets me list where an how it was used.
As a customer, I feel I should be able to make an informed decision when buying something, so it’s only fair that the same applies to my potential customers. As I see it, it should be up to gamers to decide if and how much they care about AI having been used in making a game.
That’s not the point. People fall in love with poorly drawn characters, bad voice acting, and even some times poorly written stories. It’s all about how creative you are. You only rob yourself of the ability to improve or tell an honest story.
People have favourite characters in books and text-only games all the time - don’t sell yourself short on your ability to write compelling characters before you’ve tried and failed
lemmy perfectly proving the point of why devs don’t want people to know what tools they use.
First of all, they’re not intelligent enough to come to any sort of rational conclusion on the matter, so there’s that
You can’t? It’s impossible? I can think of three ways, off the dome, you could do this without AI.
1- stock photo images and vocaloid voices, using an audio overlay so it sounds like it’s just a weird interference.
2- literally use friends, family, and their friends and family for the project. Random people from the Internet who would have fun with it. Anyone who needs to pad their portfolio for acting, headshots, and voicework. Network your solution.
3- do a patrion or go fund me or whatever and one of the tiers, or the lowest tier, is that you get to be in the game.
Hell, for bonus ideas that are things you thought of already, just draw em and do so the voices and it’ll be crappy but that’s fun, actually bite the bullet and pay people, or like you said, do without.
Using AI is giving up. All those games where part of the appeal was the effort they put into it would be nothingburgers if they used AI. Cuphead took off because it was all hand animated, and if they used regular computer animation people wouldn’t have cared half as much, and now it’s got it’s own cartoon and people are still buying merch for it.
So yeah, if you wanna cut corners and use AI, go right ahead, but people will know you decided to waste a huge amount of energy and water to make a lower end product.
Or… you could always figure something else out and let people see the effort you put into this project you care about, and let that effort be part of the selling point. We want games people put effort into, so please don’t water down your grand idea with slop.
Despite all the “OK idea guy”, “you just want to exploit artists”, and “you’ll get so much more creative control if you do it all alone” being thrown at anyone looking for a team, it’s much easier to find people willing to cooperate with you than you think.
I’m gonna be that guy and say don’t use it then. The AI imigies are purely based on stolen art; you’d be profiting off stolen art. I don’t care how legal it is, it’s someone’s hard work being undermined just so your life can be easier. It’s just another way giant mega corps take power from the people. Instead of commissioning some artist or voice actor, you’re giving money to some giant mega corp that can lobby the government to place data centers that poison people’s water supply and increase people’s energy bills.
So, use AI, it’ll be listed as such on steam and there’s nothing wrong with that. Its just stating the truth. Doesn’t mean your project is crap, just means you used it and the store says so.
The problem they’re solving is that for some reason, devs want to hide that they’re using AI. Why would they feel the need to keep it secret?
Yes, that’s what I’m considering and that’s my point of view.
As I wrote at the end of my post, I totally agree with full disclosure as I think buyers are entitled to make an informed decision and many people feel that the use of AI in making a game is something that makes a difference in their purchasing decision.
I’m not so sure it’s devs wanting to hide that they’re using AI. I think is more of a mix of AI use having become an ideological subject for some people (for understandable reasons given the veritable shitshow of speculative investment, fraud and deceit around it, not to mention that many AI models - especially the corporate ones - are trained on other people’s work against the will of those people) and some are absolutist about it to the point of irrationality (that part is less understandable), and many if not most of those making and selling games not wanting to lose a single sale not matter what.
Whilst I hold the principle that buyers should know what they’re getting before they buy it (and I try to be fair on it rather than wanting it for myself alone, so that means that principle also applies to my potential customers and I’m willing to lose sales for that), mine is a one-person Indie, so the company is me and follows my principles. Some in the industry do not hold such principles or just work in or lead companies which they do not own, so instead they push for the option that maximizes profit, and that’s getting the upsides on both sides - one one side using AI to reduce manpower costs AND on the other not losing the sales of customers who are against AI use like that, which would happen if they were informed about it, so they don’t want mandatory disclosure.
If it’s ideological, wouldn’t it be worse if someone buys the game only to later find out that you used generative ai to make it?
You could write the base game without AI, then add the extended AI resources as a DLC pack
That’s actually a very interesting way to tackle the whole thing and opens up an even broader scope than it seems at first sight.
The base game has simple text-only character “speech” with no portraits.
AI generated character portraits with AI-generated voices is a free DLC released alongside the game.
For my specific case there would be no gameplay differences in having or not the DLC installed, only a simpler or fancier version of character interaction.
Also given that some of that stuff is going to be a lot of voice recordings, it makes the base game much smaller.
Its give gamers a choice, which is as it should be IMHO, and it also gives me feedback on how many people would rather have a less fancy version without AI generated elements over having a fancier version with AI generated elements.
I’m sure there are stock images of actual people you could get access to, for a fee. That plus some image editing to get the style you want might be a way to avoid using AI for the portraits. I totally understand wanting to use AI for the voices though, that seems fair.
I don’t think there are that many futuristic portrait photos in a consistent visual style available as stock images, unless we’re talking about existing IPs (say, people in Star Wars outfits), which is something I obviously cannot use.
Photo editing exists brochacho
And that’s fair. No one is saying you can’t use it just that it should be listed.
Also, if I read something like your post on the description of a game, I wouldn’t hold it against it. LLMs as a tool to make working class people’s lives easier is great. I’m against it when greedy fucks use it to exclude workers from the process.